Through eating more food in recovery, I’m starting to feel flickers of my true self returning. Little sparks of the me I recognise and know I am. The real me wrote that 2,000-word blog post on a video game. That’s totally me.

I can feel the emotion of the Interstellar soundtrack – not just hear how amazing it sounds like I have for the past year and a half, but actually feel it in my soul. It lights up my sensory system in a way I didn’t realise I’d missed.

But what strikes me most is this: when I feel like myself again, when I truly recognise myself, I also feel how unbelievably sad I am. How alone I feel. How angry and heartbroken I am that my best friend died, and how no one else gets me like WeeGee did. Nothing was supposed to be this way.

Where Have You Been?

Anorexia is like a brain virus. A Walking Dead-style brain virus. I walk, I groan, I hobble about in a visibly decomposing frame – but the soul of me is gone.

When the brain is severely deprived of energy, it shuts down systems. I lost my periods. I lost long-term memory – I’ll forget large chunks of the past year and a half. It shut down values, ethics, my personality, even my ability to care about any of it.

And it shut down grief, too. Emotions cost too much. To keep me alive, my brain prioritised keeping my heart beating – and not much else. My body shut down into survival mode.

That means not many people who have met me in the last year and a half actually knows the real me. They’ve only seen echoes – a muted, starving, half-functioning version of myself. I’m not fully back yet, but the flickers are returning.

Alone in Space

I was listening to the Interstellar soundtrack while playing Spirit City. I felt myself in it. The music meant something again. The movie meant something. I was me for a moment.

And then, suddenly, a wave of grief hit – bigger than the tidal wave on that first planet Cooper lands on. “Those aren’t mountains. They’re waves.”

I cried so hard I could’ve filled that ocean with my own salty sadness. A deep, ugly, full-body cry. For my best friend. For longing. For grieving her.

Not because I suddenly miss her more.
But because I finally have enough energy – just enough food – to feel what I’ve been too starved to hold.

I’ve been trying really hard in my recovery.

But the last time I got this far, she was the one who helped me. She reminded me I was still “Awesome” when I thought I’d become unbearable. She saw every sharp edge in me and didn’t flinch. She could say, “That’s really shit, but you’re AWESOME anyway,” and mean it.

She didn’t try to fix me. She didn’t silence me with bright sides or throw glitter at my pain. She stayed. And now I’m recovering again, and she’s not here.

And that absence isn’t just a tidal wave – it’s a howl.

It howls every time I do something hard. Every time I challenge a fear food. Every time I eat something and wish I could tell her. She’s the one I want to share it with. The only one who would get it.

The howl gets louder when I realise there’s no one to tell me, “That’s really shit,” and then, “You’re doing amazing,” in the same breath. No one to celebrate or commiserate with me over fluffy socks, rapid weight gain and sandwiches.

It howls every night at 9pm when everything from the day is quiet and done. Like I’m a wolf – not howling at the moon, but at the space where she should be.

You Would Be Angry, Too

I am angry. REALLY angry. I’ve been abandoned in one way or another my whole life, but I’ve always tried to connect. I always kept hope someone was out there. I’ve kept sending out beacons – through my blog, through Instagram – just static into the void, for YEARS, hoping someone would hear me. REALLY hear me.

And one day, I heard a WOW signal.
WeeGee replied.
She was life.
She was proof that connection was real. That there is life beyond my little planet in the universe.

Finding her made all the other losses bearable. Ghosting, misunderstandings, disconnections – it didn’t matter anymore. I found someone who got me. It felt like everything would be okay now.

And then she died.

Now I’m alone again. And I’m angry.

I’m angry at my mother for abandoning me with abuse. Angry at my dad for leaving. Angry at my son’s father for abandoning us both. Angry at the medical professionals who left me behind. Angry at every person who ghosted me or went silent on me when I needed a friend most.

I’m angry when I post about her and people reply with, “She’s still with you,” or “You can carry her forward.”

That’s not good enough.
I don’t want a memory.
I want to BE with her.

But deep down, I know – I’m not really angry at them.
I’m angry that she’s not here.

I’m angry because no one gets me like she did.
I’m angry that the universe took away the one person who loved me unconditionally.
I’m angry because she gave me something even my parents never did.

I miss her so much.

Recovery Can’t Be My Only Focus

Recovery is hard. I’ve been trying to focus entirely on eating more, challenging fears, gaining weight. But my eating disorder is wrapped around the grief for my best friend. Every time I eat, I miss her more – and that grief has pulled me back into restriction, every single time I got brave enough to try eating more over the past year and a half.

Maybe I can’t separate them.
Maybe recovery means grieving, too.
Maybe I need to eat while longing for her.
Write while heartbroken.
Cry while chewing.

I have to learn how to sit in grief without running into the arms of Clippy, who says starving will make it easier.

All I know is this: I’m grieving. I’m eating. I’m fighting.

And this time, I have to do it without WeeGee.

For the song for the post, some more Florence and the Machine. This track is perfect.

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then it stopped and I was in the darkness
So darkness I became