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Q+A with Barbara Kent Lawrence:
Why did you write Bitter Ice?
I didn't plan to write a book about my experience as the spouse of a man with eating disorders, but I can't think of a better way to have tried to understand why I lived the way I did for so long than writing about my life and then having to read and re-read my own words.
Writing the book came about serendipitously. In 1996 a friend recommended that I take a course in expository writing when I was preparing to write my dissertation at Boston University. Until then I hadn't told anyone at BU about my personal life, and I had lived since 1968 with "Tom" who struggled with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and alcoholism. I was relieved to find the class was small, only twelve people, and the professor was welcoming. I was shocked however, to read that the first assignment required that I respond to an essay entitled, "On Food and Happiness." I couldn't think of a time since I was married that food had meant happiness for me and I didn't want to tell anyone about the ways in which it meant unhappiness. Finally, I decided I could only answer the question by writing, "On Food and Unhappiness." When the professor returned my paper he told me that he was in AA and understood what I was writing about and that he thought my essay was "extraordinary." Over the next two weeks of this intensive course I was able to share my story with people in the class, each of whom received it with great kindness and understanding, for which I will always be grateful. Over the rest of the summer, working with a writing teacher, I expanded the essay to about 90 pages.
Why did you publish Bitter Ice?
I'm not sure - one day about two years later, I felt compelled to send the manuscript to an agent and she took it. Afterwards I was terrified and couldn't believe what I had done so precipitously. While I was writing Bitter Ice I began to realize that I wanted it published so that people would understand that eating disorders affect men too. I thought about the fact that when my mother died of cancer in 1973 her friends said we couldn't put the cause of her death in the paper, and I remembered in the 1980s that no one ever died of AIDS, just from pneumonia. I thought that it must deepen the pain a person feels to die of a disease that is considered too shameful to discuss and I wanted to do what I could to change that. Much later I realized that as a co-dependent I further disabled my former husband by enabling his behavior, and I think we who are enablers must work to free ourselves of co-dependency. And finally, I remembered a woman who was a friend of my mother's and stepfather's when I was in college, who was raped while taking her dog for a walk in a park and who told her story to the newspaper, using her name and telling what had happened to her. I admired her courage in helping younger women realize they were not to blame if someone attacked them like that and she was an important role model for me.
What does you family think about Bitter Ice?
It is hard for older members of my extended family, or friend's of my mother and stepfather's to read Bitter Ice perhaps because they come from a generation in which such things were not discussed and are angry that I would expose family issues. But times and the culture have changed and I believe it is helpful to others to share our stories, as I know that it has been helpful to me to tell mine.
Pia Melody writes that one of the worst forms of abuse occurs when parents deny their children's reality. I think that happened to me and to many children who grew up as I did and that only now are we realizing we must come to terms with our own reality and live our own lives. I think my children are proud of me for the ways in which I have changed my life in the past five years and I hope I have shown them that we all can make a second chance for ourselves.
How is your former husband?
I'd like to think he is doing better and enjoying his new life, but I have had little contact with him in the past few years and don't really know the answer to that question.
Are you involved in any work with Eating disorders?
I have learned a lot more about eating disorders than I knew when I was writing Bitter Ice. I've been asked to be on the board of the new Family Support Network, a branch of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals, and I am very pleased to be a keynote speaker at their annual meeting in August. I'm doing more and more classes, talks, and readings and hope that I continue to have those opportunities.
Are you writing anything else?
Yes, I'm working on a novel set in Maine and also thinking about a book that is a sequel to Bitter Ice.
May I ask you a question?
Yes, please write me at bitterice@mediaone.net.
Email: barbaralawrence@attbi.com