ED Bracelet Project

Have you gotten your bracelet yet? Do you have any idea what this is? If not, let me tell you:


Wearing coloured bracelets is a way for the eating disordered to recognise each other outside of home. It is an IFF (identification friend or foe) system for us. Each known ED has a colour of its own:

Red: Anorexia

Purple: Bulimia

Green: fasting at that time

Blue: depression

Pink: EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified)

Orange: SIer (self injuryier) OR Black: Self injury

Orange and White: recovered SIer

Turquoise: Overweight/Obese

Ana Recovery-Red and Black

Mia Recovery-purple and black

Cutter recovery-blue and black

EDNOS recovery-black/green/blue

OTHER BRACELET REQUIREMENTS:

• They have to be beaded.
• Anorexics wear it on the right wrist, bulimics on the left. (I don't know about the other EDs, but there you go)

You can make or buy your bracelet. The size, length and shape doesn't matter, just as long as it fulfils the above requirements, it's fine. 

Be careful when you go out, though. Don't assume anyone wearing a certain colour bracelet has an ED. Make eye contact with a fellow bracelet wearer first, then point to it. If that person points at theirs, you two know you're friends. A dead giveaway is a dragonfly charm on a bracelet. Dragonflies are a known symbol for EDs, so add one to yours if you can.

If you think you don't deserve to wear a bracelet because you're not worth it, don't think like that! You're worth it. A bracelet serves as a reminder to your goals and is a way to find a fellow eating disordered person to talk to, so you truly know you're not alone, instead of through the internet (for all you know, there could be posers!).

My own bracelet, which I finished making today, is pink and red: for EDNOS and anorexia. I know I'm eating disordered, but my disorder is not a specific one. When I was eight I think I might have had anorexia, triggered by comments on my body from my grandmother. I didn't know it was bad then, I know it now, but I can't help but have this kind of a relapse, hence the red in the bracelet: I'm more anorexic than the other EDs. The ratio of pink to red beads is 2:1. I can't post a picture on here in case my parents find out. They go on the internet a lot too, and this site is pretty easy to find.

Call me a wannarexic if you like, but I really don't want to have anorexia. Remember that. I have to keep hiding my condition from my parents and friends. Also, I don't like weighing myself more than nine times a day. It's an addiction. I just want to get thin. I've set my goal and I'm not thinking of giving up, because I am not one to give up. It's not me. I also want to avoid anything that will hinder me, therefore the hiding my condition from loved ones.

WORKS CITED:

1. "The Pro Ana Lifestyle: Bracelet Project." The Pro Ana Lifestyle. N.p., 25 July 2007. Web. 17 July 2012. 
2. "Who Is Still Missing the Bracelets??" PrettyThin. N.p., 4 May 2010. Web. 17 July 2012.