"By the time I was eleven years old, I'd already been on fifteen medications, seen ten doctors, been diagnosed with six disorders, and gone to five schools. . . . Through the nineteen years I've been alive, more of my time has probably been spent in doctor's offices, treatment centers, and hospitals than with friends. After coming home from my first treatment center at the age of fifteen, I decided the time had come for me to try and make sense of everything."
So begins this extraordinary story of a young woman who suffers from multiple disorders and her detailed account of the struggle to gain control of her mind, body, and soul. As a young child, Melissa knew she was different; Tourette's syndrome gave her tics and dyslexia made her feel incapable and stupid. Believing that her food intake was the one thing she could control, Melissa starved herself while her mind tortured her. Suffering from anorexia nervosa, Melissa's mind and body fought for nourishment. She was further diagnosed with several learning disabilities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; the treatments, medications, and side effects of all this chaos produced an angry young woman whose mind and body were out of control. After several stints at treatment centres and two hospitalizations, Melissa struggled to get well, searching unsuccessfully for guidance from others who shared multiple disorders. 'Nourishment' is the story of a young girl who, through compassionate medical care, her parents' love and support, and her own sheer will to get better, set about to make sense of her disordered mind and to re-feed her body and soul.
