Monkey Taming

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"You've eaten too much, you fat pig." When Jessica was thirteen years old, she met the Monkey. The Monkey lived inside her: a driving, fiery voice telling her that thinness was the only way. The only way to be safe, to be good, to be acceptable and above all, to escape from the cold, looming threat of approaching adulthood. Jessica listened to the Monkey, and it consumed her. This is the illuminating story of a teenage girl’s wanderings in darkness: the spiral down into madness, the terrible realities of an adolescent psychiatric unit, and the stark choice that she must either tame her monster – or die. Through memory, reflection, and enduring black humour, Jessica makes a tenuous peace with the world and with her emerging adult self.

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Judith Fathallah is 18 years old and comes from Cardiff. She is currently in her first year of an English degree at Cambridge. At 13 Judith was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa and admitted to a psychiatric ward. Now fully recovered, Judith wants to tell her story through the persona of Jessica.