Unbearable Lightness Part 11

"I have lupus! I'm sick!"

You're fat.

"No I'm not!"

The voice was echoing, reverberating. The word fat fat was swirling through my head, sounding the alarms. But above the din of the drill sergeant and the alarms and the ticks of missed beats, a sense of peace overcome me. was swirling through my head, sounding the alarms. But above the din of the drill sergeant and the alarms and the ticks of missed beats, a sense of peace overcome me.

I'm sick. I've successfully lowered the bar. I don't have to be a straight-A student or be a movie star to be proud of myself. I just have to live.

I accept myself just as I am. I accept myself.

The voice stops. Apart from laughter coming from the hallway I can't hear anything. It is deathly quiet in my head. And then I said something to the voice I have always wanted to say: "Go to h.e.l.l."

EPILOGUE.

I CAN'T EXPLAIN THE CAN'T EXPLAIN THE birds to you even if I tried. In the early morning, when the sun's rays peek over the mountain and subtly light up the landscape in a glow that, if audible, would sound like a hum, the birds sing. They sing in a layered symphony, hundreds deep. You really can't believe how beautiful it is. You hear ba.s.s notes from across the farm and soprano notes from the tree in front of you all at once, at varying volumes, like a ma.s.sive choir that stretches across fifty acres of land. I love birds. But not as much as my wife loves them. My wife thinks about them whereas I only notice them once they call for attention. But she looks for them, builds fountains for them, and saves them after they crash into windows. I've seen her save many birds. She holds them gently in the palm of her hand, and she takes them to one of the fountains she's built especially for them and holds their beaks up to the gentle trickle of water to let them drink, to wake them up from their dazed stupor. No matter how much time it takes, she doesn't leave them until they recover. And they mostly always do. birds to you even if I tried. In the early morning, when the sun's rays peek over the mountain and subtly light up the landscape in a glow that, if audible, would sound like a hum, the birds sing. They sing in a layered symphony, hundreds deep. You really can't believe how beautiful it is. You hear ba.s.s notes from across the farm and soprano notes from the tree in front of you all at once, at varying volumes, like a ma.s.sive choir that stretches across fifty acres of land. I love birds. But not as much as my wife loves them. My wife thinks about them whereas I only notice them once they call for attention. But she looks for them, builds fountains for them, and saves them after they crash into windows. I've seen her save many birds. She holds them gently in the palm of her hand, and she takes them to one of the fountains she's built especially for them and holds their beaks up to the gentle trickle of water to let them drink, to wake them up from their dazed stupor. No matter how much time it takes, she doesn't leave them until they recover. And they mostly always do.

The sound of the big barn doors opening prompts me to begin walking toward the stables. I clutch my coffee mug and walk in bare feet, wearing only my pajama pants and tank to say good morning to my horses.

As I arrive at the barn, Julio, who helps with the horses, is mucking out the stalls, an activity that I would help with were I wearing shoes. I love to muck out stalls.

"Hi, Julio."

"Morning, Portia. Riding today?"

"Yep. A little later."

I love riding horses. I love bathing them and grooming them. I love their strong, muscular bodies, their athleticism, and their kindness. I love the companions.h.i.+p and the trust a rider builds with her horse. I love everything about horses. Horses saved my life.

"Good morning, Mae." The regal head of my big, beautiful Hanoverian horse pokes out from her stall. I wrap my arms around her neck and kiss her muzzle. I bought Mae in 2002 when I was recovering from my eating disorder. Learning how to ride her, learning her language, and being pa.s.sionate about something other than my weight or looks s.h.i.+fted my focus away from my obsession with being thin long enough to let the doctors and the therapists do their work. I had found love in Mae. I had found a reason to get up in the morning.

"Ellen not up yet?" Ellen usually accompanies me in the mornings to the stables.

"Nah. I'm letting her sleep in."

I crept out of the bedroom this morning and out of the cottage not even grabbing shoes or a sweats.h.i.+rt as I was trying desperately not to wake her. Ellen works really hard and needs to rest when we're at our farm on the weekends. She especially needed to sleep this morning as she was awake most of the night reading long after I fell asleep. She was awake most of the night reading this book.

After petting Mae, Archie, Femi, Monty, and Diego Garcia, I went back up to the cottage. As I opened the door to the porch I heard the voice that makes my heart the happiest to hear.

"Coff-ee!" Ellen calls out for coffee like a dying man calling out for water as he perishes in the desert. It always makes me laugh.

I walked into the bedroom, plop onto the bed, and wrap my arms around her.

"Baby," she says sleepily, "you were crazy."

"I know."

"So sad. I feel like I was reading about a completely different person."

"I feel like I was writing about a different person."

"You were so sick. What happened to the lupus?"

"It was a misdiagnosis. I just needed to eat. And the cirrhosis and osteoporosis-all of it went away. I was lucky that I didn't do serious damage."

"You poor thing. I wish I could've been there to save you."

"You did save me. You save me every single day."

I kiss her and get up off the bed to make her coffee.

"I'm so proud of you, baby. It'll help a lot of people." As I pour the coffee, she suddenly appears at the doorway of the kitchen, her blond head poking around the door. "Just be sure and tell the people that you're not crazy anymore."

I didn't decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional att.i.tude. Being as thin as possible was a way to make the job of being an actress easier by fitting into a sample size dress, by never worrying that I couldn't zip up my wardrobe from episode to episode, day after day. Just as I didn't decide to become anorexic, I didn't decide to not be anorexic. I didn't decide to become healthy. I decided not to die. I didn't even care to live better than I'd been living, necessarily. I just knew at the moment of hearing my test results that I didn't want to live as a sickly person who would slowly suffer and end up dead. The news that I had seemingly irreversible illnesses punctured my obsessive mind and rendered my weight-loss goals meaningless. I lost anorexia. It was too hard to hold on to. By the end I felt as though I was clinging on to anorexia in the same way you would cling to the rooftop of a building, your body dangling precariously over the other side, begging for release. Because it was more exhausting to hang on, and because I had a real reason for the first time in the form of lupus, I let go of dieting. I watched as my biggest accomplishment, my greatest source of self-worth, plummeted to the ground. I had climbed slowly, methodically, all the way to the top only to fall too fast to even see where I had been.

Anorexia was my first love. We met and were instantly attracted to each other. We spent every moment of the day together. Through its eyes, I saw the world differently. It taught me how to feel good about myself, how to improve myself, and how to think. Through it all, it never left my side. It was always there when everyone else had left, and as long as I didn't ignore it, it never left me alone. Losing anorexia was painful-like losing your sense of purpose. I no longer knew what to do without it to consider. Whether the drill sergeant approved or disapproved was no longer a concern because he was no longer there. I let him go with the overwhelming feeling that continuing to fight for him was futile because he was too good for me; he was too perfect, too strict and demanding. Slowly, over several months, maybe even years, the feeling that I wasn't good enough for him dissipated, and I gradually came to feel as though we were just a mismatch, he and I. We never should've been together in the first place. We were too different for each other, and we wanted different things from life. Knowing that, however, didn't make it less painful. Without anorexia, I had nothing. Without it, I was nothing. I wasn't even a failure; I simply felt like I didn't exist.

I was diagnosed with lupus. I had osteoporosis and was showing signs of cirrhosis of the liver. My pota.s.sium and electrolyte balance were at critical levels, threatening the function of my organs. I no longer felt lazy, like I was giving up because it was too hard, I felt defeated. I felt as though I simply didn't have a choice. I had to accept that the road I had chosen was the wrong road. It led to sickness and death. I had to allow the voices of the professionals into my closed mind. I had to try to take their road.

As I began the long journey on the road to recovery, there were a couple of detours that I wasn't prepared for. Initially I had thought that once I began to gain back the weight, I would have the strong support base that I'd felt in Australia. I thought I would have loving, concerned people around me to ensure that I was getting healthy. But after I had gained an acceptable amount of weight and looked like a regular person, mostly everyone in my life a.s.sumed that the problem was solved. Almost instantly, I felt like no one was listening anymore, no one cared. It felt like caring was only necessary when my life was on the line. As I gained weight I was no longer something to worry about. I truly felt like a p.u.b.escent thirteen-year-old, ugly, voiceless; my cute days of being delightful were in the past, and my future accomplishments were too distant to elicit any kind of hope or joy. At that point, if I had still had the axe to grind, if I hadn't got what I wanted from the disorder, some sense of acceptance of my s.e.xuality, I would have relapsed. It would have been very easy for me to start losing weight again to get the attention and the concern that felt like love. It would have felt like a great accomplishment to not just do it once, but twice, proving to myself that I had the willpower I had always suspected was only fleeting.

Gaining weight is a critical time. The anorexic mind doesn't just magically go away when weight is gained-it gets more active. Anorexia becomes bigger and stronger as it struggles to hold on, as it fights for its life. If I hadn't seen my mother break down and accept me for being gay, I would've gotten right back on the path that made me rebel in the first place, because being anorexic did feel a little like rebellion. It felt like a pa.s.sive-aggressive way of renouncing my mother's control over me. It was definitely a statement that demanded "accept my s.e.xuality or accept my death!" Being sick allows you to check out of life. Getting well again means you have to check back in. It is absolutely crucial that you are ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick. Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start life over. And with all the time it takes to have an eating disorder-literally the whole day is consumed by it, both mentally and physically-it's important to find something other than your body image to be pa.s.sionate about. You have to create a whole new life to check into, and the life I knew was waiting for me was a future relations.h.i.+p and the acceptance of it from my family. I had the key ingredient to want to check back in: I had hope.

For a straight-A student, a model, an actress on a hit TV show, the bar was set very high. I'm the one who set it. I thought that by accomplis.h.i.+ng things that were exciting to people, I would receive their admiration and love. I thought that if I accomplished enough, that somehow I would be let off the hook in the future. Like I didn't have to keep striving and achieving because I had done that already, and it would add up to being enough. Anorexia lowered the bar. Instead of having to be a high achiever to receive love, all I had to do was be alive. All I had to do for the caring, nurturing kind of love was lose another pound. All I had to do for acceptance of my s.e.xuality was not eat. Of course, I didn't think I was doing that at the time. I thought I was just trying to stay thin.

Recovery feels like s.h.i.+t. It didn't feel like I was doing something good; it felt like I was giving up. It feels like having to learn how to walk all over again. I felt pathetic. I remember having so little self-esteem that I couldn't talk loudly; I literally couldn't make myself heard because I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to be spoken to or looked at or acknowledged. When someone paid attention to me, I thought they were doing it out of sympathy, kindness, and so it felt condescending. All recovery meant to me was being fat. Unlike the case of an alcoholic or a drug addict, there are no immediate benefits to getting well. My joints might have stopped aching pretty quickly, but after that, I didn't feel better, I felt worse. I experienced all kinds of physical changes that made me feel gross: my period returned, I had gas and was constipated. And then there was the fat that came back. It was truly awful for me. One week I felt lean and perfect, and the next week I was fat. Again. I felt like a failure. I hated every moment of it. I missed my bones so much. I cried at night because I couldn't feel my hip bones and not having them to physically hold onto was like losing a dear friend.

Being anorexic was incredibly difficult. Eating, once I allowed myself to do it, was easy. Being diagnosed with lupus was like a pardon; it granted me the freedom to give up. It felt like an excuse to let go of starvation, and it allowed me to eat again. I could no longer starve or I'd die. Therefore, it was essential to eat. So I did. I ate everything in sight. I ate everything I had wanted to eat for a year but hadn't allowed myself. I started by eating the healthy foods I'd missed: bran m.u.f.fins, protein bars, granola, and smoothies. But very quickly the list began to include candy, cake, chocolate, and fried food. I felt that if I were going to give up, I might as well give up all the way. The floodgate had opened.

Just because I'd stopped starving didn't mean I didn't still have an eating disorder. My eating disorder felt the same to me. It took up the same s.p.a.ce in my head, and driving around the city to find the perfect comfort foods took up as much time as driving around the city to find the tuna with the lowest sodium content. It was still there. It was the other side of the same coin. As it turned out, I wasn't quite ready to rejoin life. I still wanted to disappear, and I chose to disappear behind layers of fat. I still felt unattractive to both s.e.xes, still not really living, merely existing. I was still testing the theory of whether I would be loved and accepted for my mind, my kindness, for everything about me other than what I looked like. I went from one extreme to the other. I went from 82 pounds to 168 pounds in ten months.

At first, after starving for so long, it was difficult to begin eating again even though I knew I had to in order to regain my health. A component in breaking the cycle of starvation was medicine. When the bone-density results showed that I was osteoporotic, I was put on hormone replacement therapy in an attempt to strengthen my bones. I had also quit smoking after hearing the diagnosis and started on a psychotropic medication after having brain scans by a renowned neuropharmacologist, Dr. Hamlin Emory. The chemical changes in my body, and I think most importantly, the psychotropic drug quelling the obsessive behavior, helped me to eat again and gain weight.

At the time I walked through the doors of the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Treatment Center, I had gained 27 pounds. It was only four weeks after my diagnosis. I had gone from 98 pounds to 125 pounds in four weeks. Toward the end of my starving phase of my eating disorder, I knew that hovering under 100 pounds didn't feel like my real weight. I was almost certain that the second I began to binge I would immediately catapult back to the weight I'd been before I started starving myself. I knew I would be 130 pounds within weeks. And I was.

I have never felt so ashamed as I did walking into an eating disorder clinic to be treated for anorexia at 125 pounds. I didn't belong there. Even though my treatment was private due to the fact I was terrified that my shameful secret would become public, I was fearful that I might run into people who really had anorexia, who really deserved to be there. I struggled with the feeling of unworthiness throughout my entire treatment. Even though I was paying for it and driving almost daily to Malibu to seek treatment with Carolyn Costin, one of the most well respected and successful counselors in the country, I felt compelled to lie. Every single session I lied to her about my feelings, my eating habits, and my progress. I lied to her because I was embarra.s.sed. I felt like I wasn't worthy of her time when she had girls in her program who were fatally ill when I was so average in size.

I was being treated for anorexia, but due to the fact I was 125 pounds and at a healthy weight for my height, I thought there was no reason for me to be there. I thought that the psychological healing and my relations.h.i.+p to food were not worth talking about. Bulimia and overeating, abuse of laxatives and excessive exercising were not life-or-death illnesses in my mind, and I really didn't share with Carolyn as much as I should have about my dalliances in all of those practices. Despite the fact I thought anything other than anorexia was a second-cla.s.s eating disorder not worthy of attention, when I was being treated by Carolyn I was severely bulimic. I was grossly overeating. The pendulum had swung the other way, and I was sicker than I had ever been in my life.

Since ending my bout with starvation, I had become addicted to low-calorie, low-carb, weight-loss food. I especially liked low-calorie frozen yogurt and would drive around town all day to different yogurt stores in search of peanut b.u.t.ter-flavored yogurt as all the stores rotated their flavors almost daily. I would drive from east Hollywood to Santa Monica in a day on the search for peanut b.u.t.ter, eating the less tasty flavors along the way. I figured that if I drove all that way, I might as well sample the flavors they offered. I could've called ahead, but then that would leave me with unfilled hours in the day, and as my work on Ally McBeal Ally McBeal only occupied two or three half days a week, I really didn't know how to fill them. only occupied two or three half days a week, I really didn't know how to fill them.

There was a yogurt store at the Malibu mall and every day before my session with Carolyn, I would stop there. I would order the 12-ounce yogurt regardless of the flavor they were serving and eat it on the floor of the backseat of my car. I was terrified of being photographed eating in my car by paparazzi. Nothing seemed more piggish and gross to me than eating in your car, with the exception of being seen doing it. I had gained so much weight and was so worried that it was noticeable. I figured that all the press would need to do was to get a photograph of me eating to confirm that I had in fact gained a lot of weight. I couldn't think of anything more shameful than my weight gain being obvious enough to talk about. And because the tabloids seemed very interested in my weight loss, I thought for sure they would be just as interested in my weight gain. In fact, during the months when I was at my highest weight, there was a lot of talk about my weight gain. A morning radio show, Kevin and Bean Kevin and Bean on KROQ, commented on the fact that I had "a face like a pie." I distinctly remember this because I listened to them every morning. I remember this because it's not something that you forget. on KROQ, commented on the fact that I had "a face like a pie." I distinctly remember this because I listened to them every morning. I remember this because it's not something that you forget.

After eating the yogurt on the floor of the backseat of my car, I took the plastic bag I had asked for in order to carry the yogurt and I threw up into it. At 9 calories an ounce, it was 108 calories that could easily be eradicated. I would then throw the plastic bag into the trash can that I'd strategically parked very close to, and head to my session with Carolyn, feeling very worried that the whole scenario could have been captured on film as Malibu was a hot spot for paparazzi. Without hesitation, when Carolyn asked me if I had binged or purged since my last session, I would reply that no, I hadn't. I hadn't binged or purged or even thought about bingeing or purging. I would tell her how healthy I was and how great I was doing. I don't know why, but it was very important to me to not appear sick to the only person that could help me get better. However, Carolyn had herself recovered from an eating disorder, and combined with her expertise and knowledge gained from treating hundreds of cases, she could see straight through the lies. There is a great deal of shame surrounding an eating disorder, with its abnormal practices and bizarre rituals, and so lying in treatment is common. My stories were only some of many she has had to decode.

My weight gain was horrific to me. I was bulimic again because I didn't want to be fat. I didn't want to be fat, but I couldn't stop eating. I knew that I should work out again to combat the amount of food I put into my body, but because being fat caused me to be depressed, I didn't have the energy. That's the feeling of pulling away from anorexia. The anxiety of feeling fat turns into depression about being fat, and the lethargy and apathy that depression brings make it impossible to get off the sofa. I had found a pa.s.sion in being thin. It nearly killed me. And while I hated being fat, my new pa.s.sion was eating. Carolyn encouraged me to write down the amount of food I ate, and while I mostly lied to her, copying entries from the journals I used to keep for Suzanne, my nutritionist, I decided to send her this email. I had written this entry in November 2000 but only sent it to her in February 2001. It was one of the rare times I wrote down all that I ate in one day. It read: Apple Coffee x 2 Half wheat bagel Whole sesame bagel Banana Bowl of pasta with sauce and cheese Ritz crackers 4 mini-m.u.f.fins 1 slice bread with tuna Chocolate-4 mini 2 slices bread with peanut b.u.t.ter 2 cups dried fruit and nuts bread-2 slices bowl tortilla soup half barbeque chicken sandwich French fries THREW UP.

3 prunes (out of trash can) mini-m.u.f.fin biscotti coffee bean coffee (vanilla) rice and beans chicken taco quesadilla crepe and b.u.t.ter large sugar cookie ice-blended mocha baby ruth white choc crunch bar pkt famous amos cookies French vanilla coffee THREW UP.

4 boxes of (cal free) ricola 1 cup of tea with milk YUP-THAT'LL ABOUT DO IT!!

Pxx (this was back in November) Carolyn, knowing what I was doing to my body, went to work on my mind. Her therapy included not only discussions about my past, my s.e.xuality, and the feelings I had surrounding food and weight, but we also talked about body image in the larger social sense. We talked about the image of the ideal woman in the form of models who were mostly unhealthy teenage girls. We talked about the idea that women in the postfeminist era, while supposedly strong and commanding and equal to men in every sense, looked weaker and smaller than ever before. We talked about how most women's sense of self-esteem still largely rests on what they look like and how much they weigh despite their other accomplishments. Carolyn photocopied pa.s.sages of Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, The Beauty Myth, and I read them. I remember lying on my bed, reading the badly photocopied text on the pages and saying out loud to no one but my dog, Bean, "Oh my G.o.d. I fell for it." I remember feeling ashamed for calling myself a feminist when I had blatantly succ.u.mbed to the oppression of the ma.s.s media telling me what was beautiful, how to look, and what to weigh. It was a turning point. I had always prided myself on the fact that I was smart, a.n.a.lytical, and someone who didn't "fall for it." By starving myself into society's beauty ideal, I had compromised my success, my independence, and my quality of life. Being overweight was really no different. It was just the "f- you" response to the same pressure. I was still responding to the pressure to comply to the fas.h.i.+on industry's standards of beauty, just in the negative sense. I was still answering to their demands when really I shouldn't have been listening to them at all. The images of stick-thin prep.u.b.escent girls never should have had power over me. I should've had my sights set on successful businesswomen and successful female artists, authors, and politicians to emulate. Instead I stupidly and pointlessly just wanted to be considered pretty. I squandered my brain and my talent to squeeze into a size 2 dress while my male counterparts went to work on making money, making policy, making a difference. and I read them. I remember lying on my bed, reading the badly photocopied text on the pages and saying out loud to no one but my dog, Bean, "Oh my G.o.d. I fell for it." I remember feeling ashamed for calling myself a feminist when I had blatantly succ.u.mbed to the oppression of the ma.s.s media telling me what was beautiful, how to look, and what to weigh. It was a turning point. I had always prided myself on the fact that I was smart, a.n.a.lytical, and someone who didn't "fall for it." By starving myself into society's beauty ideal, I had compromised my success, my independence, and my quality of life. Being overweight was really no different. It was just the "f- you" response to the same pressure. I was still responding to the pressure to comply to the fas.h.i.+on industry's standards of beauty, just in the negative sense. I was still answering to their demands when really I shouldn't have been listening to them at all. The images of stick-thin prep.u.b.escent girls never should have had power over me. I should've had my sights set on successful businesswomen and successful female artists, authors, and politicians to emulate. Instead I stupidly and pointlessly just wanted to be considered pretty. I squandered my brain and my talent to squeeze into a size 2 dress while my male counterparts went to work on making money, making policy, making a difference.

I was told that recovering from an eating disorder is hard and not very fun. But apart from honesty, the gift that Carolyn gave me was the knowledge that I would be recovered. Carolyn had herself recovered, and she told me that I wasn't just going to have to learn to manage anorexia and bulimia like an alcoholic managing her drinking. Managing the disorder-thinking about food to any degree other than something nutritious and enjoyable-is, to me, the very definition of disordered eating. I didn't just want to maintain my weight, suppress the urge to purge, and still have a list of foods that were "safe" to eat. I never wanted to think about food and weight ever again. For me, that's the definition of recovered.

After only a few months, and despite Carolyn's urging, I stopped treatment. I didn't stop because I thought I no longer needed her counsel, but because I no longer wanted it. As I was learning that there were no "good" or "bad" foods, just bad eating practices, I listened not to Carolyn but to my eating disorder as it told me that it felt exposed and unsafe. If I stopped weighing my food and myself, like she suggested, its existence was threatened. My eating disorder and I had been together for my entire life, and at that moment, it was easier to continue down the unhealthy path than to pave a new one. In retrospect, had I continued my treatment at this critical point of recovery, I would've discovered that wellness and happiness were closer than I could've imagined. Instead, I resumed the cycle of starving, bingeing, purging, and grossly overeating. And I gained weight.

My weight, the thing that I was convinced was paramount to my success as an actress, wildly fluctuated as I played the character of Nelle Porter. I whittled down to a size 2 from a size 6 and then I became almost like a spectator, watching pa.s.sively as my clothing size went back up from a 2 to a 4, a 4 to a 6. I watched as my biggest fear came to fruition. I was a size 8. I was the size the stylist for the L'Oreal TV commercial had announced to the executives; the size that told them they'd made a mistake in thinking that I was special enough to sell their hair products. I didn't want to be a size 8. It was seeing that number sewn into the labels of my Theory skirts that made me resort to bulimia. But because I was afraid of lupus, mainly I just overate and cried. After reaching the dreaded size 8, I alternated between extreme anxiety about my weight and just giving up caring. Like a binge, I felt if I was going to do a bad thing, I might as well just keep doing it. Size 8 turned into size 10, then a size 12, and in one instance, a size 14. I was so upset and confused that I could ever be a size 14 that I unfairly accused my costume designer of buying a size 14 just to make me feel badly about myself. I lifted my jacket up to expose my bare midriff to a producer to make my case. I told the producer that I wasn't as fat as my costume designer was making me out to be and it simply wasn't fair that she was playing this psychological game with me. I will never forget the look on the producer's face as I cornered her and showed her my stomach, pa.s.sionately wailing about the size of my skirt and how the costume designer had brought it to me to make me feel insecure.

Within a very short time I weighed 168 pounds. More than hating myself, I simply had no sense of myself. It was like I was completely without ego for those months of being at my heaviest. I had reentered life, but it didn't seem like my own life. It seemed like I was pa.s.sively observing other people's lives. I didn't talk about myself. I was only interested in talking about other people. I had decided that I would very carefully make it known that I was gay to a few gay people around me. I figured that I had completely ruined my career by being fat, so I might as well be gay also. I figured that if I ever worked again, it would be as a "character" actress or playing the best friend to the lead female, so if my h.o.m.os.e.xuality was rumored around town, it wouldn't really do any further damage to the image I'd already created for myself by being fat. On one very brave occasion I accompanied an acquaintance to a lesbian bar. I stood in the corner at a table facing away from the patrons. I was terrified of being recognized. With a push from my friend I went out onto the dance floor and asked an attractive girl for her phone number. She was attractive not only physically, but there was a sense of freedom about her. The complete opposite of me at the time, she appeared to be both carefree and grounded. We dated for about four months. While I was enjoying being in my first relations.h.i.+p with a woman, my bulimia intensified. I remember after a binge/purge session that lasted hours, she surprised me by dropping over. When she saw the red dots above my eyes and how ill I looked and sounded, she ran to the store to buy ingredients to make chicken soup. As I ate the soup she lovingly made, I felt ashamed. I hated that I had to lie and hide my secrets from my work and from my girlfriend. My paranoia and fear of being exposed-for having an eating disorder and for my s.e.xuality-were excruciating.

There was good reason for my paranoia. A paparazzo had found out that I was gay and made it her mission to out me. She stalked me. She waited for me every day in front of my building and followed me everywhere, occasionally making eye contact with me and signing to me that she was watching me; that she knew who I was. I had been photographed by paparazzi before, even followed, but this felt like being a deer in a hunter's scope. She and her driver were very aggressive and quite scary. The fear and paranoia led to my relations.h.i.+p's demise as it was impossible for me to leave the house with my girlfriend without feeling intensely anxious and uncomfortable. Not only was I terrified of being exposed as gay, I was scared of being photographed because of what I looked like. I had gained 70 pounds since my last encounter with paparazzi when they were covering stories about anorexic actresses. I didn't want to be in a magazine for being a fat actress.

I met Ellen in 2001 when I weighed 168 pounds. I don't know if I was that weight exactly, but I was heavy enough that the thought that she might have found me attractive or that we could have been a couple never entered my mind. I remember being so excited and overjoyed to be around her that I can still recall the feeling of running after her backstage at a concert we were both attending for Rock the Vote. I caught up to her, sat next to her at a table, and bought her a drink. I remember what she wore: an orange knit sweater, white T-s.h.i.+rt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. I remember what we talked about and a joke she made as we were looking down at the mosh pit. I embarra.s.sed myself by laughing too much and too loudly at that joke, but I simply couldn't stop. I thought she was the most amazing person I'd ever met. She was highly intelligent, sharply observant, and funny. She was so beautiful it seemed that light emanated from her bright blue eyes. I had the best night of my life. I felt good about myself around her. I was excited and yet comfortable. At the end of the night, she invited me to come over to her house with the group of friends she'd met up with at the concert. I didn't go. As we'd just met, I thought she was just inviting me to be polite, and I was too shy, too fat, and too insecure to go to her house with her friends. I felt that I had created the perfect memory of being around her that night and I didn't want to ruin it. As it turns out, she had invited those people over only so she would have the excuse of a party to invite me to so she could get to know me better. She was attracted to me. She was attracted to me as a 168-pound woman with a face like a pie. The fact that she got stuck entertaining a whole bunch of people at her house that night because of me is still something we laugh about.

Despite the obvious chemistry at that show in March 2001, Ellen and I didn't reconnect and become a couple until December 2004. Other than the fact that I was overweight, I was also closeted and private about my h.o.m.os.e.xuality, and so the thought of being with the most famous lesbian in the world didn't cross my mind at that point. I continued working on Ally McBeal Ally McBeal and taking small steps toward living my life as a gay woman. I had met some lesbians through the girl I'd briefly dated, and I spent time with them, observing them and trying to figure out what it meant to be gay. I soon discovered that I had to figure out what kind of lesbian I was going to be. It was obvious to me almost immediately that I was very different from most other girls. I didn't really fit into either role of "butch" or "femme." I liked wearing makeup and dresses and heels, but I also liked to wear engineer's boots and black tank tops. In the first few months of my coming out to other lesbians, I realized that I was as much a misfit in the gay world as I was in society at large. I was half butch, half femme, neither here nor there. At that point in my life, I didn't understand that playing roles in any relations.h.i.+p is false and will inevitably lead to the relations.h.i.+p's collapse. No one can be any one thing all the time. There is a great deal of lying done while a role is being played in any relations.h.i.+p, h.o.m.os.e.xual or heteros.e.xual. As I had tried to fit into the sample size clothing, I also tried to fit into a preconceived idea of what it meant to be gay. And any time I try to fit into a mold made by someone else, whether that means sample size clothing or a strict label of "butch" or "femme," I lose myself. and taking small steps toward living my life as a gay woman. I had met some lesbians through the girl I'd briefly dated, and I spent time with them, observing them and trying to figure out what it meant to be gay. I soon discovered that I had to figure out what kind of lesbian I was going to be. It was obvious to me almost immediately that I was very different from most other girls. I didn't really fit into either role of "butch" or "femme." I liked wearing makeup and dresses and heels, but I also liked to wear engineer's boots and black tank tops. In the first few months of my coming out to other lesbians, I realized that I was as much a misfit in the gay world as I was in society at large. I was half butch, half femme, neither here nor there. At that point in my life, I didn't understand that playing roles in any relations.h.i.+p is false and will inevitably lead to the relations.h.i.+p's collapse. No one can be any one thing all the time. There is a great deal of lying done while a role is being played in any relations.h.i.+p, h.o.m.os.e.xual or heteros.e.xual. As I had tried to fit into the sample size clothing, I also tried to fit into a preconceived idea of what it meant to be gay. And any time I try to fit into a mold made by someone else, whether that means sample size clothing or a strict label of "butch" or "femme," I lose myself.

I was a misfit in the lesbian world, I was closeted and scared that I would be outed in the media, so I reverted to being alone. I was still heavy, probably around 150, when 9/11 happened. 9/11 changed my life. I was so deeply disturbed by the realization that I could die without living my life openly and happily that I reached out to a friend who'd wanted me to meet a girl she knew and went on my first date with Francesca. We instantly began a serious and happy relations.h.i.+p that lasted three years. As 9/11 had jolted me into living my life more honestly and fully, my life improved greatly. Although I still struggled with self-acceptance, Francesca was loving and patient and taught me how to be in a relations.h.i.+p. I sold my apartment, and Francesca and I bought a beautiful house in Los Feliz.

When Ally McBeal Ally McBeal ended, I landed a role in an innovative and exciting new show, ended, I landed a role in an innovative and exciting new show, Arrested Development. Arrested Development. I decided to tell my producers and co-stars on I decided to tell my producers and co-stars on Arrested Development Arrested Development that I was gay, as I felt that I couldn't be in a serious relations.h.i.+p and hide it from the people I worked with. I felt that trying to do so was very disrespectful to Francesca, even though I was mostly terrified to introduce her as my girlfriend, especially to the show's executive producers, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. I was truly afraid I could lose my job. But it suddenly seemed pointless to have a girlfriend if I was going to hide her from the rest of my life. Hiding her from the rest of the world was a different story, however. that I was gay, as I felt that I couldn't be in a serious relations.h.i.+p and hide it from the people I worked with. I felt that trying to do so was very disrespectful to Francesca, even though I was mostly terrified to introduce her as my girlfriend, especially to the show's executive producers, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. I was truly afraid I could lose my job. But it suddenly seemed pointless to have a girlfriend if I was going to hide her from the rest of my life. Hiding her from the rest of the world was a different story, however.

The paparazzo who had begun stalking me around the time I was beginning to date accomplished her mission to out me when she got photographs of Francesca and me making up after an argument in an alley off Melrose. I had pulled Francesca into the alley after our conversation got a little heated because I didn't want to make a scene and inadvertently out myself to the people walking by on the sidewalk who would surely recognize a couple having an argument. Instead, the photographs went around the world and outed me to everyone who stood in a supermarket checkout line. Because of these photos, I was forced to come out to my aunts and uncles and cousins in Australia before the tabloid hit the stands and hit them over the head with shock. The shock for me was the amount of love and acceptance I received from my extended family, especially my aunt Joan and uncle Stan.

I will be eternally grateful to that paparazzo who I had feared would ruin my life, since she forced me to be honest with my family about being gay. She freed me from a prison in which I had held myself captive my whole life. At my mother's urging, however, I agreed to continue to keep the truth of my s.e.xuality from my grandmother and so began a practice of removing all articles about me from my grandmother's favorite tabloids, something that we continued doing for years. When I finally told my grandmother that I was gay, her reaction was truly amazing. I was back home in Australia to celebrate her hundredth birthday, about a year after Ellen and I had become a couple. My mother and I decided it would be my mother's responsibility to tell Gran that I was gay, since she was going to have to deal with the aftermath if Gran was unhappy about it, which we were almost certain she would be. After Ellen came out on her television show in 1997, Gran stopped watching it, saying that Ellen was "disgusting." My mother, having come to LA for a visit with Ellen and me, was supposed to show Gran pictures of the two of us together: our house and our animals-our life. My mother told me that Gran took the news calmly. But to everyone's surprise, when I sat in front of Gran to yell my h.e.l.lo, she asked me in a yell if I was dating. I yelled at her, "Gran, I'm with Ellen."

"Alan?"

"El-len."

She looked horrified.

"Oh, Porshe. You're not one of those!"

I turned to my mother, panicked. "I thought you showed her pictures and explained everything to her!" My mother swiveled on the sofa to face Gran and yelled, "Gran! I told you Portia was living with Ellen."

"Yes," she yelled back. "As roommates!" She looked perplexed and shook her head. "And all this time I was worried that that lesbian was. .h.i.tting on my granddaughter!"

Gran closed her eyes for about twenty seconds. There was complete silence. I was holding my breath. It was the longest, quietest twenty seconds of my life.

"Well," she said opening her eyes and holding her arms out for a hug, "I love you just the same." We never talked about my s.e.xuality again, only about how happy my life was with Ellen. From changing the channel in disgust to being Ellen's biggest fan and watching her talk show every day, Gran showed me that people can change, including me, as I was certain that a woman born in 1907 in a small town in rural Australia would never be able to accept me. I had judged her and a.s.sumed that she would feel as though I had shamed the family. But I was wrong. In the nursing home where she spent her final few months before pa.s.sing away at the age of 102, she kept a framed photo of our wedding for all the staff to see on the nightstand next to her bed. She was proud to call Ellen her granddaughter.

By the time I entered into my relations.h.i.+p with Ellen, I had recovered from my eating disorder. Living with Francesca forced me to deal with issues surrounding acceptance of my s.e.xuality, and it also forced me to deal with my relations.h.i.+p to food. I shared a kitchen-and a bathroom. I couldn't binge and purge without a lengthy and embarra.s.sing discussion. I slowly stopped purging and just binged in my car or at work while she wasn't there to see it. The rest of the time I would eat salads with no dressing. I was still fighting a heavier weight over the next two years, but what really became obvious to me was that I was doing something very wrong. I began to understand that every time I restricted my calorie intake, I would binge immediately after. Sometimes I could diet for a week or two without the bingeing and I would lose a few pounds, but then the binge would inevitably follow and I would gain all the weight back, and sometimes a couple of pounds more. I was always on a diet. I was either being "good" or being "bad," but I was always on a diet-even when I was bingeing. I lived my life from day to day by weighing myself and measuring my success or failure solely on weight lost or gained-just as I had done from the time I was twelve. I'd measured my accomplishments and my self-worth on that scale for my entire life, with the same intensity and emotion, from 82 pounds all the way to 168. While I had begun to examine my behavior in treatment, I was forced to continue the self-examination when I was living with Francesca, because simply having to explain my actions to another person made me question them. I finally understood that by being on a perpetual diet, I had practiced a "disordered" form of eating my whole life. I restricted when I was hungry and in need of nutrition and binged when I was so grotesquely full I couldn't be comfortable in any position but lying down. Diets that tell people what to eat or when to eat are the practices in between. And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating. "Ordered" eating is the practice of eating when you are hungry and ceasing to eat when your brain sends the signal that your stomach is full. "Ordered" eating is about eating for enjoyment, for health, and to sustain life. "Ordered" eating is not restricting certain kinds of foods because they are "bad." Obsessing about what and when to eat is not normal, natural, and orderly. Thinking about food to the point of obsession and ignoring your body's signals is a disorder.

Although I had learned about this from Carolyn, my understanding of how it worked was suspended due to my resistance to treatment. At the time of leaving Monte Nido, living without dieting sounded like a utopian philosophical ideal. That is, until I witnessed it at work with Francesca. A naturally thin woman who ate whatever she wanted and never gained or lost a pound was the most fascinating case study for this woman who had spent her life gaining and losing weight. I watched her eat pasta, candy, ice cream, and cheese. I watched her dip her bread in olive oil and wash it down with c.o.ke-real c.o.ke, not diet-while I ate dry salads with no dressing and sipped iced tea. I was dumbfounded that I was eating boring, dry, diet food and maintaining or gaining weight during the course of any given month when she never even thought about what she ate or how her body looked. I was equally amazed as I watched her order food at restaurants and only eat a small portion of her order because she was too full to finish it or skip breakfast or lunch because she got a little too busy and simply forgot to eat. After initially dismissing her eating habits as a result of her just being one of those lucky people who can eat whatever they want and stay thin, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe people who stay thin are the people who eat whatever they want.

I put this theory into practice after an incident between Francesca and me that was fraught with emotion and very revealing. I was sitting in the closet in our master suite crying because I couldn't fit into a pair of pants that I had bought only a month before. They were size 6. I was in despair and when Francesca came to comfort me, I almost accused her of causing my weight gain, saying that she'd let me get fat again and that she didn't care how I felt about myself or that my career depended on my ability to control my weight. After patiently hearing my wailing, she said something that I'll never forget. She said: "Fine. I'll help you diet. But you'll only gain it back."

It was a simple statement, but the truth of it overwhelmed me. All I had done throughout my life was diet and gain the weight back. Therefore, the only conclusion I could make was that diets don't work. Sitting on the floor of the closet with tears running down my face, I decided that my way wasn't working, that it was time to try something else. From that day on, I decided that I would never diet again.

After that day, instead of watching her eat, I joined in. I ate whatever she ate. We cooked meals together and loaded pasta onto our plates. We ate ice cream. Because I knew I could eat pasta and ice cream again the very next day if I wanted to, I stopped wanting it in excess. If it were going to be available to me anytime, why eat like it was the last time I'd ever taste it? The fact that I stopped restricting food made it less appealing. The fact that I stopped labeling food as "good" and "bad" made me just see it all as food. Like Carolyn had told me, there was no bad food. There were just bad eating practices. I began eating every single thing I wanted when I wanted it, without guilt, without remorse, without feeling anything other than happy about the taste of the food I had chosen to eat. Initially, I gained a little weight. But over time, I found that I didn't want to eat ice cream every day. Not because of fear of gaining weight, but because it was too cold, or too sweet for my taste buds after a salty pasta. I began tasting food and listening to my internal nutritionist as it told me that I truly wanted to eat a crispy, fresh salad rather than fries. When it told me that fries were what I was craving, it said, "Eat as many as you want knowing that you can always have them again tomorrow." So I'd eat just a few until I was full, or I'd eat the whole d.a.m.n serving until I couldn't eat anything else on my plate. I stopped overeating. I stopped thinking about food. I ate exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, without any feelings of guilt or being "good" or "bad."

Within two months of that conversation in the closet, I was maintaining my weight easily at 130 pounds. I was one of those "lucky" people who could eat whatever they wanted and never gain weight. I stopped weighing myself. I simply didn't care about weight anymore because it was always the same, always a comfortable, good weight for my body, and I stopped thinking about food because every single food item was available to me at any moment of the day. There was nothing left to think about.

As I listened to my internal nutritionist, I stopped wanting to eat meat, eggs, and dairy. This was something that carried over from childhood, as I never liked eating chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s or steaks because I was worried about finding veins or fatty tissue. I also didn't like eating processed meat, like chicken nuggets and ground beef, because I was worried that I'd get a mouthful of gristle. I definitely would never eat off a bone because the bones really reminded me of the fact that a living animal that had a heart and a mind and a family had been attached to those bones. I also hated the thought of ingesting the growth hormones that are given to so many animals in recent years to increase their weight and therefore their market value. And it disturbed me that I would drink a cow's milk, which is designed to increase its calf's weight to 400 pounds in as short a time as possible. I have always been a little squeamish at the thought of drinking another mammal's milk. I find it odd that humans are the only species that not only drinks another species's milk, but that we keep doing it as adults.

While I have never felt more healthy and energized, the most important thing that happened to me when I stopped eating animals was a sense of connectedness. When I was suffering with an eating disorder, my life was solely about me. I was living through my ego and didn't care about life around me. I was selfish and angry, and because I didn't care about myself, I also didn't care about littering in the street or polluting the environment. My decision not to eat animals anymore was paramount to my growth as a spiritual person. It made me aware of greed and made me more sensitive to cruelty. It made me feel like I was contributing to making the world better and that I was connected to everything around me. I felt like I was part of the whole by respecting every living thing rather than using it and destroying it by living unconsciously. Healing comes from love. And loving every living thing in turn helps you love yourself.

While I was learning how to eat again (or perhaps for the first time), I cultivated new hobbies that had nothing to do with how I appeared to other people in terms of how I looked or professional accomplishment. My new hobbies required skill, focus, intelligence, and most important, honing and relying upon my own natural instincts. My brother owns a helicopter charter and training business called Los Angeles Helicopters, and I began taking flying lessons with his instructors. Although I didn't get my private pilot's license, I racked up forty hours of flying in a Robinson R22 and moved my focus from weight loss to learning this new and challenging skill. Driving to Long Beach, studying aeronautical physics and learning autorotations took up the time that driving around town to find yogurt had previously occupied.

My pa.s.sion for riding horses was reignited after spending time with Francesca's mother in England over the holidays. As a small child, I loved horses but after suffering a dislocated shoulder from slipping off a cantering horse, I stopped riding out of fear. Twenty years later, I found myself with the same enthusiasm and excitement for horses that I'd had when I was a child. Over that Christmas in England I would wake up at 6:00 a.m. and head down to the barn hoping to be able to watch Fran-cesca's mother ride dressage and take a lesson on the Welsh cob she kept for interested visitors. When I returned to Los Angeles, I joined a hunter/jumper barn and within a few months bought a horse of my own.

To say that my first horse, Mae, saved my life isn't an overstatement. Just being outdoors all day and breathing in fresh country air and noticing the beauty of the trees as I rode on meandering deer trails through the woods was enough to alter my consciousness, to respect nature and my place within it. The horse was like an extension of myself, a mirror showing me my underlying emotions that I'd become skilled at ignoring. When Mae was afraid, she was telling me that I was afraid. When she refused to jump a fence, she let me know that I was intimidated by the hurdles in my life. She'd speed up when I thought I was telling her to slow down, as she was responding to my internal anxiety not to my voice weakly saying "whoa." Sometimes I couldn't even get her to go. I'd squeeze her sides and she'd just know that I didn't mean it. She'd know that I just wanted to stay still for a while.

Do I love myself just the way I am? Yes. (Well, I'm working on it!) But that doesn't mean I love my body just the way it is. People who recover from eating disorders can't be expected to have higher standards than the rest of society, most of whom would like to alter a body part or two. I'd still like thighs the size of my calves, but the difference is that I'm no longer willing to compromise my health to achieve that. I'm not even willing to compromise my happiness to achieve it, or for the thought of my thighs to take up valuable s.p.a.ce in my mind. It's just not that important. And while there are things I don't like about the look of my body, I'm very grateful to it for what it does. I'm grateful that it doesn't restrict me from doing my job the way I restricted it from doing its job. When I sit quietly and silently thank the universe for all the blessings in my life, I start with Ellen and end with my thighs. I thank my thighs for being strong and allowing me to walk my dogs around my neighborhood and ride my horses. I thank my body for not punis.h.i.+ng me for what I put it through and for being a healthy vessel in which I get to experience this amazing world and the beautiful life I am living full of love.

I have recovered from anorexia and bulimia. I am immensely grateful that the disorders, although robbing me of living freely and happily for almost twenty years, aren't continuing to rob me of health. Not everyone who has suffered from eating disorders has the same good fortune. The disorders have left me unscathed both physically and mentally. However, having anorexia has left me with an intense resistance to exercise. As well as being resistant to exercise, I have an intense resistance to counting calories. And reading labels on the backs of jars and cans. And weighing myself.

I hate the word exercise. exercise. I am allergic to gyms. But I don't think that "formal" exercise in a gym is the only way to achieve a healthy, toned body. I have discovered that enjoyable daily activities that are easy, like walking, can be equally beneficial. I have noticed on my daily walk with my dogs that I rarely see an overweight person walking a dog, whereas I see many overweight people walking on treadmills in a gym. I attribute this not only to the frequency of having to walk your dog, but also the good feeling one has when doing something good for another being. Seeing my dogs' excitement as I walk them around my neighborhood every day makes me happy, and when I'm happy I walk a little taller and a little more briskly. I can only imagine the enjoyment parents must experience when seeing the joy on their kids' faces as they play tag football or shoot hoops with them. I also enjoy being outdoors. I like breathing the cold night air deeply into my lungs as I walk up the hills in my neighborhood and smelling the forest air as I walk on hiking trails after a morning rain. Another way for me to stay fit is to do activities where I can learn a skill, like horse riding or tennis or dancing. I find that if I can concentrate on getting better at something, rather than getting fitter or looking better, I accomplish all three things-the latter two being happy by-products of the original goal. Doing an activity to relax is also important for me. I swim to clear my head rather than count laps and burn calories. Swimming slowly is a form of meditation for me. I am allergic to gyms. But I don't think that "formal" exercise in a gym is the only way to achieve a healthy, toned body. I have discovered that enjoyable daily activities that are easy, like walking, can be equally beneficial. I have noticed on my daily walk with my dogs that I rarely see an overweight person walking a dog, whereas I see many overweight people walking on treadmills in a gym. I attribute this not only to the frequency of having to walk your dog, but also the good feeling one has when doing something good for another being. Seeing my dogs' excitement as I walk them around my neighborhood every day makes me happy, and when I'm happy I walk a little taller and a little more briskly. I can only imagine the enjoyment parents must experience when seeing the joy on their kids' faces as they play tag football or shoot hoops with them. I also enjoy being outdoors. I like breathing the cold night air deeply into my lungs as I walk up the hills in my neighborhood and smelling the forest air as I walk on hiking trails after a morning rain. Another way for me to stay fit is to do activities where I can learn a skill, like horse riding or tennis or dancing. I find that if I can concentrate on getting better at something, rather than getting fitter or looking better, I accomplish all three things-the latter two being happy by-products of the original goal. Doing an activity to relax is also important for me. I swim to clear my head rather than count laps and burn calories. Swimming slowly is a form of meditation for me.

I have found ways to increase my heart rate, stretch my muscles, and breathe deeply every day in an enjoyable way that I would never label as exercise. I eat every kind of food that I like, moderating the portions using my appet.i.te and not a calorie counter. I love fat and I love carbohydrates. Nothing fills you up and feels more satisfying than a mashed potato or pasta and olive oil. There are days when I eat a large bag of potato chips for lunch and I feel too full and greasy to eat anything else until dinner. It may not be the healthiest, most balanced day in a lifetime of days, but I more than likely won't repeat it the following day.

To say that you can stay at your natural body weight and be healthy by eating what you want and not working out sounds extremely controversial, and yet people have lived this way for hundreds of years. It seems to me that it's only since around 1970 that the concept of diet and exercise has existed in the way it does now, which is based on exertion and restriction being the key to weight loss, and yet since then, we have seen an increase in obesity in countries that have adopted it. (These are also the countries where the fast-food industry boomed during that time.) The diet industry is making a lot of money selling us fad diets, nonfat foods full of chemicals, gym members.h.i.+ps, and pills while we lose a little of our self-esteem every time we fail another diet or neglect to use the gym members.h.i.+p we could barely afford. Restriction generates yearning. You want what you can't have. There are many ways to explain why the pendulum swing occurs and why restriction almost always leads to bingeing. I was forced to understand this in order to recover from a life-threatening disorder. And in a way, I wrote this memoir to help myself understand how I came to have an eating disorder and how I recovered from it. I really hope that my self-exploration can help not only people who are suffering from anorexia and bulimia, but also the perpetual dieters. You don't have to be emaciated or vomiting to be suffering. All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering.

If you can accept your natural body weight-the weight that is easy for you to maintain, or your "set point"-and not force it to beneath your body's natural, healthy weight, then you can live your life free of dieting, of restriction, of feeling guilty every time you eat a slice of your kid's birthday cake. But the key is to accept your body just as it is. Just as I have had to learn to accept that I have thighs that are a little bigger than I'd like, you may have to accept that your arms are naturally a little thicker or your hips are a little wider. In other words, accept yourself. Love your body the way it is and feel grateful toward it. Most important, in order to find real happiness, you must learn to love yourself for the totality of who you are and not just what you look like.

I made the mistake of thinking that what I look like is more important than who I am-that what I weigh is more important than what I think or what I do. I was ashamed of being gay, and so I only heard the voices that said that being gay is shameful. As I changed, I no longer heard the condemning voices. When my relations.h.i.+p with Ellen became public, I was amazed by how well the news was received. I was still very scared, but I was also very much in love, and love outweighed the fear. I wanted to celebrate our love. I was so proud to call myself her girlfriend that whatever people might have thought about my s.e.xuality wasn't important anymore. I simply didn't hear a single negative comment. I began to see myself as someone who can help others understand diversity rather than feeling like a social outcast. Ellen taught me to not care about other people's opinions. She taught me to be truthful. She taught me to be free. I began to live my life in love and complete acceptance. For the first time I had truly accepted myself.

August 16, 2008 I walk out of the bedroom of the guest apartment where Kellen and Jen, Ellen's and my sty