Both of these books left me mildly to moderately confused, bordering on alienated.  However, it’s possible that I’m just projecting.

Whereas I am happy for Jenni Schaefer’s recovery, and the fact that she has made a very successful post-recovery life for herself, while reading her books, I often found myself stopping to ponder…

“Where’s the REALITY in this book?”

“Where’s the MEAT?”

“Give it to me RAW, Jenni!”

I fully understand that one of the goals of her books is to tell her story without triggering anyone’s eating-disordered habits, however, I just feel like something very real is missing from both of these books.

I wanted Jenni to tell me how much she hates ED for stealing so many years of her life away.  I wanted her to at least mention the pain that still creeps in on occasion and threatens to steal her life away again, like it did before.  I just don’t believe that she is not experiencing any of these emotions.

And I’m actually uncomfortable with the fact that everything written in this book feels so nonchalant.  In speaking of how she sometimes feels sad, Jenni mentions that she now understands that it’s OK to be sad, so she just lets herself feel those emotions.  She’s kind to herself on that day, then she just moves on.  If things seem to be dragging on with her sadness, she seeks help from her doctor and/or therapist.

Really?  Is it really THAT simple?

I’m not generally a sad person.  My eating disorder was never complicated with sadness or depression (but oh, the anxiety!), but many individuals who have had or are recovering from an eating disorder do suffer from depression.  How can it be so easy post-recovery to just basically say “yeah, I get sad, I feel better, then I just move on.”

No big deal.

I wanted her to kirk out.  Just once.  One good outburst, tucked into the book somewhere.  One primal scream.  Something to let me know that she’s not some recovered robot, but an actual living and breathing human being who just happens to have recovered from an eating disorder.

I wanted her to tell me that it’s normal to still be terrified about potentially gaining 30+ pounds during pregnancy, and that it’s OK to still feel like your world is going to fall off of its’ axis when you have to decide whether to eat food that you hate or eat nothing at all.

I wanted to see some latent pain.  There has to still be some pain!  Some regret!  Something that is still just a little bit raw.

Just because we are not engaging in our negative behavior of choice, “recovered” does not mean “reprieved”.

I do not believe that ‘treatment’ ever ends.  It may morph and take shape as something entirely different from your original treatment plan, but whether it is a solitary or group effort, ‘treatment’ is always present in the life of a recovered person.  Your ‘treatment’ post-recovery might not be my ‘treatment’, but we’re still undergoing ‘treatment’, just the same.

I’m not hating on you, Jenni Schaefer.  On the contrary, I’m incredibly proud of you and I find you to be an amazing and inspiring person.  I just want to know how to get rid of my “recovered” and trade it in for a little bit of yours instead.

Yours seems much easier.  But maybe an editor could make mine seem easy too.

Update:

Although I don’t dispute Jenni’s “happy-go-luckiness”, I just have a hard time identifying with the fact that she doesn’t face serious struggles related to her body image and her “recovered” status.  I, too, am a very happy person, and I can easily live my life for the most part without eating-disordered thoughts nagging at me.

For the most part.

I just wanted to hear a more candid account of the times when she also faces these challenges.  I was looking for something in this book that I didn’t find, and that’s not the fault of the author.  I just need to find a book that I can better relate to.

Just for the record, I am going to Jenni’s book signing and lecture about “Goodbye ED, Hello Me” at the end of October.  I don’t doubt that she will be every bit as wonderful and lovely in person as she seems in the book.  My review was not meant to discredit her books in any way, because I’m sure that they have helped countless people in their fight against ED.

The book just wasn’t what I needed, and that’s OK.  I’m sure she’d understand.

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Why do I keep these things off of Jogger’s Life?

Truthfully, there is no other place that I’m venting these issues, other than in my own personal journal.  Letters To My Body is not set up as a place for me to personally blog about these things–it is a place that I’ve specifically set up for others.

The fact that I am a recovered bulimic is a very real and alive part of myself.  To ignore the fact that I face issues on a daily basis where this is concerned makes me feel like I’m sort of being a sham.

And, it bothers me.

So, I’m not going to let it bother me anymore.  I’m just going to put it all out there, and hopefully all of you will follow along with me still.  There are things that I either feel very strongly about or I’ve had to deal with over the past year, but haven’t been voicing them.  It’s really my own fault…I just don’t  want to alienate anyone.

But, I gotta keep it real, and I have to go with my gut.  In an effort to metaphorically purge these thoughts from my mind…

Top 10 list of things that I’ve wanted to tell you, but haven’t:

1. I’m terrified of the weight that I’ll gain when I become pregnant (my stomach actually just had butterflies when I typed that because it’s so scary to admit).
2. I want to get back into bodybuilding, and fulfill some of my dreams in that area, but I’m afraid that I’ll become obsessed with food and calories again.
3. I still get scared and anxious when I’m faced with a “buffet” style meal.
4. I had an anxiety attack at The Healthy Living Summit when I saw my options for Saturday’s lunch.  I felt like there was nothing I could eat, and I had that “spinning out of control” feeling that I haven’t had in ages.
5. I am not ashamed to talk to anyone about my eating disorder.  Immediately after I had the incident mentioned in #4, I sat down at a table full of strangers and proceeded to tell them about my history of eating disorders.   This probably freaked some people out, but it helped me get over the moment I had just had (when faced with the endless lunch meat options).  P.s…I hated lunch meat even before I stopped eating meat.
6. During treatment, I stopped reading all magazines.  I only recently started reading magazines again, and I don’t enjoy them now as much as I did in the past.  They have brought up a lot of concerns since I started reading them again.
7. I did not read any books specifically about eating disorders before or during my treatment.  I started reading books about eating disorders over the past 6 months.  This has been a very enlightening experience post-recovery.
8. The fact that young people are commiserating regarding eating disorders and encouraging and supporting each other to fast through Twitter breaks my heart on a daily basis.
9. I still hate my stomach, and I still compare myself to other women all the time.  I hate that fact.
10. I am happy to have stopped the negative behaviors that I was practicing related to my eating disorder, but sometimes I miss the “feeling” of losing weight.

There.  It’s all out.  This commences my blogging purge.

You can all proceed to delete your subscription now!

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