Today I had some daisies for breakfast – a graphic novel about Eating Disorders and Recovery
Once I was young and very confused. I was thrown into this fast-spinning world. Vulnerably, I wished for love and connection. I longed for a deeper meaning, but instead I was bombarded by the shallow imperatives of how my life, my body should look. At 15 years old, I became anorexic; I developed Body Dysmorphia and later Binge Eating Disorder. Ten years later, I am recovered and can give the mental disorder a name, a face and a whole story.
It is estimated that more than every fifth person struggles with their food and/or body image today (Smink 2012). My dear reader, that doesn’t sound like an individual problem but like a crisis on a massive scale, don’t you think? It is the bitter and daily reality for billions of people: Every time they are given a fork, they fight. Every time they look into the mirror, they are going into battle. Today I had some daisies for breakfast is a Graphic Novel about these struggles with and Recovery from Eating Disorders (EDs).
The way we address EDs today is dominated by misconceptions and stereotypes. We tell one-sided stories, often enforcing diet culture myths and weight stigma. EDs are real mental diseases that do not discriminate. They don’t differ between age, skin colour, religion, gender, class or physical ability. What we lack is an open and diverse discourse about EDs to break the stigma, silence and shame around it.
I am done keeping my mouth shut! I will open it wide to partly re-tell our social narrative about EDs in a compassionate, bold and artistic way.
Only with understanding and normalizing the talk about EDs can we pave the path for Recovery – can we make it easier for people to name, identify their struggles and reach out for help.
There is already great work out there but most help organizations communicate their topics in a very dry (not fun) way. Today I had some daisies for breakfast fills this gap with open arms: Through 180 illustrated pages it tells the story of Claire, who struggles with various forms of EDs and is supported by her therapist and friend Doc Jenny. Together they wander and explore the medical definitions and the socio-critical perspectives on EDs in our society. Claire shares her insights about how it feels to embody an ED, and finally, they look at different and whimsical paths of Recovery.
On the last pages, one will find an envelope that contains the Extra Chapter. It is a 4-pages long Zine that tells the story of “a quite normal day in the very normal life of a goddamn normal princess”. For this chapter, I worked with Beast Studio in Malmö to use their Riso-Printer. Riso is an analogue printing technique from Japan. The word means “ideal” in Japanese. It uses ink that is extracted from soybean waste. Its super vibrant colours give the Extra Chapter a unique look and make it stand out from the other pages.
The Extra Chapter is an explorative fairy tale about a daily life liberated from EDs. You see, being stuck in an ED, everything can seem pretty hopeless – as if someone took down all of life´s saturation. When you recover, you let in the sun again, and you will realise how vibrant the world around you is! Amen.
Reference
Smink, FR; van Hoeken, D & Hoek HW (August 2012): Epidemiology of eating disorders: incidence, prevalence and mortality rates. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 14(4):406-14. doi: 10.1007s11920-012-0282-y. PMID: 22644309; PMCID: PMC3409365.
