Jimmie:
……”My in-depth research into Karen Carpenter has questioned why someone so beautiful and so unbelievably talented, with the world at her feet would self-destruct into oblivion. Now I know why and how…..
I have never read anything so harrowing, so inspirational, as what is contained in this book. I have tears running down my face. It is the most moving piece of literature I have read. She may believe she is less than stated in the book, but I can tell you first hand – it takes a very special and courageous woman, one with tremendous inner character to endure a powerful invisible foe – something unseen and totally unknown by those around her to continue battling despite tremendous setbacks. If anyone wants to know what true bravery looks like -Lily’s story would be it”.
Georgia (fellow sufferer):
Lily exposes the deadly and debilitating reality of living with an eating disorder. Her insight and self awareness provides an accurate portrayal of the insidious Illness that plagues one’s mind and body. An eating disorder is all encompassing and eats away at your self belief and capacity to function, leaving you ‘existing’ a torturous and miserable life. Lily is proof that with strength and determination, it can be beaten and one can lead a meaningful and fulfilling life, no longer dominated by a manipulative dictator.
The book is a chronology of Lily’s experience and journey to recovery. It highlights how the trajectory is not linear, and the hurdles she bravely overcame along the way. Despite suffering for 29 years and some intensely dark periods, she tenaciously fought the harrowing illness that suffocated her to the point of hospitalisation.
As well as sharing her journey through words, her book also includes a selection of powerful art work, vividly depicting the profound torment and despair she experienced. Her striking images spoke to me on a deeper level, mirroring my own conflicting and menacing thoughts and experience of living with an eating disorder for the last 24 years.
Lily’s story offers hope that recovery is entirely possible, even when in the strangling grip of a vicious eating disorder. My eating disorder renders me hopeless, desperate and isolated, merely existing in a perpetuate state of suffering and immense pain. Living in fear and often feeling as if things will never change, Lily’s story has inspired a curiosity in me to strive to make steps to challenge it. Furthermore, she instils in me the determination to have faith that I can flourish without it. She reinforces that recovery is achievable despite challenging set backs, and has nurtured my belief that I too can continue to battle towards the goal of recovery. At times, reading it was not easy, leaving me feeling very emotional due to the brutal nature of the illness and the stark depictions of how it consumed her. However, she writes eloquently and I could relate to so much of her story. A compelling read, it helped me to feel closer to Lily and understand her journey to freedom. As well as being an inspiring ally on my own journey and to others afflicted by eating disorders, her book is also a message of support and a potent tool for loved ones and carers. Her warmth and genuine desire to help others is like a warm hug.
Amanda (retired book editor and author of ‘A good year for the roses‘):
The book is an astonishingly honest, visceral and raw account of what it’s like to develop anorexia – to go through it and (unusually) to come out the other sideIts linear narrative means that the reader ‘travels’ along with the author (and is rooting for her all the way). It’s also surprisingly uplifting because it shows that anorexia does not have to be for life and this makes it the right book for people who are suffering now and feeling that there is no way out: for parents who are feeling powerless; and for professionals so that they gain a deeper understanding of just how deep-rooted are the compulsions that drive an anorexic. It also shows the power of love and what might be called ‘grace’ in effecting a cure. The illustrations are remarkable: visually stunning but giving an insight into the depths of despair and delusion that words are sometimes inadequate to describe.
Jon (retired Art Lecturer):
The conflicting duality of the human condition – that is the tensions between (or competing needs of) our physical bodies and our emotional minds – often surface most acutely in times of personal distress. And so it has been for Lily, facing the turmoil of her enduring struggle with anorexia. For although in one clear sense she knew that the doctrine of ‘eat more and exercise less’ would help restore physical equilibrium, she knew equally well that emotionally she had no choice but to continually resist. However, being able personally to understand, much less convey to others, the tragic dilemma of such inner conflicts can often be confounded and hindered by the limits of language.
When it started to become clear to her that spoken and written words on their own couldn’t, in any meaningful sense, articulate and explain this very real and potentially life threatening stand-off, she began to create her own alternative, emotive and iconic ‘visual language’ as a way of dealing with this enduring conundrum.
The images she created evolved over the years. They may be shocking and deeply unsettling at first sight, but the primary intention in creating them, I feel sure, was neither to shock nor simply to unsettle. They were and are, first and foremost, a comprehensive and eloquent vocabulary to describe and to capture the multi-dimensional essence of her personal torment; what it actually feels like to be living in a dark and controlling reality – not easily referenced or shared; its complexity rather comprehended nor easily comprehensible and indeed not often emphatically regarded.
Lily’s raw imagery is brave and relentlessly daunting; grounded in the stark reality of how it feels to be utterly and hopelessly defined by negative (or as she might see it, an aspiration for positive) self-image.
Tim:
It is a subject that people are aware of without really understanding what it means for those living with it. You brought that to life and highlighted the struggle to get the support needed.