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Popular Culture Review
to be afraid of that fact—but to cling to the idea that this will
save you, it will, in the end, make things okay (63-64).
By age 14, Hornbacher had become an accomplished liar, successfully
hiding from her parents her eating disorders, her drug use, her sexual activity,
and her miscarriage. It wasn’t until the summer of 1990, at age 16, that her
parents realized she needed professional help and admitted her to the Eating
Disorder Institute at Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis. She received treatment
three times in one year, which consisted of mandating a certain number of
calories per day that must be consumed, timing completion of meals, being tubefed if meals are not eaten, and receiving personal and family therapy (151-153).
Upon release from the hospital, she resumed the same rituals, and even
convinced her parents, who were clearly in the throes of denial, that it would be
good for her to finish high school in California and live with her father’s former
wife. In California, with her disorders spinning out of control, she fell in love
with a high school boy named Julian, who she would eventually marry. Despite
rapid weight loss, Hornbacher even managed to keep her disorders hidden from
her boyfriend. However, when family members from Minnesota came to visit,
they took her back with them so she again could receive treatment (160, 174).
In March 1991, Hornbacher was admitted to the Lowe House
Treatment Center in Minneapolis—an event that would prove to be a turning
point in her life by providing her an opportunity at last to confront the shadow
within her. The emphasis on treatment at the Lowe House was not on food, but
on coming to terms with one’s emotions. Hornbacher writes:
In Lowe House, something happened. I’ve been trying to
figure out exactly what it was. A loony bin is a fairly lowaction place to be, not a lot going on, a whole bloody lot of
time to sit and think. What 1 know is this: 1 went in with no
emotions, no will to live, no particular interest in anything
other than starving myself to death. 1 came out eating. Almost
normally (199).
The staff at Lowe House openly displayed affection for their young patients,
reading to them at night, hugging them on a regular basis, and continually
encouraging them to talk about their emotions. Hornbacher defiantly balked at
first, but thanks to therapy and her affection toward a younger boy named Duane
at the institution, she realized that her parents were only one part of a larger
complex of issues: her self-destruction also hinged on her need to feel powerful,
the desire to be successful at all costs, and a relentless pursuit of perfectionism
(206). Hornbacher notes that the safe confines of Lowe House provided an
environment for her to examine her problems and come “face-to-face with a
profound and nauseating hatred for the child 1 had been, the subhuman creature I
had suspected myself of being, and understood that I would have to come to
some sort of reconciliation with her in order to be whole” (207). She achieved
the self-awareness and self-knowledge that Jung maintained was essential in