Purge: Rehab Diaries by Nicole Johns

Product Details

Synopsis

Purge is a beautifully crafted memoir that has a Girl, Interrupted feel. In this raw and engaging account of her months in rehab, Nicole Johns documents her stay in a residential treatment facility for eating disorders. Her prose is lucid and vivid, as she seamlessly switches verb tenses and moves through time. She unearths several important themes: body image and sexuality, sexual assault and relationships, and the struggle to piece together one's path in life. While other books about eating disorders and treatment may sugarcoat the harsh realities of living with and recovering from an eating disorder, Purge does not hold back. The author presents an honest, detailed account of her experience with treatment, avoiding the clichéd happily-ever-after ending while still offering hope to those who struggle with eating disorders, as well as anyone who has watched a loved one fight to recover from an eating disorder. Purge sends a message: though the road may be rough, ultimately there is hope.

Kirkus Reviews

A young writer recounts the trials and treatment of her eating disorder. Midway through graduate school, 22-year-old Johns checked herself into the Wisconsin Eating Disorders Center, where she would spend 88 days trying to break the self-destructive regimen of restricting and purging that had plagued her since age 13. The memoir tracks her time at the EDC and the many harrowing experiences that led her there. Since she technically wasn't underweight or morbidly obese, and still menstruated, the 130-pound Johns was diagnosed with EDNOS, or an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, what she terms an "island between anorexia and bulimia, a no-man's-land that borrows from both diagnoses." Years of limiting herself to 500 calories per day and compensating when her intake exceeded that by popping diet pills, chugging Diet Coke, purging and frantically exercising when overwhelmed all resulted in Johns developing multiple health problems, including severe heart irregularities. The author often narrates in present tense and occasionally second person to mimic the compulsive urgency of her fraught state of being: "There is no way out, so you binge on and purge an entire tube of Pillsbury rolls (half-cooked-you are too impatient to wait for them to bake), an entire box of chocolate Malt-O-Meal, a pint of Godiva ice cream, and a mug of chai tea." Spare and unyielding, Johns's prose distills the pain of her self-loathing while objectively charting the efforts of the center's staff to help her and her fellow "Sisterhood of the Starving" curb and, hopefully, overcome such frenetic tendencies. A revealing glimpse into the trauma wrought by eating disorders-especially important for the afflicted andthose who care for them.

Biography

Nicole Johns received her MFA from the University of Minnesota and a BA in English from Penn State University-Erie. Her eating disorder developed in high school and worsened in college. The summer after starting the MFA program, Nicole spent three months in treatment for her eating disorder. Nicole currently lives in Minneapolis with her fiancé, Brady Johnson. She has been in recovery from her eating disorder since 2005.