text: I am not Ana, but I’ve known Ana for a long time, we first met in my freshman year of high school. There was a big freshman dance coming up, I felt that I was too fat and would never get a date, so I was telling myself not to go to the dance but there was Ana, helping me lose weight to fit into anything, what I thought was encouragement and helpfulness at the time. One day a couple of weeks after we met she sent me to the hospital, I had started to fight her but she was too much, I left her and we didn’t talk until my last year of college. My girlfriend had just dumped me and Ana was one of the first people to give me a scapegoat, she was the first person to talk to me after the breakup so I listened to every word she said. I went online to chat with some of Ana’s other friends, they all boasted the same talk and propaganda as her so I thought she had to be right about what she was telling me about myself... right. For weeks, or maybe even months I lived by what Ana told me was right, what she told me was fine, what she told me was healthy, what she told me happiness was, how she told me to achieve it. My other friends saw me when I was with Ana, they tried their best but when I was in Ana’s arms I might as well have been deafened. Whenever someone tried to talk with me about Ana they’d yell at me about how she wasn’t healthy to have around, the stress pushed me deeper into the tunnel she had me for me. Until I woke up, I had woken up but barely had the strength to stand up, I lifted my shirt and the mirror and saw my ribs, what everyone was telling me about Ana snapped back into my head a speed faster than that of anything in my life had flashed before me. A haven’t talked to Ana in years, she’s tried to reach out whenever something bad in my life would try to consume me in its darkness. Almost every day she gave me her backhanded compliments and vaguely insulting remarks. We all know Ana, we all have heard Ana, what matters is what you believe from what she says. if you know her that isn’t abnormal or bad, what matters is if you believe what she says, if you do, I apologize for what brought you to that abyss. It is possible to leave her, you just always have to be aware, behind every corner, after every heartache, before every event, Ana will talk to you, tell you what in the deepest darkest parts of your mind, what you think of yourself, in order to move on, you have to accept, she is and was, always wrong about you. Remember, she has her other friends believing her, they are in the same darkness as you, what they say about you or even themselves isn’t true. You might know Ana, and that’s fine, but you might be friends with her, just keep in mind, she’s wrong.