Nervosa

It's remarkable when someone reaches into their own life to tell a story that has more than a hint of darkness, when her recovery is open to question, and she is trying to show where the toxic places in her life were and still are. Hayley Gold's Nervosa is a story that does just that. And It's told without fear or favor. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder. It's a fear of losing control, manifested in a distorted relationship with food. It's a puzzle for doctors, psychiatrists, parents and the (mostly) young women whose lives are touched by it. Current stats say that roughly 24 million people in the United States suffer from an eating disorder and the number has been growing every year for years on end. Hayley Gold knows this world and the people on all sides of the problem. In Nervosa she offers a powerful story of one young woman's experience. In a richly textured tale of one life touched by this disorder, Hayley offers not only the pain beneath this problem but a critique of how the medical system mistreats young women, and how their lives and their needs are distorted and destroyed by both the system and the disorder.