Tuesday 22 January 2013

Right to Die?

Disclaimer: I do not promote any form of eating disorder, self harm or suicide.

These are just my opinions, and should be taken as such.

I reserve the right to edit this content. (So there.)

Most people on the interwebs will have heard of the so-called ‘right to die’ groups. These are organisations such as the now-defunct Hemlock Society that provide detailed information about suicide, specifically how to commit.
Before I get virtually murdered*, let me point something out.

Pro ana.
Ever heard of that one? Look at the Tumblr tag.
The best way to explain it is material (generally images) encouraging anorexia nervosa. Anorexia. Ana.

Self harm.
Again, don’t Google it. Tumblr’s the way forward.
Poetry, photography, quotes of girls (generally – the Tumblr boys that harm mainly reblog pictures of girls) harming themselves, be it the cuts, the blades, the blood, or all three.

Now suicide.
Don’t look at the Tumblr tag; 99.9% of it is hate. Look at blogs. Websites. PDFs. Material encouraging pain-free ways of killing yourself.

Let me put it this way.
A girl – let’s call her… Lizzy – wants to be thinner.
She starts starving herself.
Then she looks at the pro-ana tag on Tumblr. She discovers ways of exercising to burn more calories, different diets that are healthier than what she’s currently doing, other girls out there that can and will support her. She loses more weight than she was before, but she’s happier, because she’s not alone.

Lizzy starts feeling depressed. She gets a knife and cuts.
She looks at the self harm tag on Tumblr. There she finds other ways of coping, less painful ways to cut**, and again, other girls going through the same thing. She’s not happy, exactly, but she feels… more in control.

Lizzy becomes suicidal. Let’s not discuss how. She decides to hang herself, but checks Tumblr and a few blogs she’s found.
She discovers that hanging yourself isn’t a guaranteed way to die, that it’s pretty fucking painful, that there are easier, quicker, less agonizing ways to die.
She kills herself, but she’s not in pain when she does.

Do you see what I’m getting at? These sites don’t stop you doing whatever it is. But they make it easier, for lack of a better word. They give you dignity.

I don’t think anyone should kill themselves. But I’m the biggest hypocrite you’ll find on that. And I think that these sites help, if not in the decision, then in the execution.

Less pain for you means less pain for others. And surely that’s a good thing.

Love always,
Victoria

* Pun 100% intended***. Sue me.‡
** For the record, sharpener blades are the motherfucker of self harm. I’m not even joking. And don’t even look at serrated ones.
*** Honestly, I didn’t notice the second one. That was 100% unintended.
‡ Please don’t sue me.

2 comments:

  1. Feel free to delete this!

    I can understand what you mean, I do, but there is a problem with it too. Yes, there are people out there who would have anorexia, do self-harm and even kill them selfs anyway, but sometimes they don't do it because it's not easy and it hurts.
    If there is an easier way, if it becomes a group 'happening' then you feel like it's okey, while when it's socially not accepted you might just not do it.
    That's the bad side about having all the information open, the more you have difficult and controversial stuff like cutting around you, the more you think of it because everything reminds you of it 24/7. At least that's how I even started of thinking about cutting (which, as I need to add, I never did), by reading stuff about cutting until it sounded normal to me.

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  2. There is a problem with them, yes. People shouldn’t be encouraged to have an ED/harm/commit suicide. But sometimes, they’d do whatever they were going to do anyway, and these sites make them hurt themselves less. I realise how ironic that is, but it’s what I think.

    NO YOUR COMMENT IS ALL MINE NOW
    MWAHAHA

    I sound so professional :). But hey, can’t a thirteen-year-old girl be herself on the internet? :D

    I love comments. I feel so popular. :p

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