Something Solid and Weighty

Several weeks ago now, I was sitting in the dermatologist’s office looking at one of the trashy magazines and saw a story about Portia de Rossi’s new memoir, Unbearable Lightness. Since I am a sucker for both actress memoirs and body-image stories (aka weight-loss success stories) I figured I would go glance it over at Borders…and then that thing happened in my brain that usually happens when I’m drinking, but can occasionally happen when I’m shopping too, where my id says, quick, impulse suppressors OFF and I go briefly crazy and then I’ve suddenly bought things I should probably have talked myself out of. (It’s the worst! When there’s a book that I feel suddenly I simply HAVE to have, so I can read it RIGHT NOW, and then the moment I finish the last page I realize it’s trash and throw it across the room.)

That being said, however, I read this voraciously, neglecting all other responsibilities, and then instead of throwing it, reread it almost entirely as soon as I was done (partly because I imagined I would write a blog entry about it immediately after finishing it). And despite my tawdry, rubbernecky motivation for buying it, I actually think it’s an excellent, painfully honest piece of writing. It begins, more or less, when de Rossi joins the cast of Ally McBeal, and for the first time begins to really face the pressures of fame. She also reflects back on her teenage years as a model and a failed marriage motivated mostly by her increasing terror that she was gay, and the book is remarkably cohesive in its exploration of her all-encompassing mental illness. Her anorexia is not simply about being thin; it’s a mindset that extends to neurotic insecurity about her work, her sexuality, and her ability to fit into the fabulous world of Hollywood.

What is most striking to me about this memoir is how unflinching de Rossi is about the punishing extent of her mental illness. There is no way, reading this book, to think of anorexia as remotely desirable or glamorous, or to idealize de Rossi as an admirable icon of self-discipline. She describes mixing no-calorie butter spray into everything she eats and using chopsticks so she’s forced to take tiny bites, and at one point in time, admits to living entirely on pickles and mustard. She does sprints through a parking garage in 5-inch platform wedges (which she never takes off, even at home, in case she sees her reflection in a window) barely missing getting hit by several cars in the process, because she “binges” on an entire pack of sugar-free gum (60 calories). She wears only her underwear at home so her body will burn more calories to keep her warm, and vocalizes her self-loathing thoughts because she assumes speaking must burn more calories than not speaking. When she lands the lead in a feature, she avoids telling her beloved brother because she knows he’ll want to take her out to dinner to celebrate. She moves into an apartment that’s left partially furnished and never redecorates, because if she doesn’t commit to her own style, she can’t be criticized for how it looks. Her acting successes bring her no joy, only relief that she hasn’t failed and anxiety about fitting into her costumes. As she gets sicker and sicker, she begins to lose her mind slightly—chasing down a valet parking her car because she thinks it’s being stolen, looking at her emaciated body in the mirror and being relieved she isn’t attractive. “I knew I wasn’t attractive, and that was fine with me. If I didn’t attract anyone, I wouldn’t have to lie to anyone.”

She never relaxes. She seems to enjoy nothing, and finds it difficult to make new connections; her anorexia puts a strain on her old relationships. She’s self-absorbed, closed-off and demanding. The physical toll the anorexia eventually takes on her body is horrifying, but to me nowhere near as powerful as the years she spent desperately unhappy in the mental and psychological grip of the disease. She believes her anorexia is driven primarily by her feelings of shame about her homosexuality, but what seems more evident to me is that from an extremely young age (in the earliest scenes in the book, she’s 12) she was driven by a desperate desire to please, to both fit in and stand out; to be special, without ever quite knowing what was special enough. She becomes a teen model as “proof” that she’s pretty, even though she quickly discovers hates modeling. She attends a year of law school as “proof” that she’s smart, but she’s too busy modeling to go to class. Everything is about external validation, and to be a sexy blonde A-list star in the late 90s means absolutely not undermining that image by admitting she’s a lesbian. Her mother, who is a complicated figure in the book, initially encourages her to keep her sexuality a secret “for the sake of her career;” de Rossi believes she could not have recovered from her anorexia without her mother’s eventual acceptance and reassurance that being gay does not mean she’s a disappointment as a daughter.

When de Rossi does begin to talk about recovery, she’s equally frank about its difficulties. She doesn’t feel healthier right away; although she knows she has to eat or she’ll die, she’s so conditioned to resist food that it’s incredibly difficult, and she hates the way her body begins to return to its normal, uncomfortable functions—menstruation, constipation, bloating, gas. She gains weight immediately and feels tremendous shame about checking into an eating disorder treatment center weighing 125 lbs. She then gains more weight, stops her treatment before she’s ready, yoyos for awhile, and feels as though she has lost the support system that was so concerned while she was on the verge of starvation. It’s not until she lives with a girlfriend who eats healthily and normally, according to her body’s needs, and stays thin nonetheless, that Portia begins to slowly consider the idea that there might be an alternative to endless dieting.

She met her wife Ellen de Generes weighing 168 lbs, and has a wonderful line about how realizing her two biggest fears—“being fat and being gay”—led her to the greatest happiness she had ever known. She also talks about the importance of replacing her obsession with food with new passions, including horseback riding, emphasizing the way she has to redesign her whole lifestyle, not just her eating habits, to really be healed. Finally, and I think this is crucial, she admits that she looks in the mirror and still doesn’t always love her body the way it is—“I still wish I had thighs the size of my calves. The difference is that I’m no longer willing to sacrifice my health or happiness to achieve that or even to let it take up very much space inside my head.”

Reading this book reminded me of reading Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett’s memoir of her friendship with the talented, wild poet Lucy Grealy. Lucy suffered regularly from bouts of deep, intense depression where she would cry on the phone for hours, or vehemently insist that she was hideous and no one loved her. Both depression and insecurity are things I’ve struggled with, as I’m sure most of us have at some time or another, and in reading these two books I felt both a sense of recognition and sympathy—god, yes, I’ve been there—coupled with profound gratitude that I’ve been fortunate enough never to descend to those depths of illness. Truth and Beauty is a book I’ve turned to again and again to help me cope, not only with depression but with being a broke aspiring artist, with difficult friendships, and with a friend going through an addiction problem. Over and over, just as I think I’ve squeezed every possible moment of meaning and comfort out of it, I find some new life problem I think Ann and Lucy can help me address. Unbearable Lightness addresses fewer issues, but ones that run deeply for many of us—self-esteem, body image, balancing career pressure and personal fulfillment. I don’t begrudge the $20 I spent on it after all. I suspect it’s a book that will travel with me, reminding me not to attach too much importance to beauty, particularly a distorted idea of my own beauty. It was funny, sad, and in a way heartening to hear how matter-of-factly de Rossi repeats throughout the book, “I knew I wasn’t pretty” when she’s an actress I’ve always considered beautiful. And as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a punch-in-the-gut reminder that self-esteem really doesn’t come from external success, career validation, money, or what would be objectively judged as good looks; it’s a continuing struggle to find something solid and unbreakable within yourself, something that anchors you to yourself, the world and whatever larger cosmos you may believe in.