This week saw Irish actor, Evanna Lynch release her much anticipated memoir, The Opposite to Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and Glory of Growing Up. The book, which she has described as part self-help and part memoir, goes into the ups and downs of her life up to now.
Evanna, who is best known for playing Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film franchise, and now works alongside animal welfare charities, shares some of her lowest points within the book.
She has been open in the past about her struggles with an eating disorder and her mental health, and the book will cover these topics and how she got through this.
Speaking with E!News since the release she shared; “For so long, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever have done enough feeling to be able to write the end of my story, and I hope I kind of conveyed that in the book—that the healing journey, the recovery journey, is nonlinear.”
“I don’t have an eating disorder at all anymore,” she added.
“You want to be honest, you know? I don’t want to just say, ‘Everything’s cool now, happier, I’ve fixed all these weird issues.’So, I had to find a way that I could be honest about where I’m at, but be positive and leave people with a warm, inspired feeling.”
The 30-year-old continued by saying she wants the book to be helpful and “inspiring” to other teens who may be going through similar issues;”It’s been years of eating like a normal, healthy person and having balanced habits. And it’s different—somebody asked me recently, ‘Oh, is it similar to alcoholism, where you’re always going to have to avoid it?’ And it’s like, well, no, because you have to eat, you have to do it.”
Continuing she added; “And you have to learn how to do it in a functional way. So, I do believe you can properly recover and move on. But I think the healing process continues.”
“I kind of have a sense that nobody really knows who I am. People sort of think, ‘Oh, you are this sweet, airy, fairy person.’ And that’s a lovely perception, but it’s not really real. It’s not. So, it’s almost like I haven’t been able to have true connections with people, with even the people who follow me online.”
The Opposite to Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and Glory of Growing Up by Evanna Lynch is out now.
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