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A review by nvmsmd
Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi
3.0
De Rossi's disorder had roots in her childhood experiences. Modelling jobs only brought her panic and a race to reduce weight abruptly using the diet her mother handed her. After shoots she would reward herself with food but later purge it, as a deadlines drew closer. Thus, began her journey of an unhealthy relationship with food and toxic notions for her own body.
By the time De Rossi was bagging substantial shoots and shows she had memorized 34 24 35 as her meant to be measurements, which she could never fit into. At the height of her career she was staring in Ally McBeal as a strong, assertive, and attractive lawyer; all the qualities she had difficulty associating herself with.
Public eye and perceived fear of scrutiny worsened De Rossi's anorexia and bulimia. She experimemted with appetite suppressant pills but later switched to chainsmoking for the same purpose. When embarking on an extreme diets, she would eat as little as 300 calories per day; but as if in a franzied trance, her starved body would eat the entire amount of whatever food sat in front of her, leading to feelings of guilt and purging. De Rossi had nightmares of consuming soft drinks and wouldn't live with another person for she desired her fridge to be bare.
In throes of these eating disorders Portia De Rossi was featured in shape magazine, a magazine which is supposed to portray persons at peak fitness. The irony isn't subtle. Her condition kept derailing; she installed treadmills at her work and home; in privacy she would lunge instead of walk. She had become delusional with fatigue and hunger, moulding and disregarding her nutritionist words to fit her standards and perceiving widespread magazine reports on her eating disorders as being laced with envy and awe.
When she couldn't move her body due to the excruciating pain in her joints, she visited a doctor. She had stopped getting her periods for more than a year, reports showed that she had osteoporosis and was misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease. It was time for Portia De Rossi to face the music.
The process of recovery was agonizing to her. She described how lying in treatment was a common custom, as there is shame involved in describing these bizarre rituals and abnormal practices. When she finally joined rehabilitation she had gained 27 pounds and believed she was too fat to be anorexic.
Despite being an intense and accurate account of her disorder, I have my issues with this book. De Rossi presents these disorders with a distinct glorification and romanticization; from calling anorexia a disorder of the highly accomplished, cultured, and beautiful people to declaring the disorder explicitly to be her first love, she sends a dangerous message to the audience, that despite these disorders almost taking her life and ruling her mind, it still lead to her reaching extreme weights, which she lovingly called poetic. Somehow De Rossi manages to pull an entirely opposite problem too, on multiple accounts De Rossi express how Bulimia is a second class disorder. These are vicious conceptions that shouldn't be churned out in a book intended for the masses.
By the time De Rossi was bagging substantial shoots and shows she had memorized 34 24 35 as her meant to be measurements, which she could never fit into. At the height of her career she was staring in Ally McBeal as a strong, assertive, and attractive lawyer; all the qualities she had difficulty associating herself with.
Public eye and perceived fear of scrutiny worsened De Rossi's anorexia and bulimia. She experimemted with appetite suppressant pills but later switched to chainsmoking for the same purpose. When embarking on an extreme diets, she would eat as little as 300 calories per day; but as if in a franzied trance, her starved body would eat the entire amount of whatever food sat in front of her, leading to feelings of guilt and purging. De Rossi had nightmares of consuming soft drinks and wouldn't live with another person for she desired her fridge to be bare.
In throes of these eating disorders Portia De Rossi was featured in shape magazine, a magazine which is supposed to portray persons at peak fitness. The irony isn't subtle. Her condition kept derailing; she installed treadmills at her work and home; in privacy she would lunge instead of walk. She had become delusional with fatigue and hunger, moulding and disregarding her nutritionist words to fit her standards and perceiving widespread magazine reports on her eating disorders as being laced with envy and awe.
When she couldn't move her body due to the excruciating pain in her joints, she visited a doctor. She had stopped getting her periods for more than a year, reports showed that she had osteoporosis and was misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease. It was time for Portia De Rossi to face the music.
The process of recovery was agonizing to her. She described how lying in treatment was a common custom, as there is shame involved in describing these bizarre rituals and abnormal practices. When she finally joined rehabilitation she had gained 27 pounds and believed she was too fat to be anorexic.
Despite being an intense and accurate account of her disorder, I have my issues with this book. De Rossi presents these disorders with a distinct glorification and romanticization; from calling anorexia a disorder of the highly accomplished, cultured, and beautiful people to declaring the disorder explicitly to be her first love, she sends a dangerous message to the audience, that despite these disorders almost taking her life and ruling her mind, it still lead to her reaching extreme weights, which she lovingly called poetic. Somehow De Rossi manages to pull an entirely opposite problem too, on multiple accounts De Rossi express how Bulimia is a second class disorder. These are vicious conceptions that shouldn't be churned out in a book intended for the masses.