Unbearable Lightness A Story of Loss and Gain

Portia de Rossi — 2010

“I didn’t decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude. Being as thin as possible was a way to make the job of being an actress easier . . .” Portia de Rossi weighed only 82 pounds when she collapsed on the set of the Hollywood film in which she was playing her first leading role. This should have been the culmination of all her years of hard work—first as a child model in Australia, then as a cast member of one of the hottest shows on American television. On the outside she was thin and blond, glamorous and successful. On the inside, she was literally dying. In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn’t enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her body and spirit to the breaking point. Even as she rose to fame as a cast member of the hit television shows Ally McBeal and Arrested Development, Portia alternately starved herself and binged, all the while terrified that the truth of her sexuality would be exposed in the tabloids. She reveals the heartache and fear that accompany a life lived in the closet, a sense of isolation that was only magnified by her unrelenting desire to be ever thinner. With the storytelling skills of a great novelist and the eye for detail of a poet, Portia makes transparent as never before the behaviors and emotions of someone living with an eating disorder. From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to a life of health and honesty, falling in love with and eventually marrying Ellen DeGeneres, and emerging as an outspoken and articulate advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues. In this remarkable and beautifully written work, Portia shines a bright light on a dark subject. A crucial book for all those who might sometimes feel at war with themselves or their bodies, Unbearable Lightness is a story that inspires hope and nourishes the spirit.

Reviews

Izza@m0thermayi

Dec 9, 2022

2011 - 5 stars 2019 - 4.5 stars ♥

Eleanor Luhar@bookmarked642

Feb 2, 2022

Oh. My. God. This was such an amazing book. I may have to buy myself a copy to read over and over and over again. I've never really known much about Portia de Rossi. I knew she was the wife of Ellen DeGeneres, who I absolutely love, but that's about it. Never would I have known how much I could relate with her and her life struggles. This book is so truthful, and so inspirational. Portia tells us the details of her childhood issues with weight and eating, and how her habits developed into bulimia and a serious case of anorexia. She talks about every little thought and habit, her reaction to everything that was said to her. For anyone dealing with similar issues, it is wonderful to read someone else's experience and know that you are not alone. I've always felt ashamed about certain details of my eating disorder, but I now know that Portia seems to have had very similar thoughts, emotions and habits. Portia is also struggling to accept her homosexuality, and to feel accepted by those around her. She feels like she has to fit into everything - the sample sizes of clothing on set, society's idea of beauty, even a certain category of lesbianism. But eventually she realises that it isn't important to be what others expect you to be. It's only important to be happy and healthy and just enjoy life. The epilogue of this novel nearly brought me to tears. Portia knows things are not perfect - they probably never will be. But things have certainly changed for the better. She's married Ellen and she's come to terms with how to eat normally and maintain a healthy weight without obsessing over her appearance. She's managed to find links between her childhood, her sexuality and her desires to be thin. She knows why she binged, she knows why she starved herself. And she knows why she wants to get rid of anorexia once and for all and live her life properly. This is most definitely one of my favourite books ever. It made me rethink my life - I'm going through a tough patch with my anorexia right now, and Portia's story has made me think twice about the road I'm going down. She doesn't hide the ugly truth, she embraces it and brings attention to every detail. She is truly an inspirational woman. 5 stars for certain.

Erin Noel@erinhnoel

Jan 9, 2022

When this book is well-reviewed by authors such as Jeannette Walls, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Augusten Burroughs, it would be difficult to make an argument that this book isn't well written (and it is). But, it was most certainly one of the most difficult stories to read, watching Portia recall the painstaking process of punishing herself continually to the weight of 82 pounds. It's a sobering story for any woman (or man) who's ever listened to the demons inside their head telling them that they aren't good enough.

Bryanna Leigh@bryannaleigh

Nov 18, 2021

This book is beautiful, and I would recommend it to anyone. Her journey for acceptance can be really relatable at times, proving that you're not alone in the world. Honestly, I have no words after reading this.

Bad Girl Bex@bad_girl_bex

Oct 26, 2021

Pretty insane read. I'll never understand what it's like to suffer from anorexia - and that's probably a good thing - but reading this memoir gives the reader a fantastic glimpse into the mind of a woman who ends up bingeing, purging, starving and exercising herself to scarily low weight, before collapsing on a movie set. It's really well written (I don't know if de Rossi wrote it herself or had a ghostwriter for it) because the whole time we're seeing all the inevitable destruction play out from her warped POV, never allowing herself to believe she was ever going to become anorexic. It's really scary to try and imagine how one's own mind can work against you and all the natural cues of hunger, depression, exhaustion, starvation etc, instead telling you to restrict more, exercise more and be weigh less. At no point in this book is de Rossi's eating disorder glamorised. You get to see how her entire life shrank away to nothing more than a desperate attempt to be thin, to avoid food and in her own eyes become successful. Nothing about her tale is enviable - except perhaps for the peace, love, contentment and healing that came later on in the book when she finds love, marries and is finally able to stop waging a war against her own body. The book is both fascinating and horrifying because we the reader know that none of this is going to go well for de Rossi. At times I found myself wanting to reach through the pages and just grab hold of her and tell her to stop before she ended up killing herself. I read the book really quickly (a couple of hours before bed yesterday, a couple of hours once I woke up today) and by the end of it felt like I'd been party to some terrible, maniacal act of violence. Which I suppose I was really. What de Rossi did to herself was devastating, but thankfully she was able to find a way out of it and return to the land of the living. I hope wherever she is these days, she's happy and healthy and free of that voice inside her that propelled her on to self-destruction for so long.

alexis@alexiscole

Oct 21, 2021

I loved this book! Read it!!

Kourtney@familywithbooks

Oct 3, 2021

Wow. I recommend this to everyone I know. Quite a gripping tale that really pulls you into the mind of someone with an eating disorder. You can see the thoughts that continually spur Portia to continue with her destructive habits and how it affects those closest to her. Very powerful story. In reading the reviews on GR, a lot of people complained about the "editing." I wonder if the book was too truthful for those people, as I thought it was just perfect. Eating disorders are scary to live through and experience, and putting that into words is hard to do. Portia told her tale in the best way (in my humble opinion!)