Isn’t it interesting how we can somehow find it easier to read the account of a celebrity and how he or she dealt with an addiction or process behavior than we can to recognize it in ourselves? When it comes to celebrities and eating disorders, there is certainly any number of books available to choose from.

One by Portia de Rossi, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, while a couple of years old, is still a fascinating read and a book that can provide not only a comprehensive insider’s view of what it means to have an eating disorder, but also how to find one’s way out of the vicious cycle.

Who is Portia de Rossi? As readers of the book will discover, if they don’t already know, she is an actress best-known for her portrayal of an all-competent, successful female attorney on the popular TV series, Ally McBeal, now cancelled. Her character on the show, Nelle Porter, was in sharp contrast to the anxiety-ridden, shy and self-conscious Portia de Rossi.

What would happen, of course, should be familiar to others who struggle daily with an eating disorder: de Rossi engaged in a constant fixation on counting calories, measuring every morsel of food that went into her mouth, bingeing and purging in an obsessive compulsion to become even thinner. At the time she collapsed on the set of Ally McBeal, de Rossi weighed a scant 82 pounds. Eighty-two pounds! That’s barely enough to be alive, let alone walking around.

The thin, blond, glamorous actress looked to the entire world the successful, happy star of the hit TV show. On the inside, it was another matter altogether. Portia de Rossi wasn’t happy at all. In fact, she was literally close to dying.

How she got to this point is, once again, all too familiar to those who also suffer from an eating disorder. Here are de Rossi’s own words, describing how she became anorexic: “I didn’t decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude. Being as thin as possible was a way to make the job of being an actress easier…”

It took years of the same kind of fixation on becoming thinner, of self-loathing at her reflection in the mirror, of feeling not good enough, not pretty enough, certainly not thin enough to ever compete with other girls and, later, women.

Rituals became de Rossi’s best friend. She had to eat out of certain dishes. The arrangements had to be just so. She would literally starve herself and then binge to reward herself following completion of a certain goal – like being able to fit into the perfect sample size six. How agonizingly close to what some of us have known. Here’s the real deal, someone who’s been there and come back from the edge.

But, of course, coming back isn’t easy. It’s not easy for anyone, not even a glamorous celebrity like Portia de Rossi.

In Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, we’re treated to a story told by an individual with a keen sense of detail, a fine wit, and one who relates what happened, how tormented and anxious she felt, how completely out of sync with whom she was supposed to be, and how she ultimately found the courage to climb back from her close brush with death, literally.

De Rossi, an Australian native, went on to appear in Arrested Development and Better Off Ted. Some may know that de Rossi is a lesbian, married to Ellen DeGeneres. In fact, de Rossi is an outspoken advocate for both gay rights and women’s health issues.

Here’s another reality that those suffering from an eating disorder may know all too well. If we try so desperately to push down and keep hidden from view a secret we’re afraid will destroy us, we will likely succumb to one or another type of addictive or obsessive behavior. For Portia de Rossi, it was an eating disorder, her way of coping with the fear that others would discover the truth of her sexuality. For others, it could just as easily be alcohol or drug abuse as the drug of choice to hide from this or that unbearable truth. If we can’t find means to cope, if we cannot find ways to boost our self-esteem, something has to give.

Not everyone will find themselves in such a position. Who’s to say which person will use food (or the deprivation of it) as a coping measure, or turn to alcohol or drugs, or gambling or compulsive sexual behavior, or workaholism? We each find our way through life, and none of us chooses the same path.

Still, the fact that we can be undone by our behaviors and then find a way out of it so that we become healthy, productive and happy individual is a testament not only to the human spirit but our own uniqueness. The account of Portia de Rossi’s struggle to be whole and complete – for the first time in her life – is one that should both encourage and inspire all of us.

So, the next time any of us with a yen to be super-thin hear that little voice – okay, that incessant, harping voice – inside our head telling us that we’re not good enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough, not anything enough, tell it to shut up. Then recognize that there’s more to life than obsessing over what the mirror does or does not seem to show us. Life is about living, not being a rail-thin, near-death corpse that somehow still looks good.

Portia de Rossi is living proof that there is life after such misery. And it’s incredibly more happy and healthy, at that. Can we all relate? Let’s look at it this way: If she can do it, we can too. Thankfully, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain is a brutally honest, and heartfelt look at the way back.