Read by Portia de Rossi
"I didn't decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy
diet, a professional attitude. Being as thin as possible was a way to make the
job of being an actress easier . . ."
Portia de Rossi weighed only 82 pounds when she collapsed on the set of the
Hollywood film in which she was playing her first leading role. This should
have been the culmination of all her years of hard work.first as a child model
in Australia, then as a cast member of one of the hottest shows on American
television. On the outside she was thin and blond, glamorous and successful.
On the inside, she was literally dying.
In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the
complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image
take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the
elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from
keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts
of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn't
enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her
body and spirit to the breaking point.
Even as she rose to fame as a cast member of the hit television shows Ally
McBeal and Arrested Development, Portia alternately starved herself and binged,
all the while terrified that the truth of her sexuality would be exposed in
the tabloids. She reveals the heartache and fear that accompany a life lived
in the closet, a sense of isolation that was only magnified by her unrelenting
desire to be ever thinner. With the storytelling skills of a great novelist and
the eye for detail of a poet, Portia makes transparent as never before the
behaviors and emotions of someone living with an eating disorder.
From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to a life of health
and honesty, falling in love with and eventually marrying Ellen DeGeneres, and
emerging as an outspoken and articulate advocate for gay rights and women's
health issues.
In this remarkable and beautifully written work, Portia shines a bright light
on a dark subject. A crucial book for all those who might sometimes feel at
war with themselves or their bodies, Unbearable Lightness is a story that
inspires hope and nourishes the spirit
Download File Size:125.79 MB
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