“This is the story my eating disorder wouldn’t let me tell.”
Throughout this journey, the eating disorder takes the form of various metaphors, including wire-walking, a cocoon, a courtroom, and quicksand. You are shown how each metaphor can be used to your advantage or disadvantage, depending on how you choose to enable it. The book’s purpose is to assign imagery and tale to feelings that the eating disorder may render unidentifiable.
Eating Disorders on the Wire attempts to find resolution for the numbness associated with eating disorders by rendering recovery vivid. It provides a universal platform from which to work; a universal language for anyone struggling to communicate. It also allows loved ones to have an alternate perspective from which to understand.
Music is Friedman’s broadest and most pertinent metaphor for recovery. And with that, this book—literally and metaphorically—comes full circle. The full-length album, On the Wire, serves as an exploration of the emotions around eating disorders, with its powerful and soulful songs.