Anorexia, bulimia and over exercising caused her great physical pain
In her personal memoir, Ralph Lauren’s niece, Jenny Lauren, tells all about her struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope narrates the time of her struggle with eating disorders. They caused her great physical defeat that lasted for years, and she recounts the experience with great candor.
Her language is frank, unflinching and incredibly honest. She digs deep into her painful memories to dig up the feelings no one wanted to talk about and the torment only she could understand. The fearless writing makes this a remarkably fresh take on eating disorders and the complications they can cause.
Jenny grew up in a loving family with siblings she got along with and parents she was close to. Ralph Lauren wasn’t famous until later, so her uncle was only a hard working man who loved fashion above all else.
Soon enough, though, her uncle’s fame grew and she found herself a model in his early shows and being acknowledged by him as a true beauty. The adult world around her was focused on perfect figures and impeccable manners, both of which Jenny internalized.
By her 10th birthday, she had started starving herself on a trip away from her family to dance camp. Watching the skinny girls around her eat to their heart’s content and not gaining weight made her confused and she shrunk away from food even more.
Upon her return home, though, she saw the shocked look on her parents faces because of her weight loss and immediately began eating again in the comfort of her families safety. This would prove a theme that followed her into adulthood, where breaking away from her parents proved a difficult task.
Through the years of binging, purging, excessive exercise, bad boyfriends and young dramas, Jenny’s body began to break down. By 24 years old, she was living in chronic pain and decided to write this book.
She spent years going from Doctor to Doctor, specialist to specialist, none of whom could understand what was causing her such extreme pain. Her operation to fix it, the pills she downed to numb the pain and the new age healers she saw to feel better all combined with no real solution.
At the end of the book, readers are left hanging, as no conclusion is given, only an abrupt ending that questions the outcome of her life. Although some may find her whiney and a spoiled child stuck in an adult’s body, the memoir does give an acute report on the day to day life of someone in chronic pain.
All in all, the book is a meticulously detailed account of years of struggling filled with humor. She nicknames all of her Doctors with her own names, such as Dr. Worthless or Dr. God, and laughs at her own neediness. With all the money in the world to “fix” her problems, it seems, it still isn’t enough to make her feel better.
