Believarexic

A girl struggling with an eating disorder realizes that asking for help is only the first step.

Jennifer can't go on like this—binging, purging, starving, and all while trying to appear like she's got it all together. But when she finally confesses her secret to her parents and is hospitalized at the Samuel Tuke Center, her journey is only beginning.

As Jennifer progresses through her treatment, she learns to recognize her relationship with food, and friends, and family—and how each is healthy or unhealthy. She has to learn to trust herself and her own instincts, but that's easier than it sounds. She has to believe—after many years of being a believarexic.

Using her trademark dark humor and powerful emotion, J. J. Johnson tells an inspiring story based on her own experience when she was hospitalized for an eating disorder as a teenager. The innovative format using blank verse and prose, changes in tense and voice, and forms, workbooks, and journal entries mirror Jennifer's progress toward a healthy body and mind.

J. J. Johnson graduated from Binghamton University and worked an internship coordinator for programs such as The Learning Web and Youth Advocacy. She earned a Master of Education from Harvard University, with a concentration in Adolescent Risk and Prevention. Johnson lives in North Carolina.