Hi Gang! I was asked to participate in a study for the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge regarding Eating Disorder Memoirs. The survey is quite interesting, and it only takes a few minutes, so if you would like to be a part CLICK HERE.
If you do take the survey, please leave me a comment here, I am curious to see how many of us will take it.
As I went through the survey, the main thing that struck me was how many eating disorder memoirs there are! I would guess there are over 50 on the list. I found that I have not read very many (probably because I spend so much time on this blog and elsewhere on the web communicating with people on the subject).
I would also be curious to know how many of these books you have read….5, 10, 50?? Maybe its time to write your own!
It arrived in my mailbox on Friday, I started reading it Saturday, and last night I stayed up way the heck too late to finish it.
Generally, it takes me a few months to finish a book, partly because I usually have two or three going at the same time, and I am a slow reader. But this one would not leave me be.
This is a raw, brutally-honest, grotesquely detailed novel. The pages resonate pent up anger, unsettled circumstance, and disgustingly-gross-but-real purging episodes described in painful detail.
Damn, it’s good – because it is so real.
John’s takes the reader through her experience as a size 9, EDNOS patient, living for a summer in an Eating Disorder Center in Milwaukee (my home town, which made this reading more intriguing, because literally drive past the places she refers to throughout the book on a daily basis).
One of the coolest parts is the book design, adorned with a great cover art and interesting fonts throughout. Inside, copies of Nicole’s actual treatment papers are scattered about; names and addresses blacked out in bold black lines, handwritten journal entries detail each and every evil calorie, and even an official definition of “Normal Eating,” which drove home the pathetic level we sink to with an eating disorder.
But the most important thing about PURGE, is it addresses, head on, the problem EDNOS patients face. EDNOS stands for Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Huh? Ed who?
For the record;
EDNOS sufferers are not underweight, in fact, they are more often overweight.
EDNOS sufferers look normal, all the while lurking below the surface is a young vital heart struggling to keep ticking.
EDNOS sufferers are blown off the vast majority of the population, until of course they faint, whack their head, suffer a concussion, and need to be hospitalized.
EDNOS sufferers can have blood pressure readings near zero, completely out of whack electrolyte levels, and most commonly live with a raw, burning, sometimes-ruptured esophagus.
Needless to say, John’s represents the “typical” EDNOS sufferer weighing 137 pounds, all the while popping diet pill cocktails, starving, purging, and binging until she is hospitalized for fainting which leads to the real diagnosis: a concussion, electrolyte imbalances, and three different kids of heart-rhythm irregularities.
She writes PURGE to “inform the public, counteract myths surrounding eating disorders and treatment, and provide eating disordered individuals with hope.”
As I walked to the presentation room, I caught a glimpse of the cool window art created by Marquette students, and I was impressed!
Schaefer presented to a group of about 200 people, a mixed crowd of students, parents, and press.
I would describe her style as soothing.
As she spoke, her soft, genuine expression, lit up the room, even as she held up a yellow, dance tutu that she wore at age 4…the age in which Ed
came along.
Ed, in this case, is not an abbreviation for Eating Disorders. "Ed" is what Schaefer named her disorder. She admitted that when her therapist first brought up this idea, it seemed a bit nutty, but she gave it a try. Opening herself up to the concept of treating her eating disorder as a relationship rather than an illness or condition, started her on the road to recovery after
decades of struggling.
"Ed and I lived together for more than twenty years. He was abusive,
controlling, and never hesitated to
tell me what he thought, how I was
doing it wrong, and what I should be doing instead. . . Ed is not a
high school sweetheart. Ed is not some creep that I started dating in
college. . . Ed's name comes from the initials E.D. —as in eating
disorder. Ed is my eating disorder. —from the introduction of Life Without Ed.
If Schaefer is anything, she is a shining example of hope for full and total recovery. Here are the four main points I noted from her presentation;
Ed was a tool she used to recover and made her realize;
1) I am not an illness. The concept as Ed as a relationship created separation in her mind. 2) Ed gave her something to fight for- fight Ed not herself! 3) Responsibility was now on her shoulders, excuses were no longer possible. 4) Gave the hope she desparately needed to recover.
Perhaps this is a concept you have never considered for yourself as you go through recovery or consider recovery?
Hi Gang! I was asked to participate in a study for the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge regarding Eating Disorder Memoirs. The survey is quite interesting, and it only takes a few minutes, so if you would like to be a part CLICK HERE.
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