When Is It Acceptable to be Yourself? Have you ever felt alone? Just looking for something or somebody to be there for you when you need it most? What happens when nobody is there, forcing you to hold all of your feelings in? In “The Secret Society of Starving” by Mim Udovitch, young girls with severe eating disorders talk about the secret world of the online pro-anorexia (“pro-ana”) community, where they truly express themselves and sometimes even encourage each other’s problems. Likewise, in the essay “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?”, writers struggle to put their true words down on paper, knowing the secrets they share could result in their excommunication from the only community they know, causing an even greater sense of being alone. Both “The Secret Society of Starving” and “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” shine a light on the different lifestyles of two separate societies and how they both hide who they really are from the rest of the world, causing a sense of growing isolation within the members of each group. The members of the communities from both essays hide their true feelings from the people closest to them, including their family and friends. From “The Secret Society of Starving”, members of the pro-ana community hide behind the internet and submerge themselves into a virtual world of chat rooms and blogs where they can (anonymously) state their true most personal feelings. On page 111 one pro-ana girl states, “they know exactly what I’m going through and how I feel. And I don’t have to worry about them judging me for how I feel”, referring to the online websites she visits daily. Eating disorders are frowned upon by society and the people who are plagued by theses mental illnesses use these “help” sites to escape and let their true feelings out. Although these websites in reality only make the illness worse, at least there is somewhere for the members of “The Secret Society of Starving” to express themselves. Members of a small town community do not have this luxury of anonymous heart-spilling, and must hide their inner feelings in a different way. Silence. Silence is how people from a small town avoid conflict and confrontation from others who may not like hearing what they have to say. The people referred to in “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” must either repress what they are truly thinking or live in fear of being ousted by their community if they talk about the things that matter and the things that are really going on inside of a small town. Norris provides an example of this in her essay when she states, “But the lie put forth by the other woman was intended to silence us.”(129) Rather than being honest, people from a small old-fashioned town would create a lie to hide what they are thinking in order to “make nice”. If you cannot be yourself in front of your own community and own friends, where can you be yourself? The members of both communities both share feelings of repression and deal with this in different ways, in both cases these ways of dealing only make the problem worse. Both communities naturally become “impenetrable”, stemming from the fact neither group can truly be themselves and must hide their feelings in one way or another. Udovidtch recognizes this within the “Secret Society” when she states, “The sites are a way for them to connect… And they become very isolated.”(111) The web sites these girls visit create a community of people who all have the same disorder, where they can be completely open and share what they are thinking. These communities become very secretive and very private, considering the whole reason for these sites is to get away from the rest of the world. People in a small town also have very tightly knit communities and are completely separate from the rest of society. Outsiders are not welcome. Nobody knows the entire extent of what is going on inside of a small town and that is the way they want it to be. Although similar in the fact that the small town is “impenetrable”, it is very different in the fact that the there is nowhere for the members of these types of communities to escape and express themselves, like the websites previously mentioned. In order to be a writer in a small town, one “either has to break away or settle for writing only what is acceptable”(128) within that community. Out of fear for what others may think or react, members of the “starving” secret community and people who live in a town, where everybody knows everybody, must keep the door shut on what is really going on. Is it better to have a secret community where people feed off of others with the same problem, possibly making yours greater? Or rather keep silent and never be able to speak freely? Both situations appear to only make things worse. From both “The Secret Society of Starving” and “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?”, the people described in these essays both share a sense of being isolated from the greater society they are a part of, afraid of what might happen when they let everything inside of them out for the world to see. Although similar in the sense of how they feel, the two groups are very different in the ways they go about dealing with their problem and also the reasons why they must feel isolated from everything else. Between the “secret” society and the small town society, one way of life may not be any better than the other, but the shared repressed feelings of can be connected not only to each other, but can relate to almost every person in any community at one point or another.

Works Cited
Norris, Kathleen. “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” Remix. Catherine. G. Latterell. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 127-133.
Udovitch, Mim. “A Secret Society of the Starving.” Remix. Catherine. G. Latterell. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 109-117.