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| How I beat anorexia by savouring the lavish meals of literature | How I beat anorexia by savouring the lavish meals of literature |
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| Laura Freeman was first diagnosed with anorexia aged 14. A decade later she had begun to rebuild her life but still struggled with her attitude to food, eating small portions of the same thing for months on end. “At 24, I’d got to the point where I was recovered enough that I could eat, but only in a very formulaic way,” she says. “I had a pretty boring diet. It was more about getting through each day.” | Laura Freeman was first diagnosed with anorexia aged 14. A decade later she had begun to rebuild her life but still struggled with her attitude to food, eating small portions of the same thing for months on end. “At 24, I’d got to the point where I was recovered enough that I could eat, but only in a very formulaic way,” she says. “I had a pretty boring diet. It was more about getting through each day.” |
| Then one day she read a passage in Siegfried Sassoon’s 1928 Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man describing “a breakfast of boiled eggs eaten in winter”. It changed everything. | Then one day she read a passage in Siegfried Sassoon’s 1928 Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man describing “a breakfast of boiled eggs eaten in winter”. It changed everything. |
| Now Freeman, a journalist and critic, has written her own memoir, The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite, detailing how books helped her to break free of the restrictions of anorexia, giving her hope in her darkest moments and allowing her to begin embracing life. | Now Freeman, a journalist and critic, has written her own memoir, The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite, detailing how books helped her to break free of the restrictions of anorexia, giving her hope in her darkest moments and allowing her to begin embracing life. |
| There was comfort in being able to think: I’m not in my sick room in London in February, I’m in Paris with Nancy Mitford | There was comfort in being able to think: I’m not in my sick room in London in February, I’m in Paris with Nancy Mitford |
| “At that time I’d established that I was all right to eat Weetabix or happy to eat pasta and tomato sauce, so I would just eat small portions of those things over and over,” Freeman, now 30, explains. “I would take cereal bars on holiday to eat in my hotel room because I was so worried about not being able to eat new types of food.” | “At that time I’d established that I was all right to eat Weetabix or happy to eat pasta and tomato sauce, so I would just eat small portions of those things over and over,” Freeman, now 30, explains. “I would take cereal bars on holiday to eat in my hotel room because I was so worried about not being able to eat new types of food.” |
| Freeman was always a voracious reader and had, even during the worst of her anorexia, used books as an escape – “there was comfort in being able to think: I’m not in my sick room in London in February, I’m in Paris with Nancy Mitford”. | Freeman was always a voracious reader and had, even during the worst of her anorexia, used books as an escape – “there was comfort in being able to think: I’m not in my sick room in London in February, I’m in Paris with Nancy Mitford”. |
| Sassoon’s vivid descriptions of eggs on buttered toast, and hot chocolate, made her think that there was “a different way of eating … one that was less mean and more adventurous”. Encouraged by this notion, she began to hunt down other authors who wrote vividly about food. | Sassoon’s vivid descriptions of eggs on buttered toast, and hot chocolate, made her think that there was “a different way of eating … one that was less mean and more adventurous”. Encouraged by this notion, she began to hunt down other authors who wrote vividly about food. |
| She fell in love with Charles Dickens’s lavish shared meals, edged towards adventurous eating, thanks to the dash and brio of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Laurie Lee – “his enthusiasm is infectious” – devoured the food writing of MFK Fisher and Elizabeth David, and tackled her mental demons with the help of Virginia Woolf’s diaries. “When I read her description of feeling very lost in her own mind, I found it a huge comfort, that sense that I was not alone.” | She fell in love with Charles Dickens’s lavish shared meals, edged towards adventurous eating, thanks to the dash and brio of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Laurie Lee – “his enthusiasm is infectious” – devoured the food writing of MFK Fisher and Elizabeth David, and tackled her mental demons with the help of Virginia Woolf’s diaries. “When I read her description of feeling very lost in her own mind, I found it a huge comfort, that sense that I was not alone.” |
| She hopes her own memoir will have a similar effect on others. “I do hope that some people who read it find it encouraging to know that they are not alone,” says Freeman. I hope they can take comfort in the idea that even when you’re in a really dark place, you can focus on one meal, one page, one step at a time.” | She hopes her own memoir will have a similar effect on others. “I do hope that some people who read it find it encouraging to know that they are not alone,” says Freeman. I hope they can take comfort in the idea that even when you’re in a really dark place, you can focus on one meal, one page, one step at a time.” |
| Freeman’s own journey was not an easy one. A “shy, precise” child who “had obsessions even when I was very small” she found the transition to secondary school difficult and took solace in trying to be “smaller, quieter, less conspicuous”. | Freeman’s own journey was not an easy one. A “shy, precise” child who “had obsessions even when I was very small” she found the transition to secondary school difficult and took solace in trying to be “smaller, quieter, less conspicuous”. |
| By the time she was 14, her anorexia had made her too ill to attend. “I was effectively put on mandatory bed leave.” Her recovery was slow and, at times, painful and The Reading Cure does not shy away from admitting that certain foods are still difficult. Not even the siren song of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat could convince her to embrace confectionery. | By the time she was 14, her anorexia had made her too ill to attend. “I was effectively put on mandatory bed leave.” Her recovery was slow and, at times, painful and The Reading Cure does not shy away from admitting that certain foods are still difficult. Not even the siren song of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat could convince her to embrace confectionery. |
| “Chocolate is a strange, stubborn thing,” she says. “It’s sold as a representation of ultimate sin and temptation, and unfortunately I think it’s rather knotted in my mind with all those ideas of badness and naughtiness. Like anyone, I have better days and worse days.” | “Chocolate is a strange, stubborn thing,” she says. “It’s sold as a representation of ultimate sin and temptation, and unfortunately I think it’s rather knotted in my mind with all those ideas of badness and naughtiness. Like anyone, I have better days and worse days.” |
| Among those worse days was a semi-lapse in 2014, when the growth of the clean-eating industry saw her tempted to place restrictions on food once again: “It did prey on all my worst fears and stir some of my former impulses,” she says. “While anorexia is a very specific and very extreme manifestation of a mental illness, there is quite a lot of eating that is, to some degree, disordered. One of the messages I would like to put across in the book is that you can eat meat and dairy and wheat and a whole variety of things and be very well.” | Among those worse days was a semi-lapse in 2014, when the growth of the clean-eating industry saw her tempted to place restrictions on food once again: “It did prey on all my worst fears and stir some of my former impulses,” she says. “While anorexia is a very specific and very extreme manifestation of a mental illness, there is quite a lot of eating that is, to some degree, disordered. One of the messages I would like to put across in the book is that you can eat meat and dairy and wheat and a whole variety of things and be very well.” |
| I really loved TH White’s The Once and Future King … In particular Merlin’s advice to his young apprentice | I really loved TH White’s The Once and Future King … In particular Merlin’s advice to his young apprentice |
| She is similarly infuriated by the selling of food perfection: “That notion that everything you eat must be perfectly cooked and organic and from a farmer’s market … That’s just not always possible. It’s nice when you can eat good food and savour it and eat widely and interestingly, but it’s also fine if sometimes all you can eat is sardines on toast.” | She is similarly infuriated by the selling of food perfection: “That notion that everything you eat must be perfectly cooked and organic and from a farmer’s market … That’s just not always possible. It’s nice when you can eat good food and savour it and eat widely and interestingly, but it’s also fine if sometimes all you can eat is sardines on toast.” |
| Her own recovery was helped by the support of her family – “my mother is very level-headed … she got a handle very quickly on the idea that the mania and fear of food was a sort of cover for something underlying that wasn’t quite right” – and later her partner Andy. “He has a lovely, optimistic attitude towards life. If you asked him would you like seconds, his response is always ‘Oh, go on then’. That’s a really good attitude to have – do you want to do this trip, go to this gallery, try this unfamiliar food? The answer should always be ‘Oh, go on then’.” | Her own recovery was helped by the support of her family – “my mother is very level-headed … she got a handle very quickly on the idea that the mania and fear of food was a sort of cover for something underlying that wasn’t quite right” – and later her partner Andy. “He has a lovely, optimistic attitude towards life. If you asked him would you like seconds, his response is always ‘Oh, go on then’. That’s a really good attitude to have – do you want to do this trip, go to this gallery, try this unfamiliar food? The answer should always be ‘Oh, go on then’.” |
| The unashamed gluttony of Laurie Lee may have altered her attitude to food – her description of a trip to Spain, during which she was finally able to try meals she would previously have rejected, are almost transcendent – but it was the advice of a very different author that lingered longest. “I really loved TH White’s The Once and Future King,” she says, “in particular, Merlin’s advice to his young apprentice, Wart, that when you’re low or sad, the thing that never fails, the thing you have absolute control of, is to teach yourself something, learn something new. It made me realise that when I am having a bad day – and they do come around – I can go to a museum, read a book, or go for a walk. I can fill my brain with something that isn’t my own nitty-gritty unhappiness.” | The unashamed gluttony of Laurie Lee may have altered her attitude to food – her description of a trip to Spain, during which she was finally able to try meals she would previously have rejected, are almost transcendent – but it was the advice of a very different author that lingered longest. “I really loved TH White’s The Once and Future King,” she says, “in particular, Merlin’s advice to his young apprentice, Wart, that when you’re low or sad, the thing that never fails, the thing you have absolute control of, is to teach yourself something, learn something new. It made me realise that when I am having a bad day – and they do come around – I can go to a museum, read a book, or go for a walk. I can fill my brain with something that isn’t my own nitty-gritty unhappiness.” |
| She retains a similar attitude towards food. “I think for people who have had anorexia or battled through depression there is a little undercurrent of it their whole lives. I hope that what my book is about is finding ways to be happy and love life. To make a future for yourself that isn’t bound by the various restrictions the illness puts on you.” | She retains a similar attitude towards food. “I think for people who have had anorexia or battled through depression there is a little undercurrent of it their whole lives. I hope that what my book is about is finding ways to be happy and love life. To make a future for yourself that isn’t bound by the various restrictions the illness puts on you.” |
| The Reading Cure by Laura Freeman is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 22 February, £16.99 | The Reading Cure by Laura Freeman is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 22 February, £16.99 |
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