TITLE: Skinny or Not Here I come
AUTHOR: Margaret Cupit-Link
GENRE: Memoir
RATING: 4 stars
I pretty well read this book in two sittings.
I will admit that I found the first part more intriguing.
Having said that, this was a great read. I appreciated the focus the author puts on her youth, demonstrating that eating disorders are not the symptom, but rather the defense mechanism, which served us well at some point in our early days.
The author actually focuses a good chunk of her youth on giving us details about her life and while there is nothing horrendous, it is also obvious that her ED started at some point in her young life. Never managing to pinpoint exactly what was making her binge/restrict. It has been said, many times, that people with ED used food as a coping mechanism for some traumas (remembered or not) and that while the ED served us well at the time, it has stopped helping and has become a painful situation that needs to be looked at with love (even if you go kicking and screaming into it).
Margaret, up to this day, would probably not be able to tell you exactly what she is eating over. She mentions, in the second part of the book, that she believes she was not addicted to the food, but rather to the dieting.
There are plenty of studies out there who agree with her - dieting is absolutely the worse thing we could do to our bodies, yet, Margarent, knowing ALL of this and even being a medical doctor, could not "stop" the overeating, the undereating and the weighing, etc.
The second part of the book is about her recovery, learning to write, cry and talk about what is hurting her. She does admit that her recovery is not consistent and that she fails at times, but she focuses a lot more on getting outside help and working on her spirituality.
She does not talk about 12 step very much, other than to say that the lessons found in 12 step can be applied to everything in life. She also talks about God and her Higher Power, which I thought was very interesting as finding a HP can be challenging. I did like her "pointers" on turning to a God of our understanding.
She does go into the religion part a little bit more than I would like, but overall, this book is motivating, honest and REAL.
I will admit that I found the first part more intriguing.
Having said that, this was a great read. I appreciated the focus the author puts on her youth, demonstrating that eating disorders are not the symptom, but rather the defense mechanism, which served us well at some point in our early days.
The author actually focuses a good chunk of her youth on giving us details about her life and while there is nothing horrendous, it is also obvious that her ED started at some point in her young life. Never managing to pinpoint exactly what was making her binge/restrict. It has been said, many times, that people with ED used food as a coping mechanism for some traumas (remembered or not) and that while the ED served us well at the time, it has stopped helping and has become a painful situation that needs to be looked at with love (even if you go kicking and screaming into it).
Margaret, up to this day, would probably not be able to tell you exactly what she is eating over. She mentions, in the second part of the book, that she believes she was not addicted to the food, but rather to the dieting.
There are plenty of studies out there who agree with her - dieting is absolutely the worse thing we could do to our bodies, yet, Margarent, knowing ALL of this and even being a medical doctor, could not "stop" the overeating, the undereating and the weighing, etc.
The second part of the book is about her recovery, learning to write, cry and talk about what is hurting her. She does admit that her recovery is not consistent and that she fails at times, but she focuses a lot more on getting outside help and working on her spirituality.
She does not talk about 12 step very much, other than to say that the lessons found in 12 step can be applied to everything in life. She also talks about God and her Higher Power, which I thought was very interesting as finding a HP can be challenging. I did like her "pointers" on turning to a God of our understanding.
She does go into the religion part a little bit more than I would like, but overall, this book is motivating, honest and REAL.
No comments:
Post a Comment