Conquering Anorexia: The Route to Recovery by Clare Lindsay. Summersdale, £9.99, pp 221. ISBN 1 84024 096 2. Rating: ★★★★
If you are in any doubt that eating disorders are serious physical and psychiatric illnesses—as opposed to the “selfish” fads of “silly” teenagers—then read this book. It is written by a former sufferer of anorexia nervosa, and I use the word “sufferer” in its true sense. Anyone who can write the following is definitely undergoing some sort of mental torture: “My life was a nightmare. If I wasn't starving, I was making myself sick. If I wasn't doing that, I was stuffing myself with laxatives and living a lie. And then there was the exercise. The stupid running all over the house like a mad person, the swimming that bored me up the wall and the sit ups that hurt so much I cried. What was I doing it all for?” This is a question that has also vexed many psychiatrists and worried friends and relatives.
Anorexia nervosa is usually associated with hopelessness and despair. But this is a hopeful book. For a start, the author gets better. By “better,” I mean better in mind as well as body. In the bad old days, before people realised that anorexia was a symptom of underlying problems, much of the treatment revolved around refeeding and reaching target weights, and paid little attention to what was going on in the mind. Thankfully, this has now changed. Discussion about food and weight issues is conspicuous by its absence. Much more helpfully, this book is an insight as to what is going on in the mind of someone with anorexia, and so is of tremendous value, not only to fellow sufferers, but also to those struggling to understand what has possessed the thoughts of their patient, relative, or friend.
According to Clare Lindsay, anorexia nervosa is mostly about the lack of self assertiveness. The real turning point for her came when she realised that she was so busy running around trying to please and be loved by everyone, that she was neglecting her own needs. For her, anorexia wasn't about food at all. It was a coping mechanism. The first step on the road to her recovery was recognising how to deal with matters assertively and here she gives some advice on how to be self assertive.
In an illness which claims the lives of 20% of those who have it, any sign of hope has to be a good thing. Self assertiveness training might just prove to be a way forward. (See p 1002.)