Product Description

"Every day, meal by meal, millions of people suffer from eating disorders. I am one of them."

Nadia Shivack was fourteen years old when she met Ed, her eating disorder. Sometimes like an alien in her body, sometimes like a lover, Ed was unpredictable and exciting, but ultimately always dangerous and destructive.

At an inpatient unit unit of a hospital where she was taken for treatment, Nadia wrote and drew on napkins after meals in order to keep the food in and calm the outrageous voices in her head. These pictures, together with others drawn on notebook paper and a variety of other surfaces, tell an unflinchingly honest story of a woman's lifelong battle with anorexia and bulimia. Raw, brave, and brilliant, Nadia's journey takes readers to the intimate corners of these misunderstood diseases. You will never think about eating disorders in the same way again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #542117 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-24
• Released on: 2007-07-24
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .48" h x 7.42" w x 9.19" l, .84 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this heartfelt, honest memoir, the author uses a graphic novel format to reveal her anguished, ongoing struggle with bulimia. Shivack's story unfolds largely through rudimentary drawings with captions and speech balloons, many created on paper napkins while she was being treated for her eating disorder. Setting the scene, the author initially depicts her rather contentious relationship with her mother, a Holocaust survivor who had very strong ideas about food, insisting that her three daughters finish everything on their dinner plates even though she herself ate only once a day (just enough to keep herself going, not a bite more). Shivack notes that her eating disorder (which she depicts as a monster named Ed) started when she began swimming competitively in high school—her coach criticized those swimmers who needed to lose weight. Feeling a part of that category, Shivack launched a regimen of binging, purging and compulsive exercising. In a poignant drawing, she likens her daily routine as a teen to a perilous climb up a steep, jagged mountain. Her dizzying downward spiral is sobering indeed, as her bulimia takes over her life and she becomes suicidal. Yet Shivack ends on a hopeful note, vowing, as an adult, to continue on her road to recovery. Statistics about eating disorders are found throughout the book, which concludes with a list of resources. Though intensely personal and—perhaps of necessity—repetitious, this harrowing chronicle may well provide support and solace to teens facing a similar crisis. Ages 12-up. (July)
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About the Author
Nadia Shivack was born in Flushing, New York, but grew up in Manhattan. She studied at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, the City College of New York, and Columbia University, where she focused on occupational therapy. She now lives in Tuscon, Arizona, where she makes jewelry, and draws and paints when she has the courage.

Nadia has just completed a program at Recovery Support Specialist Institute and plans to work in the area of mental health. She deeply believes this work will help her continue to define her own recovery and the awareness that she is far more than an eating disorder.

Nadia continues to recover with the help of her kitty, Lily, and her dog, Lucy.