Smoke Screen
I am an oracle who, while dispensing answers to all those who seek them, cannot predict my own future.
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Posts Tagged: Eating Disorder
Four Courses
I eat, and eat, and eat, and mourn.
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Breathing into the Paper Bag: Talking with Jenny Valentish
Jenny Valentish discusses her memoir, WOMEN OF SUBSTANCES.
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A Lumpy, Misshapen Book: Talking with Elissa Washuta
Elissa Washuta discusses her chapbook, STARVATION MODE.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview #141: Tara Isabella Burton
“I want to make a case for the serious, literary legitimacy of the female experience of self-construction.”
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Fitting In
Without men around to impress, I discovered my own taste—what desire meant beyond the desire to be desirable.
...moreThis Week in Essays
For Huffington Post’s Highline magazine, Jason Fagone profiles a trauma surgeon working to make a small dent in our country’s problem with gun violence. At Catapult, Abbey Fenbert writes a funny, heartfelt essay about trying to ban books in the seventh grade.
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Back to the Places I’ve Left
“No one knows how to handle it,” I tell her, but I can see she’s angry and I’m speaking into the wind.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jade Sharma
Jade Sharma discusses her first novel Problems, the complicated feelings that came with debuting to rave reviews, and her writing and editing processes.
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The Body and the Blood
The world around me looked suddenly sharper, more sinister, the female body where I lived appearing so much more penetrable, exposed, and impossible to hide.
...moreScrabbling Love
While I was in residential treatment, my Scrabble games with my mom slowed down. We both lingered over our turns, taking longer than usual to make the next move. Normally I rush to play my turn, keeping the tab open on my screen and the notification email in my inbox to rile up my OCD […]
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Bodies in Space: Teaching after Trauma
Turning onto my street and looking south I feel the ground drop beneath me every time—I turn the corner and the sidewalk falls. I feel invisible then, as if I’ve vaporized.
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Eating in Purgatory
I always say the last time was the last time, and I always mean it, but I’m scared I’ll relapse again.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: A House, a Girl
The day you follow me to that mound of oyster shells on the beach is the day I realize muscle and bone have been at war for a long, long time.
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His Greatest Masterpiece
The banality of evil hides in people, and who they unleash it upon become forever tainted by their names. They become one. Creator and monster. Evil by association.
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Strong Is the New Sexy
I began to lack reality. I took to baggy tops and A-line silhouettes to hide my poking collarbone, my meatless hips. I took up as much space as I could in bulky sweaters. I compensated for my diminishing reality by covering over my negative space.
...moreReflecting on Penance
Sunday Rumpus editor Gina Frangello has a beautiful essay over at The Manifest-Station (run by Rumpus Contributor Jennifer Pastiloff) that reflects back on her days dealing with anxiety, an eating disorder, and getting out. “In an Afterschool Special, the crazy girl who is afraid of unopened packages of food would get help somehow, would have […]
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