From a wonderful friend's blog - Mallory Kathleen

This one is for Maggie

Oh yeah, it's just Hollywood. And the rest of us have nothing to do with Hollywood. It's not like we pay their salaries or anything with our patronage...

Hi all you unfortunate people who have somehow been coerced into/accidentally stumbled upon this blog,

I very much regret further polluting the internet with yet another blog from yet another self-absorbed person (that’s me!). You can blame my sister. You may commence stoning now.

In (relatively more) seriousness, though, I think I’m starting this blog to help start a dialogue, raise awareness and share my story of mental illness, in the hopes that it may help someone in the future. Our culture and society still have some pretty fucked up ideas about mental illness, and maybe if I can talk enough about my own experiences we can change some of these ideas and the fucked up consequences they have for people with mental illnesses.

A perfect example of someone who has been screwed over by our society’s complete lack of education about mental illnesses is Maggie, the person who mostly inspired me to start this blog. I don’t know Maggie personally – she’s a friend of a very, very dear friend of mine – but by all accounts she is a wonderful, sweet and bright young woman who means a lot to many, many people. Maggie has an eating disorder and has been struggling with it for years. Despite her efforts, Maggie is, right now, at 24, dying. She has heart complications, severely low body weight, low blood pressure and…oh yeah, she’s dying of kidney failure.

But guess what? Her insurance company isn’t paying for any of her treatment! They won’t cover her dialysis which is currently keeping her alive and they won’t cover the inpatient treatment she seriously needs. I’m not an expert on it, but apparently it’s very common for insurance companies to refuse to cover treatment for eating disorders, being under the impression that sufferers “did it to themselves.”

It’s bull shit, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Hopefully I’ll have one or more guest posters coming soon who are eating disorder vets themselves to tell you what it’s like to have an eating disorder, what recovery is like and what it’s like to try to get your treatment covered.

I think in general our schools, parents and even the media have good intentions about eating disorders. But as a culture we’re still pretty “bipolar” about the issue (sorry for the joke…I am bipolar, but we’ll get to ME later). On one hand, our cultural aesthetic embraces thinness and it isn’t uncommon to spend your life as a woman trading diet tips. On the other hand, every once in a while in the grocery store check out aisle I see one of those celebrity magazines like People or Us Weekly flaunting a cover full of gaunt celebrities with headlines that boil down to: “OMG ANOREXIA = TERRIBLE!” Next time you see one of these, look closely at the wording and the way these women are demonized. Or take a close look at the episode that happens once a season on America’s Next Top Model wherein Tyra solemnly hears accusations of a contestants anorexia. These people do not seem to feel that they are complicit in this situation at all. On one episode, a model will be lectured or even dismissed for suspected bulimia, but in the next a woman already far thinner than the average woman who will be a consumer of the products she endorses is coached into losing more weight. Cue the hypocrisy rant.

But the somewhat shallow way we talk about eating disorders and body image is hurtful to people who seek treatment for this illness. We want to believe that you can condemn a celebrity on a magazine cover for being anorexic and that will somehow help. Further, we want to believe that if a person knows they deserve love, their body is beautiful, etc., they will be okay. That’s strikes me as similar to the “snap out of it” attitude that people with depression often meet. it’s complicated. It’s an illness. Illnesses require treatment.

I think this post has already gone on too long and I’ve already bored most of you, so I’ll get to the point and wrap up. Without some financial help, Maggie will not get treatment and she will probably die. I would like for this to not happen, because I think everybody deserves a fair shot at a nice, decently long, reasonably agony-free life. So a couple of friends of mine and I are putting together a fundraiser at our college, Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia, to raise money for Maggie. It’s an arts and crafts fair and silent auction, and we are still looking for donations of the art, craft or monetary variety, places to advertise our event, attendees, etc. PLEASE HELP US!

The first thing you can do for Maggie is to RE POST this on your wall, your own blog, send it to your friends, family, co-workers, etc.! Maggie really needs all the love and support she can get.

Here are some other ways you can lend a hand:

1. If you are an artist or a craftsperson, you can donate an item(s) to be sold or auctioned!

2. If you live in ATL, you can volunteer to help with planning/running the event!

3. If you own a business or organization in ATL, you can allow us to advertise at your location (you can even donate an item or money in exchange for having your business’ name listed as a sponsor of our event OR on this blog- a great advertising opportunity!)

4. If you have disposable income of any amount, you can donate directly to Maggie’s Recovert Support Fund (contact me for details)

5. If you live in ATL, you can ATTEND our awesome event!

Much more will come on this topic, but in the meantime PLEASE re-post wherever possible! I don’t want to emote too much, but…this woman needs our help.