Tags
anorexia, anorexia recovery, book review, bulimia recovery, celeste, depression, eating disorder, ed recovery, health, kid rex, laura moisin, NYU, recovery, Renfrew, review, treatment, wellness
Thanks again to our most prolific contributor Celeste for her review of Rid Rex by Laura Moisin. You can read Celeste’s review of Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi here.
As some of you may know, I am a final-semester undergraduate at the University of Sydney, studying English. My proposed Honours project focuses on the role that the trauma of 9/11 played in the redefinition of trauma narratives, particularly poetry. Kid Rex is one of the texts that led me to this project: it explicitly details the way in which political traumas and shifts in significance can impact personal difficulties. In the case of Kid Rex, a memoir of Moisin’s experience of Anorexia Nervosa, whilst her eating disorder was present prior to the collapse of the Twin Towers, this global event played and distinctive and self-confessed role in its worsening.
The memoir begins with Moisin, an Eastern European immigrant to America, reflecting on her senior years of high school, where she forged the beginnings of a relationship with her mother, who until that point had been somewhat distanced from her daughters life. The beginnings of this relationship with the strong, independent, feminist women in her life – her mother, grandmother, and sister – is the relationship that ultimately fuels her recovery. From these beginnings, the memoir skips forwards to her time as a student at NYU, where her eating disorder really takes hold. This section explores the ramifications of her disorder on her social and academic lives, culminating in her dropping out of NYU and being admitted to Renfrew for treatment. A key event for Moisin in this period was the attack on the Twin Towers. The collapse of the towers, and with that, the collapse of her understanding of the world and sense of safety, as well as the removal of any semblance of routine as the city descended into chaos. This urban trauma’s resonance in the lives of New York citizens crystallises Moisin’s feelings of loss and anxiety, and her anorexia becomes a way to express this.
The next segment of the memoir deals with Moisin’s experience of the treatment system. From psychologists, to counsellors, to inpatient programs, Moisin turns her evaluative eye to each, describing the impact that each has had on her recovery. In many cases, the impact was negligible, and this in turn fuels Moisin’s self-awareness, and condemnation of the medical system’s ability to deal with eating disorders. A particularly crucial moment comes with her decision to leave the Renfrew centre due to its inability to cater for its patients and what she perceives to be its generally poor standard of care. After a period living at home, and then again in New York, Moisin connects with Steven Levenkron, the author of The Best Little Girl In The World, and under his care, makes a number of significant steps towards recovery. Much of Moisin’s recovery is centered around the role played by the women in her life, and this is enhanced by Levenkron’s treatment.
Trigger warnings: detailed descriptions of the emotions associated with depression and anxiety, and explicit detail of disordered behaviours and treatment processes. It places very little emphasis on weight, and does not deal in detail with numbers of any kind. However, the qualitative description of behaviours could be triggering for some individuals.