I do agree that hospitalization is often taken as proof of severity when that isn't always the case. I was recently threatened with eviction from my parents if I don't stop the behaviors and get better, which I understand even if I disagree with it. I'm an adult, I have a job which could support me if i dropped college and worked full time. I wouldn't want to watch my child die.

I've only been hospitalized for suicidal ideation. I've never even had a therapist who specializes in EDs, but I'm still what many would consider "severe" in terms of symptoms and BMI. We don't all have families that can afford treatment or who are completely understanding. Sometimes we need to gain weight to stay off the streets, that doesn't make us less valid than those who were never presented with such an ultimatum and could lose to near death. They yell at you and scream and get angry sometimes. How are you supposed to get help in that situation?

 

I feel similarly. From a literary standpoint alone, I found Wasted to be really insufferable, if mainly because I just couldn't get behind the common praise that it's so raw and candid.

Like sure, she's recounting things that people might be uncomfortable hearing about. Maybe you can call that candid. But what I took away from it at the end was that she was trying to write a gritty account of her experience, but subconsciously ended up with a covertly self-congratulatory piece with a Lifetime movie-worthy dramatized tone. The entire book is like the definition of narm to me. I had to read the entirety of the final "Present Day" section aloud because it was so hysterically transparent; laughed myself half to death.

She herself mentioned in an author's note that her first draft was, quote, "the most absurd, pompous, purple, self-important academic document possible", which leads me to believe that she wasn't exactly trying to write something that would glorify her issues... She was at least aware of how it was coming across. I think she simply wasn't able to repress that urge in the end despite attempts to remedy it. And I can sympathize with that, but it doesn't make it a good read.

 

I honestly couldn't get through the first few pages, it was too triggering for me. It did seem less like a warning or story of overcoming an actual illness than it did as boasting about how "sick" she was.

 

It's funny Of Herb and Altars just posted a video yesterday where she mentioned the book (she is not a fan of it). It's a great video to watch (in general I think her ED videos are some of the most relevant out there). She talks a lot about how a lot of people with ED don't feel like they deserve recovery until they reach the point of of needing a hospitality.

 

I’ve never heard of this book but I’m gonna steer clear lol

 

It's funny Of Herb and Altars just posted a video yesterday where she mentioned the book (she is not a fan of it). It's a great video to watch (in general I think her ED videos are some of the most relevant out there). She talks a lot about how a lot of people with ED don't feel like they deserve recovery until they reach the point of of needing a hospitality.

yeah i love them, also they go by he/they

 

i can't be the only one who actually liked the prose in wasted, right

i agree, it's a glorification of her eating disorder, for her it's what colors her entire life and makes it interesting and you get the sense that, in her eyes, she ceases to be herself without the disorder and she "loses" when she stops the cycle. to people who aren't disordered, i think it probably does a good job at making eating disorders seem harmful. i'm disordered and even i can read certain parts and say, holy shit, she's gone insane by this point.

but yea. it's super triggering. it's not a book for the recovering. it's a book for people who don't have eating disorders to get insight into the disorder and it's for people looking to encourage themselves to restrict. i don't know how you'd go about making sure the book doesn't "fall into the wrong hands" because i think it's a stretch to say the book is so harmful it shouldn't even exist maybe

 

I had a copy years ago but it got lent out and never returned. It’s been a while but I remember thinking it was great when I was young. I guess I’m those pre internet says you didn’t have as much access to information so it was probably the most extreme thing I’d ever read. I remember feeling empathy and sad for her as she got in more and more of a state. There is a few good bits about feminism and eating disorders which was a very current topic when it came out.

 

I actually really liked the book & I found her recovery in the end very motivating. Maybe there were times she seemed to be patting herself on the back for restricting so much & being sent to hospital, or maybe it’s just that she was being very matter-of-fact. Idk.

 

im like half a foot taller than her but part of me still feels like i need to get to 51 lbs just to "beat" her lol

 

yeah i love them, also they go by he/they

I'm sorry. I did not mean to misgender them.

 

I don’t know if any of you have read another of her books, Madness, about her later diagnosed bipolar disorder. In it she mentions her eating disorder going dormant for years and then she had a relapse in the book and got well again.

 

Once upon a time my therapist recommended that my then partner read it to understand! We broke up haha

 

Totally agree with the hospitalisation thing. I don't look skinny or sick. I came from a bmi of 54 and lost over 50% of my body weight in just a couple years. No one thinks anything of it when you have sooo much to lose. The treatment I have been to was solely my doing bc I was tired of living like this. I relapsed almost immediately afterwards. It just didn't seem like I was sick enough to really need recovery if no one even knew I was sick to begin with.

Transmission delivered from deep behind enemy lines. Encryption failed, hope the enemy can't track my location.

 

i honestly love the way marya writes and i identify very closely with a lot of her struggles. wasted is one of my favorite books, and it actually has motivated me to recover because it's made me really realize the futility and pointlessness of my illness.

that being said... it IS ridiculously triggering and i think the amount of detail she put in is so reckless and weirdly self congratulatory.

 

It's funny Of Herb and Altars just posted a video yesterday where she mentioned the book (she is not a fan of it). It's a great video to watch (in general I think her ED videos are some of the most relevant out there). She talks a lot about how a lot of people with ED don't feel like they deserve recovery until they reach the point of of needing a hospitality.

Whatever that woman says I'll believe, whatever she thinks is the truth I'm my book😂 omg, I just love her. She's so real and unfiltered with her audience. Nothing but respect.

 

This. And same with Madness (her other book)
Just felt proud of herself in a weird deprecating sort of way
Well written tho

that being said... it IS ridiculously triggering and i think the amount of detail she put in is so reckless and weirdly self congratulatory.

 

appetites by caroline knapp is my og ed book. it gets me like no other book about ed's can. its like... feeling understood for the first time. i recommend it a lot, i bought a physical copy bc i would check it out from the publibrary every month and i was like.. ok i just need to buy this lol

just get a free trial from audible and give it a try its comfy https://www.audible.com/pd/Appetites-Audiobook/B00BNGXQDS

 

Hm.
I saw the book as an accurate example of your average eating disordered person. The world of anorectics, as she describes, I find to be true, especially on here. I think Almost everyone here has or has had, in varying amounts, The navel-gazing, whiny, self-congratulatory, martyrdom-tinged-with-competitiveness attitude she talks about. U know the one. The type of attitude that makes one obsessed with literally nothing but yet it's one's entire life.

to me, That's real and I'm glad she possessed the vocabulary and skill to present nuanced info the way that she did.

she shows how childish, irrational and petty (small-minded, not necessarily "mean" petty) this disease makes ppl.

It's a snapshot of a twenty three year old woman whose brain development, personality and life were stunted and/or negatively affected by drug use, a consumptive disease and a slew of other shit a lot of people can relate to. I took her story as a cautionary tale and it encouraged me to do research, dive down deep and address my attitude toward food.

she didn't write it in a way most memoirs should be

(it didn't sound like the book met your expectations... what were you hoping to get out of reading it?)

 

.

 

We should start a 'Trigger your ED' book club

check my siggy! i have a book recommendations list thread linked in it about ed related manga and novels

 

If anyone's into documentaries she is a part of one about EDs called Perfect Illusions (you can find it on Youtube). It might be triggering to some people and the discussion at the end is baaad (the interviewer is a shit man) but its interesting to see the narratives about EDs during that era and it's a decently informative documentary.

 

Early ED I wanted to be her.
Then when my life became very similar (basically living inpatient most months of many years, physical complications, etc), I desperately wanted out.

Go figure.

 

I actually really like it. At least the beginning childhood and family experiences part- my dad was also a needy chaotic (but also abusive) psycho- and my mother an icy control freak...

Dunno so many of my early years experiences are similar to Maryas it felt validating.