Full Blue Moon Dementia

     

  I have an eating disorder. I’m bulimic, and there have been periods in my life when I have been anorexic. I have been dealing with this since early adolescence. As a result, I have a really bad case of body dysmorphia…which feeds into my low self-esteem…which adds to my social awkwardness…which ultimately led me...

    June 6, 2015 — Book Launch Party/Reading/and Conversation with James Brown. Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90069 – 5pm. June 11, 2015 — Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446 – reading with: Joanna Rakoff, Jen Grow, and Shya Scanlon – 7pm. June 15, 2015 — Outlaws and Outcasts...

       

  I was at a literary event for a friend that was promoting her just released memoir. It was a large turn out and there were a ton of writers and people that worked in the publishing industry. Off in the corner was a woman that I immediately pegged as anorexic. She was stick thin,...

    I thought I’d finally gotten my shit together when admitting nine months ago I had an eating disorder. Divulging this long kept secret, and quite publicly, was incredibly freeing. Thankfully I was not completely shunned or ridiculed as my fears had led me to believe I would be. Instead I received a ton...

    I’m at an art gallery opening. It’s a hot Friday night and the place is packed. I’ve done the required loop of the room, staring at the artwork on the walls, and now I’m over by the food, a table of crackers and cheese, crudités, and some unrecognizable meat on a stick. Not...

    The only time I have ever been happy with how much I weighed was when I was shooting heroin. I was 125 pounds and thought I looked great. I had that junkie chic thing going—that oh so appealingly attractive gaunt look that accented my cheekbones as well as my protruding ribcage. Never mind...

         

  Just in time for the holidays… Writing my first essay about bulimia wasn’t easy—not because I was new to writing about recovery but because I was new to publicly confessing to a secret I’ve kept for most of my life. Oddly it’s been tougher to deal with than my addiction to heroin. Which is...