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Paperback
Publisher: iUniverse Star
“Having read many books on eating disorders, I am always inspired by ones that are written from a personal perspective. Learning To Be Me is so honest and bravely written. It offers readers immense hope, and I am already recommending it to some of my clients.” —Andrea Wachter, coauthor of The Don’t Diet, Live-It! Workbook Many women in the United States who suffer from eating disorders die from the diseases annually. Learning To Be Me: My Twenty-Three-Year Battle with Bulimia is one woman’s courageous battle to not become a statistic. From violent self-abuse to feelings of despair as her cries for help went unanswered, author Jocelyn Golden’s Learning To Be Me chronicles her battle and ultimate victory over one of the most silent, misunderstood, and deadly eating disorders in America. With candor and wit, Golden recounts the miserable realities of living with bulimia for more than two decades and paints a vivid self-portrait of a woman obsessed with being thin. An inspirational memoir about the search for strength, motivation, and support, Learning To Be Me illustrates the importance of self-love on the journey to healing.
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| An insightful and honest look into life with an eating disorder |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This book is probably my favorite eating disorder memoir I've read (and I've read quite a few). I really felt like this book was written from a place of recovery. Instead of getting the sense of "look how sick I was!" (as I have gotten from many other memoirs), Golden seemed to genuinely want to help others recover. She even includes a list of alternatives to binging near the end of the book. I very impressed with the insight she she had gained from her hard work in therapy, and from the very beginning of the book, she intertwines her retrospective understanding of why she needed to engage in those behaviors with how she felt at the time. And her honesty and openness is amazing! I would recommend this book to both those struggling with and those in recovery from bulimia, as well as their friends and family.
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| Inspiring story. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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For those of us ladies who have any sort of eating issue, from selective eating, to full out disorders... this is a great story and would inspire anybody who would read it with an open heart and mind.
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| Intimate insight into a real-life experience. A touching read! |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Unlike other self-help eating disorder books, this book is an incredibly honest insight, sparing no details on the reality of bulimia. It provides an intimate understanding behind the emotional mental and physical causes of this powerful mind disease. A must read for any young woman, mother or sister!
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| Did I read a different book? |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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I was influenced by the overwhelming positive reviews of the book so I decided to see what this book was about myself. After reading the book I disagree with the majority of the reviewers (who may have been swayed by the fact they felt a personal connection to the reader). It must be noted that I personally do not suffer from an eating disorder but I read the book in hopes of helping me to understand what it is like to suffer from one. While the author does her fair share recounting her experience with bulimia it is poorly written (it almost reads like a first-person narrative by a teenager with simple sentences and limited vocabulary) and cumbersome to get through at times. A previous reviewer mentioned that s/he felt like s/he was reading an unedited copy of the book and I echo this sentiment. Golden's story while appropriately deserving of empathy lacks depth and insight and somewhat rambles on in a disorganized fashion. In any event, the book starts to get better at about the middle when she starts to go into detail about her binges and purges and the reality of her behavior sets in. As many others have mentioned she does not go into much detail about the recovery process because the book was written during the time she was recovering. Also, while this is somewhat minor, the titles of her chapters have little relevance to the content of the chapters and come across as being kitschy (e.g., "My Blanket of Shadows", "Home Sweet Hurt", and "From a Whisper to a Silent Scream").
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| Learning to Be Me: My Twenty-Three-Year Battle with Bulimia |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Learning to Be Me: My Twenty-Three-Year Battle with Bulimia
Jocelyn Golden did a great job writing this book. It really was one of the best I've read on bulimia. The main character is trapped in a house with people who are supposed to love and comfort her but are incredibly and selfishly indifferent to her yet intolerably critical. Overcoming such odds really is remarkable and stands as an example for others. I highly recommend this book.
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