ELENA VANISHING
on the stigmas of mental illness and how they effect youth
author elena in the ICU, 2006
ROMANTICIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS
The main issue that Elena Dunkle pinpoints in her memoir Elena Vanishing is the dangerous romanticization of mental illness in teenage culture. Every day, in peer interactions and in media targeted to them, teenage girls are subjected to this bordering-on-promotion of mental illness, especially eating disorders. In popular media, the anorexic girl has become just another trope. She is fragile, careful, reduced to the simplest of stereotypes. The depth of her illness isn't even grazed; a scene here with her on a scale, a scene there of her scraping food into the trash. Anorexia suddenly becomes a personality trait instead of a serious disorder. On social media, self-proclaimed "pro-ana" accounts unashamedly encourage eating disorders. Sporting pictures with taglines like 'eat less' and 'work out 'till you pass out', these accounts can rack up thousands of teenage followers, logging on and seeing the promotion of anorexia every day. Likewise, "depressed girl" accounts exist, encouraging self-hatred and even suicidal ideation. Accounts like these are incredibly dangerous, as their peer-level support and romanticization of mental illnesses can easily influence young people in their thinking and decisions. Dunkle fights this head-on by writing her graphic and visceral memoir. She bares every ugly detail, yanking away the illusions of anorexia being as simple as "just not eating" by telling her brutal story of hospitalization and recovery. She sets fire to the "damaged but beautiful" girl from the TV and replaces her with herself; sickly, full of self hatred, obsessed, unlikeable and rude. This stark contrast of the raw, ugly truth of anorexia against the well-promoted fragile and pretty girl is what makes Elena Vanishing so purposeful and important; Dunkle shatters every illusion of the romanticizing of mental illness by telling her own horrific story.
timeline of elena's battle with anorexia
RELATED CURRENT EVENT
elena shortly before entering therapy
VISIBILITY OF MENTAL ILLNESS
Another important aspect to Dunkle's story is the visibility (or lack thereof) of mental illness. Throughout much of her hospitalization, Dunkle is in denial that she has an eating disorder. She claims that she "can't really be anorexic" based on the definition she has absorbed from those around her. She hails "real anorexics" as near-gods, constantly giving them her admiration and praise while simultaneously tearing herself down for supposedly not exhibiting as much self-control as them. She also fervently denies the roots of her mental illness; her sexual assault as a teenager. On that topic, too, she dismisses the validity of her struggle using the untrue stigmas she has heard from peers. The misinformation she had on the topics of mental illness due to lack of visibility was very harmful to her, causing her prolonged denial and thus, continuation of her disorder. Had Dunkle (and those around her influencing her) been more knowledgeable about mental illness, she could not only have avoided this misguided denial, but also may have been able to evade her disorder completely. Elena Vanishing makes a completely convincing case for increasing awareness and general knowledge of mental illness by showing how harmful misinformed opinions and stigmas can be
Elena Vanishing Key Quotes
"We anorexics, we cause ourselves pain every day. We toughen ourselves to withstand any hardship. We can deal with the physical torture, the anguish, and the emptiness, but the thing that kills everyone of us is having to see what the others suffer." pg. 250