Unbearable Lightness

Just as Ellen DeGeneres states in the epilogue of Unbearable Lightness, Portia de Rossi was crazy. She was hands down batty and out of her mind, all the while portraying the epitome of control on TV as Ally McBeal's Nelle Porter.

Portia de Rossi is reportedly 5'7", and when she reached rock bottom she weighed 82 pounds. She reached that rock bottom after approximately fourteen years of starvation, bingeing and purging - with the latter years hovering in complete starvation mode.

Compulsive exercise, reclusive behavior and the severe effects of starvation began to take a toll on her mind, as well as all of her relationships with outsiders which were tenuous at best. She lost all perception of reality and thus retreated into her own deep private hell.

Then she made the reluctant decision to crawl out.

While whiney and overly self-loathing at times, I mostly sympathized with de Rossi as I followed her life of disordered eating. Most of the negative reviews I've read were likely penned by persons who've never been touched by an eating disorder - never had one or loved someone suffering from one. Eating disorders are never simple, and they're most often not taken on consciously.

When I presented a study on the presence of anorexia/bulimia on the internet while at graduate school, I was confronted with a few students who asked me, "But isn't it a choice? You could've just stopped. Seems more like a cry for attention or an act of rebellion."

I'm sure there are cases of the aforementioned in eating disorder history, but I strongly believe that those cases are very few and far between.

Of course anyone who knows who Portia de Rossi is knows that she is now married to Ellen DeGeneres. By revealing her true sexuality, I think de Rossi has finally let go of a great deal of her inner-hatred and come to peace with herself and her body.

I've never been a fan or non-fan of Portia de Rossi. I watched Ally McBeal for at least the first three seasons and enjoyed it - mainly because I found Lucy Liu hilarious. I have never judged anyone for their sexual preference. None of those things had anything to do with my enjoyment or lack thereof in reading this book. It's just a powerful story about loss, despair and ultimately triumph.