An abusive boyfriend that lives inside your mind

A friend lent this book about eating disorders to me so I could better understand certain aspects of her struggle with food and body image. While 100 Questions & Answers About Eating Disorders was a great generalized introduction, Life Without Ed got into the nitty-gritty of trying to escape the grasp of this mental illness. Although this is one woman’s story and it’s not going to represent every ED sufferer’s experience, I’ve been told that most would identify with at least some of Schaefer’s experience.

I’ve never read a book about illness that was formatted like this with the patient writing her experience and then having the therapist write a few sections at the end of every chapter. It was enlightening seeing both sides of the illness. Rutledge encouraged Schaefer to see and treat her eating disorder like an abusive boyfriend. That change in perspective helped her to start taking back her life.

Not going to lie, this book was difficult to get through because it’s very honest and visceral. Luckily, Schaefer wrote her experiences in short chapters so you really can read just a page or two at a time and take this book in small doses. It’s not a long book, but I’m glad I took a few months to read it. Highly recommend this one for people with eating disorders of all kinds, anyone working in the health profession (you’d be surprised about the level of ignorance among doctors and other professionals), and people like me who are close to people suffering from EDs and just want to be supportive/understand.