By Stephanie Grant.
Thanks to Elara for reccomending this :)
After reading the novel Wintergirls, I didn't expect to like The Passion of Alice. However, there was something about this book that made it intrigueing. Some of the reviews on Amazon* weren't impressed with the lesbian theme of the book, but I thought this gave an alternative view which is usually overlooked. I am not convinced of the accuracy regarding eating disorders, but as a novel it was good. It demonstrates how within inpatient treatment you can often learn more about yourself from other patients than you can from the therapists. The only problem is I feel that the story could have been built upon more, and I would have liked to find out what happened to Mauve (The protagonist's lover).
* Amazon.com. There are usually more reviews on the American site, so I check there before buying at .co.uk.
'...So I almost told him right then and there about the emptiness that the overeaters tried to fill with impossible amounts of food, again and again; the emptiness that the bulimics try to disgorge, as if it had been caught, a chicken bone or a fragile green fish’s gill in their quivering throats; the emptiness which we anorexics, in our superior knowledge and practice, tried to constrict, tried to compress by strangulation and deprivation...’
‘What seemed remarkable, finally, when I thought of it, was not that I loved women, but that I had loved a woman so imprecise. Maeve in all her chaos... That I loved her imperfection...’
Showing posts with label Anorexia Nervosa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anorexia Nervosa. Show all posts
Monday, 17 January 2011
Friday, 7 January 2011
The Great Starvation Experiment
Ancel Keys and the men who starved for science, by Todd Tucker.
This book was not about Eating disorders, but due to the results of the experiment, it did touch upon Anorexia.
'The other volunteers began to notice Sam Legg’s strange behaviour before the scientists did. In the barracks, he began collecting cookbooks, reading the recipes, and staring at the pictures of food with almost pornographic fascination.’
‘...For weeks, it had been known that Legg liked to be left alone at meals...’
‘...He had combined all the food on his tray into one pile. He then took his fork and stirred and smashed it together... until it was a homogenous dark gray-greenish paste on his plate...’
‘...He was on the verge of crying... A lifetime spent in clinical environments had honed his instincts, and he deftly shoved himself away from his desk just as Weygandt vomited the forbidden fruit upon it.’
- Obsessing over food, even pictures of food
- Being irritated by any presence while you are eating
- Mushing all your 'meals' into one singular lump
All these things are common symptoms of anorexia nervosa, and all these symptoms were experienced by Legg, a man who had begun the experiment as a mentally and physically healthy individual. The final quote was describing a different participant, who had given in to hunger and eaten the food he was stacking in a shop he was working in. The act felt out of control. He was consequently mortified and panicked, so much so that he acted as a bulimic would and threw up the food.
The point I am trying to make is; put any normal human being in a situation where they are starving, and it is only natural that they start to act like a person who suffers from an eating disorder. In other words; these are instinctual reactions to starvation. Once you have lived it, you realise you were barely aware that you were performing these bizarre rituals, and you could not control them.
Conclusion: ‘Keys noted that the Minnesota experiment actually more closely duplicated anorexia than it did wartime starvation, in that conditions other than food intake, such as cleanliness and accessibility of medical care, were “normal.”’
The result was a 2 volume work created by Keys, A. et al. 1950: The biology of human starvation.
This book was not about Eating disorders, but due to the results of the experiment, it did touch upon Anorexia.
'The other volunteers began to notice Sam Legg’s strange behaviour before the scientists did. In the barracks, he began collecting cookbooks, reading the recipes, and staring at the pictures of food with almost pornographic fascination.’
‘...For weeks, it had been known that Legg liked to be left alone at meals...’
‘...He had combined all the food on his tray into one pile. He then took his fork and stirred and smashed it together... until it was a homogenous dark gray-greenish paste on his plate...’
‘...He was on the verge of crying... A lifetime spent in clinical environments had honed his instincts, and he deftly shoved himself away from his desk just as Weygandt vomited the forbidden fruit upon it.’
- Obsessing over food, even pictures of food
- Being irritated by any presence while you are eating
- Mushing all your 'meals' into one singular lump
All these things are common symptoms of anorexia nervosa, and all these symptoms were experienced by Legg, a man who had begun the experiment as a mentally and physically healthy individual. The final quote was describing a different participant, who had given in to hunger and eaten the food he was stacking in a shop he was working in. The act felt out of control. He was consequently mortified and panicked, so much so that he acted as a bulimic would and threw up the food.
The point I am trying to make is; put any normal human being in a situation where they are starving, and it is only natural that they start to act like a person who suffers from an eating disorder. In other words; these are instinctual reactions to starvation. Once you have lived it, you realise you were barely aware that you were performing these bizarre rituals, and you could not control them.
Before and after pictures of Sam Legg: Top: Healthy Legg at a Cilivilian Public Service camp before he (the conscientious objector) moved to Minesota to take part in the experiment as an alternative to forestry work. Bottom: A picture of Legg by Wallace Kirkland, which appeared in Life magazine in 1945.
Conclusion: ‘Keys noted that the Minnesota experiment actually more closely duplicated anorexia than it did wartime starvation, in that conditions other than food intake, such as cleanliness and accessibility of medical care, were “normal.”’
The result was a 2 volume work created by Keys, A. et al. 1950: The biology of human starvation.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
This Mean Disease
Growing up in the shadow of my Mother's Anorexia Nervosa By Daniel Becker
This is the second memoir which has made me cry. I didn't learn much about eating disorders from it, other than what it is like to suffer from the other side; the side who is watching a family member melt away, seemingly willfully. But it was very well written, to the extent that I read it within a few days and didn't need to motivate myself to finish it.
‘As one Stanford doctor explained, “It’s the only disease I know about where people like their illness. They do not want to get rid of it.”
‘My conflicting feelings during visits with Mom always zigzagged between anger and guilt. The anger, which I first noticed on our trip to Israel, sprouted from Mom’s unwillingness to get better... I felt it most when I watched Mom push the food around her plate or listened to her chatter about restaurants and recipes.’
(the Dad) ‘” I was always optimistic that your mother would get better,” he told me. “ That is what kept me hanging in there for 20 years.”’
(the Dad) ‘”And then I realized: She’s never going to change. It would always be the same. I could no longer sit by and watch her destroy herself. I had to get out.”’
This is the second memoir which has made me cry. I didn't learn much about eating disorders from it, other than what it is like to suffer from the other side; the side who is watching a family member melt away, seemingly willfully. But it was very well written, to the extent that I read it within a few days and didn't need to motivate myself to finish it.
‘As one Stanford doctor explained, “It’s the only disease I know about where people like their illness. They do not want to get rid of it.”
‘My conflicting feelings during visits with Mom always zigzagged between anger and guilt. The anger, which I first noticed on our trip to Israel, sprouted from Mom’s unwillingness to get better... I felt it most when I watched Mom push the food around her plate or listened to her chatter about restaurants and recipes.’
(the Dad) ‘” I was always optimistic that your mother would get better,” he told me. “ That is what kept me hanging in there for 20 years.”’
(the Dad) ‘”And then I realized: She’s never going to change. It would always be the same. I could no longer sit by and watch her destroy herself. I had to get out.”’
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Conversations with Anorexics
By Hilde Bruch, edited by Danita Czyzewski and Melanie A. Suhr.
Bruch passed away before this book was published, but before she went, she made sure that the content was essentially complete. The book is mostly made up of conversations with many of her patients during the therapy process.
‘While the binge-purge cycle may occur during the first or second year of the anorexic illness, often it appears later. When the simple starving becomes too strenuous or exhausting, then the idea of eating and vomiting looks like a solution, in order for the patients to give in to their desire for food and to stay slim at the same time.’
Anorexia often develops into Bulimia, and the above explanation for this makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is me; I moved onto the bingeing, but I never purge. Purgeing sounds awful, and don't get me wrong, I am glad I don't have this addiction. But people binge so that they can purge, or they purge so that they feel slimmer. If I have such a fear of getting fat, as is the case with anorexia and bulimia, then why don't I compensate? I fast, but I think I do that because I get sick of all the eating and I want a break, rather than doing it in an attempt to lose weight. This implies that I suffer from binge eating disorder or EDNOS, not bulimia as the doctors say. But there doesn't seem to be many books on BED, so I don't know...
The following bits do describe the way I think, or used to think:
‘” I could have a peaceful mind only when I went to bed and couldn’t do any more, when I was physically and mentally exhausted. Then I could think, ‘Yes, I have a right to sleep and I have a right to eat,’ but only then. When I went to bed without being really exhausted and tired, that meant there was still more I could do and wasn’t doing..."'
'"...when I weighed a lot less than I do now I had so much energy. I mean, I could do fifty projects at once and I didn’t have to work so hard at my grades. I don’t have that energy and the drive that I had when I was thin. That’s really scary for me to cope with."'
Bruch passed away before this book was published, but before she went, she made sure that the content was essentially complete. The book is mostly made up of conversations with many of her patients during the therapy process.
‘While the binge-purge cycle may occur during the first or second year of the anorexic illness, often it appears later. When the simple starving becomes too strenuous or exhausting, then the idea of eating and vomiting looks like a solution, in order for the patients to give in to their desire for food and to stay slim at the same time.’
Anorexia often develops into Bulimia, and the above explanation for this makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is me; I moved onto the bingeing, but I never purge. Purgeing sounds awful, and don't get me wrong, I am glad I don't have this addiction. But people binge so that they can purge, or they purge so that they feel slimmer. If I have such a fear of getting fat, as is the case with anorexia and bulimia, then why don't I compensate? I fast, but I think I do that because I get sick of all the eating and I want a break, rather than doing it in an attempt to lose weight. This implies that I suffer from binge eating disorder or EDNOS, not bulimia as the doctors say. But there doesn't seem to be many books on BED, so I don't know...
The following bits do describe the way I think, or used to think:
‘” I could have a peaceful mind only when I went to bed and couldn’t do any more, when I was physically and mentally exhausted. Then I could think, ‘Yes, I have a right to sleep and I have a right to eat,’ but only then. When I went to bed without being really exhausted and tired, that meant there was still more I could do and wasn’t doing..."'
'"...when I weighed a lot less than I do now I had so much energy. I mean, I could do fifty projects at once and I didn’t have to work so hard at my grades. I don’t have that energy and the drive that I had when I was thin. That’s really scary for me to cope with."'
Monday, 13 December 2010
Hungry
By Crystal RennWhen I was leaving yet another psychiatrist the other week and he saw the title of this book he laughed and said 'Are you trying to tell us something?' Since he had been so understanding throughout the session (unusual in my experience of psychiatrists), I managed to see the funny side.
Although I have a lot of admiration for how Crystal let go of her disease, I could not relate at all to the second half of the book (her recovery and emergence as a plus-size model). This was probably because; 1 I have never been a model, and 2; Because it was modeling that trapped her in anorexia, and modeling which steered her out. Her book indicates that her illness largely came about due to pressure from the outside, while mine resulted mainly from the inside.
It has however made me look at models with more compassion than I did before; I was quite oblivious to the fashion-model industry. I guess I get angry at people blaming the media for eating disorders in young girls, and I forget that actually being a model is an entirely different thing. Many models starve because they have to look frail and that is part of their job.
‘I look at pictures from that time and I’m stunned. Not at my thinness – unlike some anorexics who always think they’re fat, I knew on some level how thin I was. No, what astounds me in those photos is my blankness. There was no light in my eyes.’
‘Coco Rocha... “I’ll never forget the piece of advice I got from people in the industry when they saw my new body,” she told the Associated Press in 2008. “They said, ‘You need to lose more weight. The look this year is Anorexia. We don’t want you to be anorexic, but that’s what we want you to look like.’”
‘It wasn’t always this way... Maybe it’s a response to the rest of America getting heavier. If you see human heft as déclassé... then extreme thinness can be a way of distancing yourself from and seeming more high-class than the people you scorn.’
Friday, 3 December 2010
THIN
By Lauren Greenfield
The book which goes alongside the film THIN, which can be seen on youtube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lAlo80fU. The book version includes stories from patients who were not seen on the film. The photography Lauren uses to convey the pain of these girls at times made me close to tears. Especially the self harm pictures. However, the acknowledgement of self harm in the book made me feel less alone. In my treament I have been treate
d as an anomaly because I self harm, and therefore they believe I will not respond to any treatment an Eating disorder service has to offer. This book, and many other books, show that self harm is common in eating disorders and it should be adressed with the ED, not separetely. Afterall, it is a symptom just like purgeing is; it is a way of dealing with the psychological pain of eating.
I have not copied any images out of the book, as I am not sure how copyright works, but these are some pictures I found on google.
Left: Shelly with her P.E.G feeding tube.
Quotes from other residents:
Cara - '...I didn’t want to feel anger. I didn’t want to feel loneliness. I didn’t want to feel unprotected. By not eating, I didn’t feel those things. But I didn’t feel anything else either.’
Polly - ‘My stomach has started growling again. I can’t even tell you how many years it hasn’t done that. I don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel like I’m in my own body and it’s really, really weird.’
Quinn - ‘I knew how thin I was. I could see bones sticking out. It was just never good enough for me. I think it all comes down to self-hatred issues.’
Cathy - ‘When I came here, I was the only overeater, so I felt very alienated. But I was welcomed. The girls said I didn’t intimidate them, being overweight. It was only their own bodies they were concerned with.’
Left: Polly at her mother's home. In the last chapter on Polly, she wrote ‘I just want to be happy. Before, when I was really sick with anorexia, I didn’t think I had anything worth living for. But now I’ve got too much I still want to do. I look forward to the rest of my life.’
Reading this broke my heart, as I knew before reading the book that Polly did not survive beyond the age of 33. She died in her home from an overdose. Whether this was an accidental or intential overdose, I guess noone will ever know. But regardless, if it wasn't for her eating disorder, she would probably still be here :( xxx
The book which goes alongside the film THIN, which can be seen on youtube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lAlo80fU. The book version includes stories from patients who were not seen on the film. The photography Lauren uses to convey the pain of these girls at times made me close to tears. Especially the self harm pictures. However, the acknowledgement of self harm in the book made me feel less alone. In my treament I have been treate
d as an anomaly because I self harm, and therefore they believe I will not respond to any treatment an Eating disorder service has to offer. This book, and many other books, show that self harm is common in eating disorders and it should be adressed with the ED, not separetely. Afterall, it is a symptom just like purgeing is; it is a way of dealing with the psychological pain of eating.
I have not copied any images out of the book, as I am not sure how copyright works, but these are some pictures I found on google.
Left: Shelly with her P.E.G feeding tube.
Quotes from other residents:
Cara - '...I didn’t want to feel anger. I didn’t want to feel loneliness. I didn’t want to feel unprotected. By not eating, I didn’t feel those things. But I didn’t feel anything else either.’
Polly - ‘My stomach has started growling again. I can’t even tell you how many years it hasn’t done that. I don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel like I’m in my own body and it’s really, really weird.’
Quinn - ‘I knew how thin I was. I could see bones sticking out. It was just never good enough for me. I think it all comes down to self-hatred issues.’
Cathy - ‘When I came here, I was the only overeater, so I felt very alienated. But I was welcomed. The girls said I didn’t intimidate them, being overweight. It was only their own bodies they were concerned with.’
Left: Polly at her mother's home. In the last chapter on Polly, she wrote ‘I just want to be happy. Before, when I was really sick with anorexia, I didn’t think I had anything worth living for. But now I’ve got too much I still want to do. I look forward to the rest of my life.’
Reading this broke my heart, as I knew before reading the book that Polly did not survive beyond the age of 33. She died in her home from an overdose. Whether this was an accidental or intential overdose, I guess noone will ever know. But regardless, if it wasn't for her eating disorder, she would probably still be here :( xxx
Monday, 29 November 2010
The Owl was a baker's daughter
Obesity, anorexia nervosa and the repressed feminine, a psychological study by Marion Woodman. I am still confused as to what the owl has to do with anything... I must have missed something. Feminist books tend to irritate me, but as they go, this was a good book. I don't like books that spend the whole time blaming everything on the fact that females aren't treated as 'equal'. I agree we should be treated as equal, but I think you've got to be careful not to go beyond 'making a valid point' into the valley of 'oh, poor poor us, our needs have been battered down'. I don't care if it's true, I do not want pity.
However, some good quotes from the women she interviewed:
‘Sometimes when I am watching others eating and I am not, I feel morally free. I don’t have to eat. They do. Other times I feel morally inferior because I am tyrannized by weight... They are free. I am not.’
‘I am selfish, but I hate to be thought selfish. I throw up a smokescreen of politeness in order to be liked...’
'...It is sick to wish for the suffering to come back just so I can feel alive.’
The Golden Cage: The Enigma of anorexia nervosa
By Hilde BruchI have just finished reading this and I borrowed it from an private eating disorder service I am supposedly attending, at some point... when? I don't know, they haven't got back to me :( It is a 45 minute drive away. But I also want to go back so that I can return the two books I have nearly finished and get some new ones. I have got my eye on one about EDs in males.
Anway, The Golden Cage is pretty out of date. Published in 1978. But Bruch is known for her break-through in discovering how best to treat those with EDs, and most of her book is still relevant. What isn't revelant is her overenphasis on how the patient is normally a rich, white girl who is suffering because she has everything, but doesn't think she deserves anything. That can be true, but not in the majority of cases. Although to be honest, I do see myself in that stereotypical category.
‘One more enigma: on the one hand they declare they do not see how thin they are, and deny the existence of even severe emaciation, but at the same time they take extraordinary pride in it and consider it their supreme achievement.’
‘About 25 per-cent of anorexic youngsters go through the binge-eating syndrome, and many get stuck in it. Whenever they experience anxiety or tension, they run for the comfort of food and thus avoiding exploring the deeper problems.’
‘An anorexic patient cannot be considered outside the danger of relapse unless she has honestly reported on the terror of starvation and her inability to repeat it.’
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia: How to help
By Marilyn Duker and Roger Slade
The best literature I have read on the subject. Most of the book is worth quoting, and has very little waffle. I read it a while ago but one thing I remember it covering is the theory of Anorexia and Bulimia being 'two sides of the same coin.' I will have to re-read it sometime...
‘Few people appreciate the extent to which anorexia nervosa and bulimia can wreck family life, either by the way it erupts into physical violence to people or property, or by the suffocating tension it creates.’
‘So well in fact does she hide her feelings that the way her later bulimia or compulsive eating is related to her former anorexia nervosa is also hidden. Because the episodes appear to be discontinuous, few theoreticians perceive that there is a clear relationship between the two problems...’
‘...Moral rules... it is starvation that pushes these familiar values to almost unrecognizable extremes...’
And hence:
‘There is a cruel irony in the frequent assertion that anorexia nervosa is a mysterious illness...’
The best literature I have read on the subject. Most of the book is worth quoting, and has very little waffle. I read it a while ago but one thing I remember it covering is the theory of Anorexia and Bulimia being 'two sides of the same coin.' I will have to re-read it sometime...
‘Few people appreciate the extent to which anorexia nervosa and bulimia can wreck family life, either by the way it erupts into physical violence to people or property, or by the suffocating tension it creates.’
‘So well in fact does she hide her feelings that the way her later bulimia or compulsive eating is related to her former anorexia nervosa is also hidden. Because the episodes appear to be discontinuous, few theoreticians perceive that there is a clear relationship between the two problems...’
‘...Moral rules... it is starvation that pushes these familiar values to almost unrecognizable extremes...’
And hence:
‘There is a cruel irony in the frequent assertion that anorexia nervosa is a mysterious illness...’
Eating with your Anorexic
How my child recovered through family-based treatment and how yours can too.
By Laura Collins
First off; I hate the name of this book, although admittedly I have had a few funny conversations about it. I am not sure why it sounds so ridiculous, but all I can think of is having a Pet Anorexic. Somehow the title gives inhumane connotations.
Next up in the series...
Eating with your Dog
On a serious note, I guess the book could be useful to those who believe in family-based treatment. I don't, unless the patient is really young. I believe that the interactions within the family should be looked at, but I do not think that this should be the basis of the therapy for fear over over-dependance or a feeling of being trapped by the family. I could be wrong though.
A good point that Collins made was:
‘Anorexics do not lack appetite, they are afraid of it.’
By Laura Collins
First off; I hate the name of this book, although admittedly I have had a few funny conversations about it. I am not sure why it sounds so ridiculous, but all I can think of is having a Pet Anorexic. Somehow the title gives inhumane connotations.
Next up in the series...
Eating with your Dog
On a serious note, I guess the book could be useful to those who believe in family-based treatment. I don't, unless the patient is really young. I believe that the interactions within the family should be looked at, but I do not think that this should be the basis of the therapy for fear over over-dependance or a feeling of being trapped by the family. I could be wrong though.
A good point that Collins made was:
‘Anorexics do not lack appetite, they are afraid of it.’
The Anorexia Diaries
By Linda M. Rio and Tara M. Rio, with advice and commentary by Craig Johnson Ph.DNote: The picture isn't really revelevant, but I couldn't find a good picture to represent girls having to have more body fat than boys. So instead... we will throw rocks in our anger that nature isn't fair! Also - I have no idea why I can't change the Authors names so that they are not vertical.
This was similar to 'Biting Anorexia' in the style, but even more dragged out, made up of diary entries which where pulled straight from er, their diaries. Some people's diaries are well written in the first place, and very to the point and artistically descriptive, such as Emma's in 'To Die For.' These, however, were not. The only bit possibly worth reading was the commentary, from which I dug out the following information:
‘...The average girl is expected to gain 40 pounds in the 4 years between the ages of 11 and 14. Normally, girls will again about one-third of their adult body weight during these 4 years...’
‘...Most women have to maintain 17 per cent body fat to menstruate and 22 per cent to be fertile. Essentially, body fat in women is out species’ way to control the population. If there is a famine, women’s body fat drops and they become infertile...'
‘...Boys cannot reverse puberty by reducing body fat in the same manner as girls. This is one of the reasons the disease primarily affects girls...’
Slim to None: A journey through the wasteland of Anorexia Treatment
By Jennifer hendricksThis book is heartbreaking, and yet you cannot fail to admire Jennifer's determination to keep on going, looking for a treatment that would give her her life back. It also makes me angry because the poor treatment she recieved was mostly down to ignorance. This has improved a lot since 2003, when it was published, but there is still a long way to go and services today continue to get away with damaging their patients further.
If you have read the book, you will know what the dolphin is about :') xxx
‘Her doctor presumed Jenny’s anorexia was self-inflicted, a behaviour problem, and illness of choice... '
‘Her doctor presumed Jenny’s anorexia was self-inflicted, a behaviour problem, and illness of choice... '
‘ ...no matter what anyone says whether or not I control this rage inside me or not, it is there BURNING away.’
‘I want to punish myself when others say I look or sound better. Part of me wants only to be sick, weak, totally depleted, and finally dead. Taking that away from me only enrages me because then I don’t know how to accept myself...'
Written by her dad: ‘”Not enoughs” hamper progress in improving the destiny of the eating disordered. Not enough understanding... Not enough money for research into cause, prevention, and treatment. Not enough integration of approaches – neurobiological, genetic, hormonal, chemical, general medical, psychological, and the most important... human compassion...’
3. Wasted
By Marya Hornbacher
Probably the most reccomended and referred to memoir on the ED shelf. I find the first half a bit tedias, as is more like an autobiography of her life in general which led to her ED. It is the second half which really touched me, the way she articulated things in my mind, and I dare say many other's minds, which I never thought could be put onto paper. She is astonishingly accurate in her description of bulimia and especially anorexia, and she describes the consequences in their blunt, devastating reality. She manages to communicate the paradox of both pride and destruction that the illness simultaneously gives.
‘I wanted to get caught to be seen as something, to have a claim to greatness, to have the sick admiration that comes to those of us who destroy ourselves particularly well.’
‘When she leaves you alone, there’s a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to... There is a profound grief. And there is, in the end, after a long time and more work than you ever thought possible, a time when it gets easier... There is, in the end, the letting go.’
Probably the most reccomended and referred to memoir on the ED shelf. I find the first half a bit tedias, as is more like an autobiography of her life in general which led to her ED. It is the second half which really touched me, the way she articulated things in my mind, and I dare say many other's minds, which I never thought could be put onto paper. She is astonishingly accurate in her description of bulimia and especially anorexia, and she describes the consequences in their blunt, devastating reality. She manages to communicate the paradox of both pride and destruction that the illness simultaneously gives.
‘I wanted to get caught to be seen as something, to have a claim to greatness, to have the sick admiration that comes to those of us who destroy ourselves particularly well.’
‘When she leaves you alone, there’s a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to... There is a profound grief. And there is, in the end, after a long time and more work than you ever thought possible, a time when it gets easier... There is, in the end, the letting go.’
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About Me
- Alba
- Durham, County Durham, United Kingdom
- (November 2010) > I am taking a year (or two) out of university to recover from an eating disorder; originally diagnosed as restricting anorexia 7 years ago, but has more recently morphed into BN non-purgeing type/ BED/ COE/ EDNOS / whatever you want to call it. I thought I would write a blog to give me a kind of project to work on, mainly giving an insight into the Eating Disorders books that I have read and any interesting articles/videos I find. However, there may be some updates on my life and thoughts once in a while. My quest is to understand these disorders, although I know the best I can do is to keep on researching xxx Update (2012): I have now returned to uni.