| CELEBRITY GOSSIP AND TRENDS IN WEIGHT LOSS... |
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People.com) -- Portia de Rossi is ready to share her story.
The Australian-born star, best known for her roles in "Ally McBeal," "Arrested Development" and most
recently "Better Off Ted," has signed a deal with Atria Books to publish a book chronicling her years of
battling anorexia and bulimia in the public eye.
The book also will delve into de Rossi's newfound health and happiness after coming out as a lesbian and
marrying Ellen DeGeneres in August 2008.
Getting married "completely changed my life," de Rossi told PEOPLE last year. "It's so important to live an
honest, open life and I didn't really realize that until I started doing it."
Atria plans to publish the book this fall.
Anyway, Portia De Rossi is coming out with her story and of course she will be discussing her
eating disorders... But is it on the cover of all the magazines as it would be in 2006, 2007 and in
2008! No it isn't in 2009 they started photoshopping everyone! Every celebrity looked basically
perfect and that meant not to skinny and of course not overweight at all. Even the overweight
celebrities have been coveted for their bodies due to the luxury of photoshopping. Anyway, on this
page has some Ana< Ed quotes and photos,
The Australian-born star, best known for her roles in "Ally McBeal," "Arrested Development" and most
recently "Better Off Ted," has signed a deal with Atria Books to publish a book chronicling her years of
battling anorexia and bulimia in the public eye.
The book also will delve into de Rossi's newfound health and happiness after coming out as a lesbian and
marrying Ellen DeGeneres in August 2008.
Getting married "completely changed my life," de Rossi told PEOPLE last year. "It's so important to live an
honest, open life and I didn't really realize that until I started doing it."
Atria plans to publish the book this fall.
Anyway, Portia De Rossi is coming out with her story and of course she will be discussing her
eating disorders... But is it on the cover of all the magazines as it would be in 2006, 2007 and in
2008! No it isn't in 2009 they started photoshopping everyone! Every celebrity looked basically
perfect and that meant not to skinny and of course not overweight at all. Even the overweight
celebrities have been coveted for their bodies due to the luxury of photoshopping. Anyway, on this
page has some Ana< Ed quotes and photos,
These are some quotes that I find particuarly inspiring...
"I had a hole in my heart, so I threw away my plate, because nothing filled me up, no
matter what I ate."
"Fasting is a medicine" - St. John
"Self control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive" - George Bernard
Shaw
Nothing tastes as good as thin feels
"In eating a third of the stomach should be filled with food, a third with drink and the rest
left empty" - Talmud
"I saw few die of hunger, of eating 100,000" - Benjamin Franklin
In the body, as in sculpture, perfection is not attained when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
"In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat twice as much as nature
requires" - Benjamin Franklin
"Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for the market"
"Three good meals a day is bad living" - Benjamin Franklin
How many pounds till I am happy?
How many pounds till I get thin?
Three more pounds till I am skinny
Three more pounds and I win!
I do eat normally - only what is needed for survival. I can't help that we live in a piggish
society where gluttony is the norm and everyone else is constantly stuffing themselves.
"through prayer, fasting and meditation I will drop below 100 pounds, the dreaded three
digits. I want to be 99 or nothing. want. did I say want? I shouldn't say want. I shouldn't say
shouldn't. you're confused?... I'm trying to eliminate my ego but that action is ego itself. all
action is ego. are you following me? I'm not here with my mirror and scale for the good of
my health." - 'Tis by Frank McCourt
"I want a body with sharp edges" I say after a while, because she won't let me wriggle out
of an answer.
"Sometimes I am hungry. I'm always hungry. But when I don't eat I feel good. Pure. I feel
empty and it's wonderful. I feel so powerful. Like I could fly."
I feel bloated, huge, disgusting, ugly, a monstrous lumbering sow of a woman, a greedy
revolting red-faced creature, and every bite, I feel myself swelling, I'm punished for
breaking the first commandment, don't eat more than a small bird because it's unladylike
and you'll get fat and no one will like you, but it's too late, I can feel the sharpness of my
cheekbones sinking, swamped under spongy bulges of flesh, my thighs spreading like
warm lard
and sticking together, so it's much safer not to eat.
What I wouldn't do to be Alice climbing through the looking glass, taking one of those
pills that makes you small, so small. What I wouldn't do to be less
"I had a hole in my heart, so I threw away my plate, because nothing filled me up, no
matter what I ate."
"Fasting is a medicine" - St. John
"Self control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive" - George Bernard
Shaw
Nothing tastes as good as thin feels
"In eating a third of the stomach should be filled with food, a third with drink and the rest
left empty" - Talmud
"I saw few die of hunger, of eating 100,000" - Benjamin Franklin
In the body, as in sculpture, perfection is not attained when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
"In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat twice as much as nature
requires" - Benjamin Franklin
"Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for the market"
"Three good meals a day is bad living" - Benjamin Franklin
How many pounds till I am happy?
How many pounds till I get thin?
Three more pounds till I am skinny
Three more pounds and I win!
I do eat normally - only what is needed for survival. I can't help that we live in a piggish
society where gluttony is the norm and everyone else is constantly stuffing themselves.
"through prayer, fasting and meditation I will drop below 100 pounds, the dreaded three
digits. I want to be 99 or nothing. want. did I say want? I shouldn't say want. I shouldn't say
shouldn't. you're confused?... I'm trying to eliminate my ego but that action is ego itself. all
action is ego. are you following me? I'm not here with my mirror and scale for the good of
my health." - 'Tis by Frank McCourt
"I want a body with sharp edges" I say after a while, because she won't let me wriggle out
of an answer.
"Sometimes I am hungry. I'm always hungry. But when I don't eat I feel good. Pure. I feel
empty and it's wonderful. I feel so powerful. Like I could fly."
I feel bloated, huge, disgusting, ugly, a monstrous lumbering sow of a woman, a greedy
revolting red-faced creature, and every bite, I feel myself swelling, I'm punished for
breaking the first commandment, don't eat more than a small bird because it's unladylike
and you'll get fat and no one will like you, but it's too late, I can feel the sharpness of my
cheekbones sinking, swamped under spongy bulges of flesh, my thighs spreading like
warm lard
and sticking together, so it's much safer not to eat.
What I wouldn't do to be Alice climbing through the looking glass, taking one of those
pills that makes you small, so small. What I wouldn't do to be less
Ana's Song - Silverchair Please die Ana For as long as you're here we're not You make the sound of laughter and sharpened nails seem softer And I need you now somehow And I need you now somehow Open fire on the needs designed On my knees for you Open fire on my knees desires What I need from you Imagine pageant In my head the flesh seems thicker Sandpaper tears corrode the film And I need you now somehow And I need you now somehow Open fire on the needs designed On my knees for you Open fire on my knees desires What I need from you And you're my obsession I love you to the bones And Ana wrecks your life Like an Anorexia life Open fire on the needs designed On my knees for you Open fire on my knees desires What I need from you Open fire on the needs designed Open fire on my knees desires On my knees for you Paper Bag - Fiona Apple I was staring at the sky, just looking for a star To pray on, or wish on, or something like that I was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy Whose reality I knew, was a hopeless to be had But then the dove of hope began its downward slope And I believed for a moment that my chances Were approaching to be grabbed But as it came down near, so did a weary tear I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills 'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love And I went crazy again today, looking for a strand to climb Looking for a little hope Baby said he couldn't stay, wouldn't put his lips to mine, And a fail to kiss is a fail to cope I said, 'Honey, I don't feel so good, don't feel justified Come on put a little love here in my void,' he said 'It's all in your head,' and I said, 'So's everything' But he didn't get it I thought he was a man But he was just a little boy Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills 'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills 'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love She's Falling Apart - Lisa Loeb They pull up their chairs to the table She stares at the food on her plate At the toast and the butter Her father, her mother, she pushes away And they rise in the morning And they sleep in the dark And even though nobody's looking She's falling apart She gets home from school too early And closes the door to her room There's nothing inside her She's weak and she's tired of feeling like this And they rise in the morning And they sleep in the dark And even though nobody's looking She's falling apart They call her for dinner, she makes up a reason She looks at her arms and she rolls down her sleeves And her mother is starting to see through her lies And last night her father had tears in his eyes And they rise in the morning And they sleep in the dark And even though nobody's looking She's falling apart And we rise in the morning And we sleep in the dark And even though nobody's looking She's falling apart Messiah - Anorexia Nervosa Time of puberty Age of quandary Sorrow and worries Disagreement Predicament I enigmatize Weakness overcomes my body, my brain's so empty I lose my appetite, day in day out My body's deeply marked, I'm undernourished Mental changes, my mind is splitting Inferiority complexes, time to confess Pride and power, is giving me the hunger Depression and apathy, is changing my spirit Time to go hungry It gives me great joy Pleasure and satisfaction To fight against My hunger pangs Gives me pride Feeling of sheer terror To see me in the mirror I could be so fat Every pound I lose Helps me on the course To my sheer perfection I don't realize how bad my body's feeling My eyes see only my perfect slim body But really I'm a half-starved skeleton Lucy at the Gym - Jill Sobule Lucy at the gym She's there every time I go, and I don't go that often, so she must live at the gym I stare at her ribs they show through the spandex Her little legs are working, she's going somewhere She's climbing up the stairs And when she reaches the top her dreams will be there Lucy at the gym Lucy on the scale for the third time Thru thick and thin, Lucy's at the gym She's staring at the clock and like the 2nd hand she never stops She's Lucy at the gym When she takes a shower, after all the hours Does she have a place to go Is there someone waiting Or is Lucy all alone I'm at the gym and Lucy's not there It's got me kinda worried so I imagine the worst She's made it up to heaven And when she met her maker, he said "come right in" "I'll show you around the gym" "Everyone's beautiful and thin" "And here there's no sin, and your life can begin Lucy at the gym" Big Isn't Beautiful - King Andora I want your heart-shaped lips, lips, Cooler hula hips, I want to feel my bones on your bones, yeah, I wear my heartache at my sleeve, I love myself too much to see, It haunts my dreams, It haunts my every dream, Every boy wants a body to die for and, Every girl who's thin is his rival, I wish I had a body to die for, Skinny is sexy, Big isn't beautiful.... I'm gonna shed me some skin, Get me real, real slim, I want to feel my bones on your bones, baby, I am a teenage drama queen, I throw my guts up for self-esteem, It haunts my dreams, It haunts my every dream, Every boy wants a body to die for, And every girl who's thin is his rival, I wish I had a body to die for, Skinny is sexy, Big isn't beautiful, Ohh, ohh, ohh, Every boy wants a body to die for and, Every girl who's thin is his rival, I wish I had a a body to die for, Skinny is sexy, Sweet anorexia, Skinny is sexy, Big isn't beautiful.... |
BOOKS:
Second Star to The Right, by Deborah Hautzig
This is one of my favorites, particularly because I can relate to some aspects of the main
character, Leslie. She comes from a good home and has stable and loving parents. Yet she
still has problems with herself. I'm the same way. I recommend this book, it's a quick read and
very good. Here's some passages I enjoyed most...
"Things don't just happen the way they do in movies, with clear-cut reasons. If my parents had
deserted me or beaten me up of if I'd been deprived in some visible way, I could say 'See?
This is why.' Even if it weren't the whole truth, it would look and sound legitimate. But I can't
say any of those things."
"You can learn to love anything, I think, if you need to badly enough. I trained myself to enjoy
feeling hungry. If my stomach contracts, or I wake up feeling nauseated, or I'm light-headed, or
I have a hunger headache, or better yet, all of the above, it means I'm getting thinner. So it
feels good. I feel strong, on top of myself. In control. Thanks to the dictator [...] It was as
though this person, this dictator, had taken up residence inside me to keep me in line. It
wasn't simply that I chose not to eat. I was forbidden to. Even thinking about eating forbidden
foods brought punishment. It's so hard to explain. It was like an iron wall would drop, barring
me from even looking and smashing me for trying. 'How dare you,' this voice inside me would
say, 'You greedy pig!' And I was grateful to have someone looking out for me-- a kind of savior
keeping me from being weak, and fat, keeping me from hurting. Making me respect myself.
Hunger, I thought, is a minuscule price to pay. To be thin no price is too high. The sky's the
limit."
The Hanged Man, by Francesca Lia Block
This book is really not about anorexia in the same way the other books I have on this page are.
The main character makes references to suffering from anorexia, but the book itself isn't
about her struggle with it. It's kind of a weird story that's more reminiscent of a film you'd see
on the Independent Film Channel or something. Nonetheless, I recommend giving it a try
because it is a very interesting style of writing and one of my favorite books. And there are, of
course, some really good quotes...
"I feel like Hansel and Gretel. Didn't the witch stuff them in the oven? But I won't eat all that
candy Hansel and Gretel ate. I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light.
Music. I move my hands over my body- my shoulders, collar bone, my rib cage, my hip bones
like part of an animal skull, my small thighs. In the mirror my face is pale and my eyes look
bruised. My hair is pale and thin and the light comes through. I could be a lot younger than
seventeen, I could be a child still, untouched." (14)
"Claudia buys a piece of pizza. The rich smell of scalding cheese. 'You should eat,' she says.
But I don't take a bite." (18)
"'You've just got to cool out. And eat. Look how skinny you are. They say when your body's
under stress, your period's the first thing to go. We should get out of here. Go to Italy or
something. The sexiest men in the world. Gods, I'm serious. And they've got that art. Boticelli
and everything. We'd fatten you up on loads of pasta and wine. What are you afraid of anyway?'
I think of women with fat clotted at their bellies, thighs, buttocks. Hemorrhaging blood. But I
won't tell Claudia. I think of fairies without breasts and they're floating.." (53)
"Have you ever had the sensation of losing flesh? You begin to feel the bones of your
skeleton under your flesh. Bones of the shoulders. Bones of the rib cage. Bones of the hips. It
is like finding a new being, one free of desire, free of time, almost." (95)
"I hear horror stories about girls who don't eat- how their hair turns white and their gums
bleed. But I feel beautiful, perfect. I am all pale bone, and bone-pale flesh and pale hair and I
am light. I am like some fairy thing. I dream about fairies dancing around the house with their
rib cages showing like baskets under their flesh. I could drift up and away from here. I am so
light. Bound by nothing. Not even time. And I am pure now." (96)
Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher
This book is really well written. The author is the main character and the story is essentially an
autobiography. She gives a lot of insight into what it's like to be truly anorexic..
"That night, while my father is cooking dinner, I lean against his knees and announce, I'm not
hungry. I'm on a diet. My father laughs. Feet dangling from my chair at the table, I stare at the
food, push it around, glance surreptitiously at my mother's plate, her nervous little bites. The
way she leans back in her chair, setting down her fork to gesture rapidly with her hands as
she speaks. My father, bent over his plate, eating in huge bites. My mother shoves her dinner
away, precisely half eaten. My father tells her she wastes food, that he hates the way she
always wastes food. My mother snaps back defensively, I'm full, dear. Glares. I push my plate
away, say loudly, I'm full. And all eyes turn on me. Come on, Piglet, says my mother. A few more
bites. Two more, she says. Three, says my father. They glare at each other. I eat a pea." (11-12)
"I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I
craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break. Even now, when
people lean down to touch me, or hug me, or put a hand on my shoulder, I hold my breath. I
turn my face. I want to cry." (pg. 14)
"The shrinks scrawl these words on their notepads: Magical thinking. Their books call it "a
disposition to regard the metaphoric as the concrete" and "to attribute primitive magical
powers" to objects. One might, for example, attribute magical powers to food. For example, if I
am three years old and standing on a chair making myself an apple sandwich, and if I eat this
apple in precisely twenty bites, no more no less, then I will be happy. If I eat it in more than
twenty bites, I will be sad. If I am nineteen years old, sixty pounds, and eating a carton of
yogurt a day, and it takes me precisely two hours to eat this carton of yogurt, and I smoke a
cigarette every fifteen minutes to prove that I can stop eating, then I will be safe, retaining my
dictorial grip on my body, my life, my world." (20)
"I got new school clothes. I did not wear slim-sized jeans, I wore "regulars," and my cousin,
whom I trotted after like a puppy and whom I aspired to emulate in all ways, wore "slims," a fact
that was, as I recall, discussed at length between my mother and aunt. I developed a deep,
abiding fear of jeans, which I still have. I hold my breath and shut my eyes when I pull on a pair
in the dressing room, afraid they will now, as then, get stuck at my hips, and there I will stand,
absurd, staring at the excess of hips that should, if I were a good person, be "slim." Slim is
such a strange, grinning sort of word, sliding out of the mouth, ending in the labial hum of
"immm." It's the sound of the girl in the 1980s Chic jeans commercials, slipping snakelike into
her slim chic jeans. Slimmmmmm." (38)
"Into the shower, out of the shower, climb up on the toilet with a hand mirror: look, peer,
examine, critique. Frontal view first. Legs too short, too round, thighs touch. Seventeen
magazine advises that thighs should not touch. Mine touch. I suck. It's all over. How can I hide
it? How can I stand so I'm not swaybacked? How can I curve myself inward, as if preparing to
implode? Left side: butt too round, juts out, major gross, ohmigod, the butt, the horrible butt,
the butt that is so undeniably a butt. Rear view: hips curve out from the waist. Are those
saddlebags already? Butt, the butt! Two hand spans wide. Oh, f*ck it all! Right side: the f*cking
butt! Who said I wanted a butt? Why can't I have a flat butt, the kind that seems to sink right
into the pocket of Guess jeans when the leg goes back? I don't want his thing, this round,
imperious, proud little butt." (45)
"Sitting in detention one day after school, I was reading and eating a bag of chips. The teacher
didn't know it was the first thing I'd eaten all day, and would also be the last. She didn't know I
was bulimic. She was a nice person who encouraged my writing, often calling me into her
classroom to say, in a very concerned voice, that I wasn't living up to my Potential. There was
nothing wrong with her, so I don't blame her for this. She said, wagging her finger at me as I
munched away on my bag of chips, 'A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.' I stopped
midchew. On my way out the door, I dropped my bag of chips in the garbage can, headed
straight for the bathroom, threw up in the stall farthest from the door."(62)
"And the sharp hiss of one voice that started out softly, as though below layers of moss, or
flesh, and gradually became so loud it drowned out everything else: Thinner, it said. You've
got to get thinner." (69)
"I spent my nights up late: towel pressed against the crack below the door to block the thin
knife of light, one light on the bedside table. I lay on my side on the green carpet of my
bedroom floor, in front of the mirror, watching my legs move up and down, and up and down,
in endless calisthenics, a precise number of each. Even if the muscles, weakened, began to
tremble, I kept lifting, thinking lazy bitch. Left side first, then right side, then standing, then on
my back, then on my belly. I watched each inch of my flesh as it flexed and relaxed, got lost in
the repetition, got off on the image, pictured myself smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until I
was no more than a slip of a thing. I pulled my thighs apart to see how they'd look when I got
skinny, pinched hard at the excess, tried to smother the wellspring of terror that rose in my
chest when I thought: I'm fat. If the terror would not go down, I'd promise myself: no food
tomorrow. None. That let me breathe a little easier. The punishment seemed just, seemed as if
it might make things better, more organized, the calming twist of hunger in the chest might
remind me that things were all right." (73-74)
"This is one of the terribly banal truths of eating disorders: when a woman is thin in this
culture, she proves her worth, in a way that no great accomplishment, no stellar career,
nothing at all can match. We believe she has done what centuries of collective unconscious
insist that no woman can do; control herself. A woman who can control herself is almost as
good as a man. A thin woman can Have It All." (81-82)
"When the tour was over, I flew to Seattle to meet my mother. We were visiting my alcoholic
grandfather and his alcoholic, anorexic wife. I hadn't seen either of them since I was ten years
old. In the meantime, I had, of course, gotten older, and lost my darling-girl factor. I was now
considered a threat by my stepgrandmother. She'd bought me an outfit suitable for a
ten-year-old that was too tight and made me look like a sausage. I cried and said I was fat,
alone in the guest room with my mother. My mother sniffed and told me to stop it. I saved the
outfit. I wore it almost every day in the hospital a few years later when I was seventeen, and it
hung from the bones of my shoulders and hips, bagging at the ankles and ass." (97-98)
"When you coast without eating for a significant amount of time, and you are still alive, you
begin to scoff at those fools who believe they must eat to live. It seems blatantly obvious to
you that this is not true. You get up in the morning, you do your work, you run, you do not eat,
you live." (110-111)
"A lady will eat like a bird. A lady will look like a bird, fragile boned and powerful when in flight,
lifting weightless into the air." (118)
"This pleases you, just as the small knives of pain please you when you run, the stabbing pain
of each step, just as the worried, muted words of friends please you, just as your own voice
pleases you when you say to them, I just can't stop. You've made a decision: You will not stop.
The pain is necessary, especially the pain of hunger. It reassures you that you are strong, you
can withstand anything, that you are not a slave to your body, you don't have to give in to its
whining."
"A window by the toilet, a fan, a heater, the whir and tick of which are just enough to cover the
noise. A shower. A scale. The scale is two pounds off. When you arrive, you weigh 102. You
watch the needle falter toward that number, then fall back, as if in time elapse, fall back, back,
when you step into the scale each day, ten times a day. Give or take a few. When you wake up,
when you get home from school, after you binge, after you purge, when you eat dinner, after
you throw up dinner, before you pee, after you pee, before you gulp handfuls of laxatives,
after they take their hideous affect." (162)
*more to come from this book . . .
Stick Figure, by Lori Gottlieb
This book was more shocking to me only because it was from the viewpoint of an 11 year old. It
is the year long diary of the author's bout with anorexia at the age of 11. It was most
interesting to me I think, though, because of the social commentary it offered on the society's
image of women on the whole. Being anorexic can result from so many things in one's life and
can be a very individual illness, but the push of society for women to achieve the thin ideal
only proves to exacerbate the problem and anyone who argues otherwise is either blind or
stupid. We've all fallen prey to it, I of all people would never argue otherwise. I mean, just take
a look at all the thinspiration pages I've got here on the site..
*quotes to come . . .
The Best Little Girl in the World, by Steven Levenkron
A good read. It is often acclaimed as one of the greatest novels regarding anorexia. In my
opinion it was a little too textbook and slightly pretentious. While it doesn’t read like a
textbook, the story is essentially the textbook case in terms of causes of anorexia. Some of
the explanations for the main character's illness were a little too behind the times for my taste.
But there were still some very inspirational passages nonetheless...
BELOW OLD SCHOOL THINSPIRATION.. CLICK TO ENLARGE....
Second Star to The Right, by Deborah Hautzig
This is one of my favorites, particularly because I can relate to some aspects of the main
character, Leslie. She comes from a good home and has stable and loving parents. Yet she
still has problems with herself. I'm the same way. I recommend this book, it's a quick read and
very good. Here's some passages I enjoyed most...
"Things don't just happen the way they do in movies, with clear-cut reasons. If my parents had
deserted me or beaten me up of if I'd been deprived in some visible way, I could say 'See?
This is why.' Even if it weren't the whole truth, it would look and sound legitimate. But I can't
say any of those things."
"You can learn to love anything, I think, if you need to badly enough. I trained myself to enjoy
feeling hungry. If my stomach contracts, or I wake up feeling nauseated, or I'm light-headed, or
I have a hunger headache, or better yet, all of the above, it means I'm getting thinner. So it
feels good. I feel strong, on top of myself. In control. Thanks to the dictator [...] It was as
though this person, this dictator, had taken up residence inside me to keep me in line. It
wasn't simply that I chose not to eat. I was forbidden to. Even thinking about eating forbidden
foods brought punishment. It's so hard to explain. It was like an iron wall would drop, barring
me from even looking and smashing me for trying. 'How dare you,' this voice inside me would
say, 'You greedy pig!' And I was grateful to have someone looking out for me-- a kind of savior
keeping me from being weak, and fat, keeping me from hurting. Making me respect myself.
Hunger, I thought, is a minuscule price to pay. To be thin no price is too high. The sky's the
limit."
The Hanged Man, by Francesca Lia Block
This book is really not about anorexia in the same way the other books I have on this page are.
The main character makes references to suffering from anorexia, but the book itself isn't
about her struggle with it. It's kind of a weird story that's more reminiscent of a film you'd see
on the Independent Film Channel or something. Nonetheless, I recommend giving it a try
because it is a very interesting style of writing and one of my favorite books. And there are, of
course, some really good quotes...
"I feel like Hansel and Gretel. Didn't the witch stuff them in the oven? But I won't eat all that
candy Hansel and Gretel ate. I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light.
Music. I move my hands over my body- my shoulders, collar bone, my rib cage, my hip bones
like part of an animal skull, my small thighs. In the mirror my face is pale and my eyes look
bruised. My hair is pale and thin and the light comes through. I could be a lot younger than
seventeen, I could be a child still, untouched." (14)
"Claudia buys a piece of pizza. The rich smell of scalding cheese. 'You should eat,' she says.
But I don't take a bite." (18)
"'You've just got to cool out. And eat. Look how skinny you are. They say when your body's
under stress, your period's the first thing to go. We should get out of here. Go to Italy or
something. The sexiest men in the world. Gods, I'm serious. And they've got that art. Boticelli
and everything. We'd fatten you up on loads of pasta and wine. What are you afraid of anyway?'
I think of women with fat clotted at their bellies, thighs, buttocks. Hemorrhaging blood. But I
won't tell Claudia. I think of fairies without breasts and they're floating.." (53)
"Have you ever had the sensation of losing flesh? You begin to feel the bones of your
skeleton under your flesh. Bones of the shoulders. Bones of the rib cage. Bones of the hips. It
is like finding a new being, one free of desire, free of time, almost." (95)
"I hear horror stories about girls who don't eat- how their hair turns white and their gums
bleed. But I feel beautiful, perfect. I am all pale bone, and bone-pale flesh and pale hair and I
am light. I am like some fairy thing. I dream about fairies dancing around the house with their
rib cages showing like baskets under their flesh. I could drift up and away from here. I am so
light. Bound by nothing. Not even time. And I am pure now." (96)
Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher
This book is really well written. The author is the main character and the story is essentially an
autobiography. She gives a lot of insight into what it's like to be truly anorexic..
"That night, while my father is cooking dinner, I lean against his knees and announce, I'm not
hungry. I'm on a diet. My father laughs. Feet dangling from my chair at the table, I stare at the
food, push it around, glance surreptitiously at my mother's plate, her nervous little bites. The
way she leans back in her chair, setting down her fork to gesture rapidly with her hands as
she speaks. My father, bent over his plate, eating in huge bites. My mother shoves her dinner
away, precisely half eaten. My father tells her she wastes food, that he hates the way she
always wastes food. My mother snaps back defensively, I'm full, dear. Glares. I push my plate
away, say loudly, I'm full. And all eyes turn on me. Come on, Piglet, says my mother. A few more
bites. Two more, she says. Three, says my father. They glare at each other. I eat a pea." (11-12)
"I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I
craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break. Even now, when
people lean down to touch me, or hug me, or put a hand on my shoulder, I hold my breath. I
turn my face. I want to cry." (pg. 14)
"The shrinks scrawl these words on their notepads: Magical thinking. Their books call it "a
disposition to regard the metaphoric as the concrete" and "to attribute primitive magical
powers" to objects. One might, for example, attribute magical powers to food. For example, if I
am three years old and standing on a chair making myself an apple sandwich, and if I eat this
apple in precisely twenty bites, no more no less, then I will be happy. If I eat it in more than
twenty bites, I will be sad. If I am nineteen years old, sixty pounds, and eating a carton of
yogurt a day, and it takes me precisely two hours to eat this carton of yogurt, and I smoke a
cigarette every fifteen minutes to prove that I can stop eating, then I will be safe, retaining my
dictorial grip on my body, my life, my world." (20)
"I got new school clothes. I did not wear slim-sized jeans, I wore "regulars," and my cousin,
whom I trotted after like a puppy and whom I aspired to emulate in all ways, wore "slims," a fact
that was, as I recall, discussed at length between my mother and aunt. I developed a deep,
abiding fear of jeans, which I still have. I hold my breath and shut my eyes when I pull on a pair
in the dressing room, afraid they will now, as then, get stuck at my hips, and there I will stand,
absurd, staring at the excess of hips that should, if I were a good person, be "slim." Slim is
such a strange, grinning sort of word, sliding out of the mouth, ending in the labial hum of
"immm." It's the sound of the girl in the 1980s Chic jeans commercials, slipping snakelike into
her slim chic jeans. Slimmmmmm." (38)
"Into the shower, out of the shower, climb up on the toilet with a hand mirror: look, peer,
examine, critique. Frontal view first. Legs too short, too round, thighs touch. Seventeen
magazine advises that thighs should not touch. Mine touch. I suck. It's all over. How can I hide
it? How can I stand so I'm not swaybacked? How can I curve myself inward, as if preparing to
implode? Left side: butt too round, juts out, major gross, ohmigod, the butt, the horrible butt,
the butt that is so undeniably a butt. Rear view: hips curve out from the waist. Are those
saddlebags already? Butt, the butt! Two hand spans wide. Oh, f*ck it all! Right side: the f*cking
butt! Who said I wanted a butt? Why can't I have a flat butt, the kind that seems to sink right
into the pocket of Guess jeans when the leg goes back? I don't want his thing, this round,
imperious, proud little butt." (45)
"Sitting in detention one day after school, I was reading and eating a bag of chips. The teacher
didn't know it was the first thing I'd eaten all day, and would also be the last. She didn't know I
was bulimic. She was a nice person who encouraged my writing, often calling me into her
classroom to say, in a very concerned voice, that I wasn't living up to my Potential. There was
nothing wrong with her, so I don't blame her for this. She said, wagging her finger at me as I
munched away on my bag of chips, 'A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.' I stopped
midchew. On my way out the door, I dropped my bag of chips in the garbage can, headed
straight for the bathroom, threw up in the stall farthest from the door."(62)
"And the sharp hiss of one voice that started out softly, as though below layers of moss, or
flesh, and gradually became so loud it drowned out everything else: Thinner, it said. You've
got to get thinner." (69)
"I spent my nights up late: towel pressed against the crack below the door to block the thin
knife of light, one light on the bedside table. I lay on my side on the green carpet of my
bedroom floor, in front of the mirror, watching my legs move up and down, and up and down,
in endless calisthenics, a precise number of each. Even if the muscles, weakened, began to
tremble, I kept lifting, thinking lazy bitch. Left side first, then right side, then standing, then on
my back, then on my belly. I watched each inch of my flesh as it flexed and relaxed, got lost in
the repetition, got off on the image, pictured myself smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until I
was no more than a slip of a thing. I pulled my thighs apart to see how they'd look when I got
skinny, pinched hard at the excess, tried to smother the wellspring of terror that rose in my
chest when I thought: I'm fat. If the terror would not go down, I'd promise myself: no food
tomorrow. None. That let me breathe a little easier. The punishment seemed just, seemed as if
it might make things better, more organized, the calming twist of hunger in the chest might
remind me that things were all right." (73-74)
"This is one of the terribly banal truths of eating disorders: when a woman is thin in this
culture, she proves her worth, in a way that no great accomplishment, no stellar career,
nothing at all can match. We believe she has done what centuries of collective unconscious
insist that no woman can do; control herself. A woman who can control herself is almost as
good as a man. A thin woman can Have It All." (81-82)
"When the tour was over, I flew to Seattle to meet my mother. We were visiting my alcoholic
grandfather and his alcoholic, anorexic wife. I hadn't seen either of them since I was ten years
old. In the meantime, I had, of course, gotten older, and lost my darling-girl factor. I was now
considered a threat by my stepgrandmother. She'd bought me an outfit suitable for a
ten-year-old that was too tight and made me look like a sausage. I cried and said I was fat,
alone in the guest room with my mother. My mother sniffed and told me to stop it. I saved the
outfit. I wore it almost every day in the hospital a few years later when I was seventeen, and it
hung from the bones of my shoulders and hips, bagging at the ankles and ass." (97-98)
"When you coast without eating for a significant amount of time, and you are still alive, you
begin to scoff at those fools who believe they must eat to live. It seems blatantly obvious to
you that this is not true. You get up in the morning, you do your work, you run, you do not eat,
you live." (110-111)
"A lady will eat like a bird. A lady will look like a bird, fragile boned and powerful when in flight,
lifting weightless into the air." (118)
"This pleases you, just as the small knives of pain please you when you run, the stabbing pain
of each step, just as the worried, muted words of friends please you, just as your own voice
pleases you when you say to them, I just can't stop. You've made a decision: You will not stop.
The pain is necessary, especially the pain of hunger. It reassures you that you are strong, you
can withstand anything, that you are not a slave to your body, you don't have to give in to its
whining."
"A window by the toilet, a fan, a heater, the whir and tick of which are just enough to cover the
noise. A shower. A scale. The scale is two pounds off. When you arrive, you weigh 102. You
watch the needle falter toward that number, then fall back, as if in time elapse, fall back, back,
when you step into the scale each day, ten times a day. Give or take a few. When you wake up,
when you get home from school, after you binge, after you purge, when you eat dinner, after
you throw up dinner, before you pee, after you pee, before you gulp handfuls of laxatives,
after they take their hideous affect." (162)
*more to come from this book . . .
Stick Figure, by Lori Gottlieb
This book was more shocking to me only because it was from the viewpoint of an 11 year old. It
is the year long diary of the author's bout with anorexia at the age of 11. It was most
interesting to me I think, though, because of the social commentary it offered on the society's
image of women on the whole. Being anorexic can result from so many things in one's life and
can be a very individual illness, but the push of society for women to achieve the thin ideal
only proves to exacerbate the problem and anyone who argues otherwise is either blind or
stupid. We've all fallen prey to it, I of all people would never argue otherwise. I mean, just take
a look at all the thinspiration pages I've got here on the site..
*quotes to come . . .
The Best Little Girl in the World, by Steven Levenkron
A good read. It is often acclaimed as one of the greatest novels regarding anorexia. In my
opinion it was a little too textbook and slightly pretentious. While it doesn’t read like a
textbook, the story is essentially the textbook case in terms of causes of anorexia. Some of
the explanations for the main character's illness were a little too behind the times for my taste.
But there were still some very inspirational passages nonetheless...
BELOW OLD SCHOOL THINSPIRATION.. CLICK TO ENLARGE....
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