Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women PDF
Preview Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women
L Y I N G I N W E I G H T The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women T RI SH A GU R A For Elizabeth May she grow up wiser CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v INTRODUCTION • Confidences and Lies vii 1 • Chronicity The Myth of Recovery 1 2 • Adolescence Girls in Women’s Clothing: Eating Disorders Stunt Psychological Development 24 3 • Young Adulthood She, He, and It: A Lover’s Triangle 61 4 • Pregnancy An Oasis in an Eating-Disordered Life 98 iv Contents 5 • Parenting Years A Kind of Sibling Rivalry: When the Eating Disorder Competes with Children 136 6 • Midlife Eating Disorders: Millstones or Stepping-stones? 188 7 • Late Life NeverToo Oldto Be TooThin 225 8 • Healing The Ongoing Chapter in an Eating-Disordered Life 258 APPENDIX 1 • Helpful Organizations 307 APPENDIX 2 • Directory of Treatment Facilities 309 APPENDIX 3 • The Clinical Definitions of Eating Disorders 315 NOTES 319 BIBLIOGRAPHY 351 INDEX 353 ABOUT THE AUTHOR CREDITS COVER COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS M y editor, Gail Winston, has supported this book beyond her call of duty. Her insights, persistence, and attention have both inspired the writing and struc- tured it. My agent, Lisa Bankoff, at International Creative Manage- ment, is another master of her craft. She first understood the potential of the book, and then painstakingly fine-tuned the proposal, finding its “right fit.” I thank Hannah Cohen-Cline, who, while a student at Brandeis University, researched, copyedited, fact-checked, and offered in- sights well beyond any women of her age and experience. For edit- ing and proofreading, I thank Joe and Mary Chadbourne, striking in their eye for detail and helpful in their suggestions. Thanks also to Jennifer Angelo, who read and commented on one of the first at- tempts at a chapter. There were many people who graciously and generously offered me their time and expertise with eating disorders: special thanks to Lynn Grefe, Joanna Poppink, Katherine Zerbe, Seda Ebrahimi, Mary Boggiano, Jeannie Rust, Shan Guisinger, Lucene Wisniewski, Suja Srikameswaran, James Hudson, David Herzog, Chris Fair- burn, Edward Cumella, Jim Schettler, Tacie Vergara, and the staffs at Remuda Ranch, the Renfrew Center, and Mirasol. vi Ack nowledgments I wish to express my deep gratitude to my colleagues at Brandeis University. I have never experienced a group quite like them. In fact, I could not imagine having written this book without the support of our Gender, Science, and Sexuality group. Thank you, Brigette Sheridan, Mara Amster, Christine Cooper, Nick Danforth, Nurit Eini-Pindyck, Claudia Stevens, Lisa Fishbayn, Ruth Nemzoff, and Linda Andrist. And thank you, Anne Gottlieb, for your artistic di- rection, which ultimately inspired the last chapter. I thank my dear friend Sharon Schnall, who supported me in so many ways: reading one of the first drafts—and also one of the last—and, in the middle, offering ideas, hand-holding, journalism war stories, and anecdotal humor. My thanks to Lauren Slater for the coffee meeting that started this whole process. And to my spe- cial friend Amy Caldwell, senior editor at Beacon Press, who walked me through the process of writing a book step-by-step, making me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Tom Lavin offered me his steadfast personal and professional support; it is a gift that I deeply cherish. My dearest appreciation goes to Steve Traina for his intimate participation in this journey—through the best moments, and the worst. And to my daughter, Elizabeth, who watched, listened, ques- tioned, learned, and loved her mother as she embarked on one of the most exciting ventures in her life. And finally, I cannot express enough appreciation for the women and men who offered me their stories so as to help others. I hold each in a special place in my heart, for each touched me person- ally. I name you all throughout the book. Though some of you are named under pseudonyms, you know who you are. And now we, the recipients of your stories, know a little more as well. Thank you for the gift of yourselves. INTRODUCTION Confidences and Lies O ne winter morning, I met my friend Lauren in a café near the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ogy in Boston. We had gotten to know each other during a yearlong science journalism fellowship at MIT and Harvard. This particular morning, we were luxuriating in the absence of deadlines and brainstorming new writing projects. A blizzard whistled down Main Street and rattled the doors to our pasts. As we clutched our mugs, sank into upholstery, and sniffed the aroma of java, we began to confide secrets, the kind that only a storm outside and warmth within could lay bare. Lauren told me that she had grappled with an eating disorder as a teenager. She had recovered, but it had sprung up again after her first pregnancy. She would tell her husband that she was going to the grocery store late at night. There, she would buy bags of junk food, gorge in her car, and then make herself throw up in the park- ing lot. This went on for two years; she was so embarrassed that she had not gotten over bulimia by the age of 36 that she had lied to her husband and, in fact, had written a book about lying. My mouth dropped open. viii Introduction “I had an eating disorder, too,” I said. “Anorexia.” I used the word “had” instead of “have” because, with years of therapy, I had recovered and gone on with life. After my pregnancy, I had done nothing like vomiting up cream-filled donuts and Bavar- ian coffee cake. For me at that moment, my eating disorder existed in the past tense. And yet I wondered if it really was past, as Lauren asked me questions: How had my life evolved as I approached 40? Did I still feel the need to control my eating? Did I like my body now? And what about my 10-year-old daughter? Did I feel like a flawed mother? At first, I answered in the detached way that I might talk about my grandmother’s cataract operation. To me, battles with food be- longed in the realm of adolescence, a sort of yellowed photo album that I, at 21, had set on the shelf. Since then, I had tackled mar- riage, infertility, pregnancy, divorce, and child rearing as a single parent. More recently, I had been watching a few gray hairs sprout, pinching the flesh around my waist, and thinking about how I would handle middle age. Yet, as I spoke about this thing that I had overcome, I knew that I was lying to myself. I did not feel liberated—not at all. It’s more like this: I have a voice in my head that whispers like a ghost. It seduces. It tells me that no one will love me if I am fat. It says that what I do is never enough. It promises that if I follow its rules, skip- ping meals, swimming extra laps, not eating this or that, avoiding meat and chicken and fish and dairy products, I will be safe. But most of the time I do not feel safe—just closed up and isolated. I have tried to ignore the voice. When I scream, “Leave me alone! Let me enjoy life without these crazy rules!” it snickers and goes into hiding. Then there is silence, and for a time, even for years, I am free. Or so I think. But I have learned over these past twenty years, since I was di- agnosed with atypical anorexia nervosa (a kind of anorexia that does not quite fit all the medical criteria), that the voice belongs to
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