Product Description

“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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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #294048 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 194 pages

About the Author
Jocelyn Golden has struggled with bulimia for more than twenty-three years. Now effectively controlling the disorder, Golden uses her experiences to educate and support other victims. She lives in Washington DC Metro.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue

What follows is the true story of my twenty-three-year battle with bulimia. From its innocuous beginnings when I was thirteen, it took me on a journey of violent self-abuse that brought me to the edge of complete self-destruction. It left me so physically damaged that I required two life-altering surgeries and, as a result, I am reminded every day of the road I have traveled. Along the way my cries for help went unheard or were misunderstood and my utter reliance on and immersion in my disease eclipsed and overshadowed everything else. It was not until nearly a quarter of a century of living every aspect of my life through this disease that I found the strength, inspiration, and support to seek the help that finally brought me into recovery and enabled me to live without my most enduring companion, bulimia.

Today I am sharing this story with you, whoever you are — sufferer, friend, family member, spouse — in the hope you can spare yourself or someone you love from taking a journey similar to mine. If I can give you or your loved one the gift of self-kindness and resisting the false promises bulimia or other eating disorders offer, then my journey will not have been in vain.

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Customer Reviews

Best Book Ever!
I have struggled with bulimia for 7 years. i am not recovered yet. But i am trying to read books to guide me through my recovery process. This book is so touching. Jocelyn is real. She openly shares her most humiliating experiences and the miricals that have helped her recover. Eating disorders are, for many of us, an outlet for expressing emotions. Suffers dont know how to express emtions in a "normal" way. We resort to controlling our eating behavior. Jocelyn's story helped me find the reasons i chose to resort to bulimia. It also gave me a a sense of courage that no other book or story has ever given. Jocelyn's story is worth reading. It can help anyone struggling. I wish I could meet this woman with such strength.

An elegant description of a non-elegant disease.
I've worked with hundreds of women suffering from bulimia at an inpatient treatment facility. This book does a very good job elegantly describing a very non-elegant disease. The author takes you through the emotional and day to day details of her bulimia from a child well into her adulthood with an important honesty and a pleasing writing style. She describes the onset subtly and poignantly and she spares no detail when writing about her lowest moments in the disorder. The ending, and her recovery, are inspiring but not sappy and unlike other books she describes the recovery process rather than glossing over it. This book is not perfect and drags at points, but the author does not let those moments last long. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about eating disorders and anyone suffering from one.

An Important Book
I read this book cover to cover in a few days because it took me on a rollercoaster ride of what an extreme eating disorder is really like and how the recovery process is so involved.

I read it because there is someone in my extended family who we suspect has an eating disorder and I want to be as informed on the subject as possible. This book made me realize that there is no time to waste - I cannot conceive of our family member going through what this author has.

All I can say is thank you for telling your story, it will help others.