Lately Portia de Rossi’s book, “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain” has received a lot of attention. While I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I have probably read a dozen articles reviewing it. In fact, I think I’m the only one who hasn’t read the book.
Any kind of media or literature has to tread that thin line of being honest and informative without being triggering — and really, I don’t know if there’s actually even a line. What’s helpful for one person is triggering for another. Take Marya’s “Wasted” for example. When I first read that book i wanted to highlight 50% of it. It felt like she had put my jumbled thoughts into cohesive sentences that I could completely identify with. With that said, I definitely tried eating carrots with mustard at one point. Yuck. (if you haven’t read the book, just ignore that reference.)
In my own treatment experience, professionals have been all over the spectrum when it came down to whether or not reading ED books were disordered. One therapist thought reading them was a kind of glorification of the disorder itself. Another felt they are just another manifestation of the food/weight obsession. Another therapist gave me a list of ED books to read. A nurse practitioner once gave me a copy of the Eating Disorder Sourcebook. I’ll save you the trouble of reading it — unless you’re looking for a long extension of the DSM criteria, you can skip it. I can think of several non-disordered reasons to read ED novels:
- It’s validating to hear your concerns / issues articulated by someone else.
- Seeing how others overcame their struggles can offer hope.
- Some stories are depressing enough to make you think “wow, I so don’t want to do that.”
- For information (not all info fuels your ED).
- You’re in High School and Wasted is on your summer reading list (I noticed that on a required reading list for a nearby school last summer).
So, disordered or not? I guess it depends on where you are in your disorder and recovery. Generally my philosophy is if you want to read an ED book, go for it. Read a dozen. You probably won’t want to read many more than that, because they get boring — Well, unless you branch out into books on psychotherapy or CBT or PTSD or whatnot. With many ED biographical / autobiographical novels, you’re going to see the same pattern: person develops ED, person receives treatment for ED, person continues relapse/recovery cycle, and person may/may not recover. However, I do 100% support reading psych journal articles (totally different!)… but I’ll save that post for another day.
6 comments
Emily says:
Jan 20, 2011
LOL – I was hoping you’d have some good suggestions – I’m not terribly fond of the book we have to read for my IOP and I wanted to read something interesting.
I completely agree with you on the research articles, that is unless it is an article that discusses a specific treatment modality or intervention your therapist is going to use – reading about in advance tends to heighten the anxiety associated with the intervention…
Is it just me, or is having Wasted on a summer reading list an odd choice??
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Nicole says:
Jan 20, 2011
Wasted is a very well written book, that give a vivd depiction down the rabbit hole. I have read the book several times while at different stages of my recovery and each time I find something new…
EJM says:
Jan 20, 2011
This entry is great! I personally enjoy reading ED related books because they make me think and feel less isolated.
Beth says:
Jan 21, 2011
My dad actually just finished reading the Portia book, and I will probably read it soon simply because I am curious. When I was in high school my therapist actually had me read some eating disorder books as part of an assignment with the goal that it would help me overcome my denial. At first I just kept thinking “these people are so much sicker then me” but once I stepped back and stopped comparing my weight and frequency of behaviors to the book, it really did help with the denial because I kept thinking “wow, I think that exact same thought.” That realization didn’t even just happen with eating disorder specific thoughts – I remember being able to relate to a lot of the thoughts/feelings about time management, perfectionism and relationships. So, I think reading eating disorder books can be beneficial depending on where you are at in recovery, and especially good if read and discussed with a treatment professional.
As far as non-ED people reading the books, I definitely have conflicting thoughts. I have had several non-ED friends read Wasted, and they said that it helped them understand that it is not all about weight and the thoughts behind the behaviors. I think that book is particularly good for that because she describes struggling at all weights and with many behaviors. However, some books focus so much on weight that I feel it reinforces the idea that in order to have an eating disorder one must be emaciated and once weight restored a person is recovered. A lot of the books also feed into stereotypes and make people with eating disorders sound like whinny self-absorbed little girls. Finally, many books make it seem like all it takes is a one time stint in residential or inpatient and bam, cured (Wasted is again an exception). While I do find hope from reading the success stories, I think some of them can give family or friends the false impression that recovery is easy.
Jen says:
Jan 23, 2011
I’m about halfway into Portia’s book and it’s definitely one of the better ones, maybe because her underlying issues are so similar to mine. But I don’t like the fact that she includes some numbers. That may be a personal thing because numbers still trigger me to some extent.
Reading ED books while being sick and then being in recovery are two completely different experiences. Now I like to read them because I just find them interesting, but before I’d look for tips and I’d feel like I wasn’t “sick enough.” I haven’t read “Wasted” in years and I’m pretty sure if I read it now I’d be thinking, “Yeah, I remember being like that. It sucked.”
Writing a book, on the other hand, is a therapeutic process in itself. I wrote my first book, “Restricted” [it's available on Amazon
], when I was just out of IOP for the last time and it made me step back and examine everything. Writing everything down gave me a different perspective. While I had people with eating disorders in mind while writing/editing, I wanted to have it so the general public could understand better what it’s like to go through it all. Lots of people are still clueless.