Gaining: The Truth about Life after Eating Disorders
Abstract
Gaining: The Truth about Life after Eating Disorders Aimee Liu has a message that she wants to get across to people with eating disorders, their families, and the professionals who work with them: these disorders, she says, are not about weight or eating, but are serious symptoms of psychological distress. Gaining weight for anorexics and ending binge/purge cycles for bulimics are, she suggests, only the beginning of the work. Then comes the need to find out more about oneself, to appreciate one's strengths and cope with one's weaknesses, to connect to all of oneself and to others at the same time, to stop hiding and to be fully present. For Ms. Liu, the concept of “gaining” says it all: taking in and taking on all of one's personal history and individual temperament; being full, solid, vulnerable, powerful and flawed, in relation to oneself and to the people in one's life, is where eating disorders dissolve and healthy life flourishes. This is a lovely, well-written memoir, which is also obviously meant as a self-help book. Ms. Liu's story, which she has told at least partially in the past (she wrote Solitaire after the first part of her journey of