About the term

I HATE that the term "ED" has come to meant "erectile dysfunction." Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1994, as my anorexia began to manifest, the FDA didn't allow prescription ads on TV. Remember that? Craziness. (How on earth did anyone know to ask their doctor about a problem?) And in my journals then, I abbreviated it as "ED" in part because I refused to label myself as anorexic (in denial and also in protest because most of my doctors believed if you were anorexic, your parents were unsupportive and awful. My parents have been and continue to be very lovingly supportive and anything but awful!) I also refuse to give my ED a cutesy name, like "Ana" or "Mia." Besides, I have two good friends by those names...So I stuck with ED.

You can imagine how shocked I was the first time I ever heard an advertisement for erectile dysfunction. I think I was reading the paper, visiting my parents from ASC, and I hear, "Finally, a pill to cure ED."

OMG, A FUCKING PILL TO CURE EATING DISORDERS? While very skeptical, I was --within a millisecond--delighted to learn that there was a pill. And even if it didn't work, it meant money and research was going in to fighting against a very detrimental and yes, deadly, illness.

But wait--didn't a man just say that? And why are all these old men on motorcycles and/or playing golf (or whatever old, rich, white dude stereotype you want to insert here) on the television?

Then it dawned on me.

Oh.

I wasn't so much disappointed as I was angered. ED was OUR term. We, the millions of men and women who overeat, don't eat, purge, exercise, spend our days thinking about calories, hide food, avoid events with food, have our lives CONTROLLED by food...we weren't represented in that advertisement. And just like how the good ol' boys in South Park yell, "They took our jobs!" I kinda feel like that: "They took our term!"

fucking pharmaceutical corporations. Can't live with them, but I sure as hell couldn't live without them!