I feel like we all saw the headline coming. And no, I don't mean it in that typically sarcastic way, like "lol I'm on Tumblr 24/7 it totally ruined my life."

What I mean is that Tumblr.com, while a powerful (buts sometimes overdone) news and social media outlet, can also be quite dangerous, as with any form of social media. Individuals are allowed to post basically whatever they desire on the website, and skirting past restrictions is easy — and was even easier back in 2012 when rules were minimal and nothing was personal or private anymore.

I began using the website after a suggestion from a friend in high school. I admired her so much and knew that anything she was interested in was bound to be amazingly superbly wonderful. So, I created an account, and by the next year, was blogging at full force; taking pride in my hundreds of followers, posting my own photography, and updating new friends on happenings in my life.

But something else was happening.

I seemingly couldn't avoid a series of (more than just) unhappy posts. The photos of self-mutilation and people suffering with eating disorders came on slowly, and then like a hurricane. The posts describing inner turmoil, depression, anxiety—the posts glorifying these serious ailments—just kept seeming to appear on my dashboard no matter how many users I unfollowed. I began staying in more, spending hours upon hours scrolling through the website; completely ignoring my friends who begged and begged me to step outside and pay them a visit.

As someone who had previously pegged themselves as strong willed, strong minded, and unhindered, the last thing I had expected was for this onslaught of posts to take a toll on me. But somehow, they dug deep into the recesses of my mind and embedded themselves there, like maggots to rotting fruit.

A few months down the line, I found myself in the depths of an eating disorder, with long scars snaking their way around my thighs and wrists, depressed beyond my imagination, too anxious to even be seen. I would miss classes regularly and hide in the library to read books or do my homework in a cubicle in the corner. Anything to keep me from having to be noticed; from having to sit in class and feel like a spectacle—like some sort of gross curiosity that belonged out of sight rather than right in the middle of anything.

Something was seriously wrong.

And I wasn't quite sure how so.

So, where does Tumblr play into this? Surely a website didn't give me an array of mental disorders and essentially cause the disintegration of my entire life...right?

Right. Kind of.

Now, to fast forward for a bit, four years have gone by, I have since unfollowed the blogs and tags that were clearly making my recovery impossible, and I have somehow managed to get better.

But there are so many people who don't have such an "easy" recovery as mine. As much as it brings me joy to check up on old friends and see that they're doing a lot better, it breaks my heart to notice that so many more are still stuck in a terrible place.

Now, despite the fact that I and many others did or may still have some personal troubles which made us all the more impressionable regarding negative social media posts, that is absolutely no excuse for individuals to just blatantly post damaging material all over the internet. Obviously, this is a world away from anyone who is trying to get better, but whose content may be unintentionally "triggering."

I'm talking about people who glorify sicknesses and ailments that are taking lives by the hour. Because, let's face it. Kids are going to be impressionable. They are going to look at something and not quite get it, but think something about it is indescribably enticing. Just as there is growing and seemingly endless positivity present in social media, there is still that negative, hidden world.

And...I don't know how something so broad can be stopped.

All I do know is that, had I not spent the majority of 2012 to 2013 blogging my cares away, I might be in an even better place than I am now. And so might many others who, given, have been helped by social media, but who have also been burned by it.

We might not be able to snap our fingers and change every website out there. We might not be able to all become hyper aware, hyperconscious beings who fight to make tons of change. All I'm saying is, something is better than nothing at all. When I think back, I wish I had reported or even just told someone about the people I had encountered who glorified self-harm and eating disordered behavior. It might have saved me—or even someone else—a lot of pain.

If you see something that you know is damaging or some kind of glorification of an issue that is serious and painful, don't hold back; don't be a spectator. Mention it. Report it if it's bad. Or just enlighten others. Or enlighten yourself. Whatever you feel might be of some help to anyone at all. These struggles and disorders are not things to be stigmatized or swept under the rug. Sure, people have told me that having anxiety and an eating disorder is not akin to having some form of terminal cancer. And yes, I agree. People with eating or mental disorders sometimes have a chance to get better and feel more at home in their lives. And we need to continue to push back against those who laud convoluted perceptions of these serious issues.

After all, something small can set off a monstrosity of a chain reaction; let's hope that in the future, those reactions are positive ones.