How to become a better anorexic, baby

What follows is not my genuine advice on becoming a better anorexic, rather it is a culmination of all the `tips & tricks' you find poured into pro-anorexia webpages, in all their ill-informed and sometimes just outright wrong glory. What follows is an assemblage of all the bullshit that goes along with being a wannabe anorexic, all the myths, all the rituals, the habits, the psychological damage these girls willingly inflict upon themselves for the sake of being blade-thin. I'd also like to point out, for further clarification, that any time I appear to be making a mockery, I am not referring to anorexics in general but pro-anorexics  only, wannabe anorexics. Anorexia is a disease, and I do not in any way wish to trivialise it. So without further ado, I present to you:

How to become a better anorexic, baby

An anorexic mind.
First of all, let's work on the psychology first. Be sure to fuck up your relationship with food from the start. You want to make yourself as neurotic as possible about food, eating, kitchens, cutlery, refrigerators, restaurants, and hey, why not stretch this out even further and start hating the actual source of foods, in other words the actual animals and plants. I myself am utterly opposed to factories. Any kind of factory. Even pillow factories, hell they're all the same. But you! Spread those bad thoughts! Hate that chicken!!!! Unless of course, you're going for the sympathetic, oh the poor animals, vegan slant. That's a good one too. 

Firstly, reaffirm your mission. Immortalise it. Buy a fat, blank notebook, this will become your own personal anorexic sanctuary of sorts. Write down WHY you want to lose weight. Be sure to include things like how you will feel when you're 10lbs lighter, the glorious clothes you will fit into, an occasion that you would like to be thinner for like your sixteenth birthday, etc. Give yourself a final goal, and break it up into several, smaller, goalpoints. For example, if you weigh 140lbs and would like to eventually be 90lbs, list points along the way which signify a victory for you. For example, 130lbs, and then 115lbs, then 110lbs, then 100lbs, and so on. Re-read this again and again for inspiration. You will be using this notebook later to create tackytown anorexia-inspired collages and other paraphernalia.

Visualisation. Following the same strain as NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, we must use the principles of association to retrain your consciousness, and sub-consciousness, to turn food into one of the greater evils of the world. (Read: the greatest evil!!) Start by associating food with disgusting things. For your first ever fast, it may be helpful to draw pictures of juicy red apples, somehow morphing into giant dead rotting pigs. Plaster these all around your house, preferably on the food itself. Never underestimate the power of images. Put pictures of fat girls on your fridge, or better yet, pictures of yourself; you're pretty fat. Conversely, stick pictures of rakish models everywhere you can see them, for inspiration, and a bit of productive self-loathing. Also, practise writing things like "I'm fat" over and over. You want to drill this into your brain. "I will be thin" is a good one, as well as other "I will" affirmations. These are positive statements and very conducive to big time weight loss.

 
Now create a list of suitable punishments either for thinking of food, or for caving in and eating food itself. A good one to try is to keep a rubber band on your hand and flick your skin whenever you think of eating. Eventually you will have a swollen hand, and a shrunken body; you will have ceased thinking of food so much. Other punishments include ridiculous amounts of exercise, purging, self-mutilation, isolation, basic denial of necessary comforts such as blankets on a cold night, or shelter when it is raining.. or simply menial, disgusting tasks such as cleaning the bathroom. Remember, you need discipline.

Invent pain and hassles for yourself. Trick yourself into believing your life sucks. Be mean to people so that they instigate fights, just to make you constantly on edge, or nervous, so you cant eat. After all, you'll be light-headed and dizzy, and irritable from not eating, so you have an excuse. I used to love when dad got mad at me because it meant I was so upset I could not eat. Become an angst ridden teenager. You'll be making yourself nauseous from worry and self hatred in no time.

Find another anorexic to consort with. Whether this be in real life, or on the internet. You can swap tips and indulge in your little sordid anorexia world together, force each other to exercise, pat each other on the back when you reach goals, etc. You want to completely surround yourself with all thoughts of anorexia. Find pro-anorexia websites, or create your own. Sign up for one of the dozens of pro-anorexic mailing lists at Yahoo! and you'll be bombarded daily with like minded individuals.

Now, immerse yourself further in anorexia propaganda, read anorexia or otherwise 'thin' inspired literature, listen to anorexic music, watch as many triggering films as you can get your delicate little mitts on, look up to very thin hollywood stars and supermodels. Also, visit as many of the aforementioned pro-anorexia sites as you can to get a bunch of quotes and 'mantras' to write in your anorexia notebook, and repeat inside your head daily. I have compiled a list of such sources of 'thinspiration'.

Thinspiration

Triggering music
    This is essential. You must familiarise yourself with the very teenage and angsty artists and be sure to play the music over and over to thoroughly depress yourself. Ones to keep in mind are:

Fiona Apple - try the song "Paper Bag" ... Hunger hurts but starving works...
silverchair - try the song "Ana's Song (Open Fire)" ... and I need you now somehow, and I need you now somehow ... on my knees for you... in my head the flesh seems thicker...
Juliana Hatfield - try the song "Feed Me"... Oh baby if only you knew, I'm down to 102...
Tori Amos - try the song "Jackie's Strength" ... You're only popular with anorexia, so I turn myself inside out, in hopes someone will see...

Anorexic mantras
    You must collect as many of these as possible. Write them in your anorexia notebook, memorise them, let them comfort you. Some examples are:

"An imperfect body reflects an imperfect person."
"You will be tempted quite frequently, and you will have to choose whether you will enjoy yourself hugely in the 20 minutes or so that you will be consuming the excess calories, or whether you will dislike youself cordially for 2 or 3 days for your lack of willpower."
"I'm not starving myself...I'm perfecting my emptiness."
"I can get thinner. I can cut it all off. I can wear low slung Levi's and crop tops and long straight dresses like willowy models, and I gasp with the breathlessness of being airborne. I can fly and be free. Jesus! I never realised how easy it was!"
"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels."
"The greasy fry, it cannot lie, its truth is written on your thigh," as said by Quinn from Daria

Devour Literature, not food
    Words and text are very very triggering when it comes to not eating. For one thing, it gives you a world to inhabit, your very own private, magnificent anorexia world which nobody else around you can touch, and you shall have characters to understand you. You will be so riveted that you will not need to eat. Books to check out include:

              * "The Best Little Girl In The World" by Steven Levenkron
              * "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher
              * "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand - not about anorexia per se, but Dominique Francon is the f*cking epitome of ethereal, insubstantial, bony grace.
              * "I Am An Artichoke" by Lucy Frank
              * "Starving For Attention" by Cherry Boone O'Neill
              * "Hunger Scream" by Ivy Ruckman
              * "Diary Of An Eating Disorder" by Chelsea Smith and Beverly Runyon
              * "My Sister's Bones" by Cathi Hanauer
              * "Stick Figure" by Lori Gottlieb
              * "Eve's Apple" by Jonathan Rosen

Thinspiring Films and TV Shows
    These might be about anorexia itself, or it might simply be glamorous and include very thin beautiful people. Movies and television programmes I know others find thinspiring are:

              * Girl, Interrupted
              * For The Love Of Nancy
              * Ally McBeal
Role models
    You need somebody to idolise. You must research him or her to the bones and become as close to her as possible. Become obsessed. Some suitable examples include those in the following list, who are either very skinny, or have, or have had anorexia:

              Kate Moss - nineties waif
              Angelina Jolie - skinny sexy actress, e.g. Girl, Interrupted and Gia
              Christina Ricci - actress, had anorexia
              Calista Flockhart - Ally McBeal
              Lara Flynn Boyle - glamorous and snobby, never eats
              Tracey Gold - actress who suffered from anorexia
              Karen Carpenter - musician and classic anorexic
              Portia de Rossi - actress on Ally McBeal who went through a stage of dangerous dieting
              Geri Halliwell - formerly Ginger Spice, engaged in a 'thin war' with:
              Victoria Beckham - formerly Posh Spice
              Courtney Cox - actress on Friends, bony and gaunt
              wiggy - iconoclastic model
              Jodie Kidd - impossibly thin model
              Audrey Hepburn - quintessential class, very petite

This should be enough to sufficiently fuck up and cloud your perceptions. Above all, convince yourself you are above others, a hero, owing to your spectacular powers of restraint. Feel elitist. Feel as though you are somehow super-human for resisting the urge to eat. Feel better than the other mere mortals who dig in to their cereal and their donuts. Believe in the power of starving as though it were a religion.