Author Glennon Doyle revealed that she is battling anorexia, People magazine reports.
Doyle, the author of the popular books Carry On, Warrior; Love Warrior; and Untamed, shared the news of her diagnosis on an episode of her podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. She said she sought medical help for what she thought was a relapse of bulimia, which she was diagnosed with as a young girl.
“I said, ‘I am a bulimic and I have been recovered....and I am having relapses, and I just need to understand...how to get these relapses of my bulimia under control, so I can be less scared and freer and not in danger.”
A doctor instead diagnosed her with anorexia, another eating disorder. “There is no way I can explain to you the level of bafflement, shock, denial, confusion,” Doyle said.
Doyle addressed her previous diagnosis in Untamed, writing, “[Bulimia] was where I refused to comply, indulged my hunger, and expressed my fury. I became animalistic during my daily binges. Then I’d drape myself over the toilet and purge because a good girl must stay very small to fit inside her cages. She must leave no outward evidence of her hunger. Good girls aren’t hungry, furious, or wild.”
On her podcast, Doyle said that it has been difficult to adjust to her new diagnosis.
“The shift of my identity as bulimic, bulimic, bulimic...anorexia is a totally different thing,” she said. “It’s like a different religion. It’s a different identity. It’s a different way of thinking. It’s so confusing and it shook me very deeply.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
