Your Grief Almost Killed You
When an Eating Disorder Feels Like the Only Way to Survive
EDITION NO. 021
Content Warning: This essay discusses lived experiences of an eating disorder, cancer, and the loss of loved ones.
He died six days before Christmas.
We knew the end was inevitable. The cancer had spread like wildfire. Even with advanced warnings from the doctors, nothing ever prepares you for the finality of death.
No amount of preparation buys you enough time for goodbyes. What do you say to someone you love when their days are numbered? How do you find words that carry the weight of goodbye and the hope of holding on?
Two weeks before he passed, he called me.
I was in the middle of finals during my senior year of college, already burdened by the intensity of exams.
By then, the cancer had invaded his brain, gradually taking pieces of the brother I had always known. His speech was labored, his cognition dulled, and every word he managed felt like a fragile triumph. It was a heartbreaking conversation—I clung to every strained syllable, knowing deep down it would be our last.
“Everything will be okay,” he said softly, each word deliberate and strained as if summoning every ounce of strength to offer me comfort.
At that moment, his words became a lifeline, a delicate reminder of resilience in the face of the unbearable. They held a quiet power, urging me to hold on even as his strength was slipping away.
Hearing him say those words was both heartbreaking and grounding; it felt like he was offering me a fragile piece of hope to hold onto, even as his stamina faded.
Since his diagnosis, hope had been as frail as a spider’s web—breakable, barely holding, and constantly on the verge of unraveling.
My brother was the first person to recognize my eating disorder for what it was. He noticed my rapid weight loss, the excuses I made to skip meals, and the way I avoided eating in front of others.
His recognition felt both unsettling and comforting—it was unnerving to have someone see through my facade, but his concern reminded me that I wasn’t completely invisible in my struggle.
But rather than trying to fix me, he simply stayed by my side. He showed up with quiet strength, offering connection and presence at a time when I had retreated into isolation.
While I was consumed by shame and secrecy, he remained steadfast, embodying the sense of care and vigilance he had always shown me.
Instead of confronting me or calling me out, he stepped into the depths of my darkness, holding space for me when I couldn’t hold it for myself.
“I’m just worried about you,” he said. “You don’t have to fight this battle alone.”
As a former Marine, he often used military analogies, but this time, his words were softer, filled with genuine concern and an unwavering resolve to help me. Yet, accepting help felt impossible when I couldn’t admit I needed it.
How could I let go of something that had become my lifeline?
My eating disorder wasn’t just a habit—it was survival.
Living without it felt too risky, too unsafe.
I’d convinced myself that being sick meant I was succeeding. If my blood pressure or heart rate dropped dangerously low, it felt like validation that I was in control, even as it eroded me.
But my brother could see past all of it—straight to the pain I was trying so desperately to mask.
The summer before he passed, we sat side by side on the couch for a heart-to-heart conversation.
The doctors had given him only six months to live, and every moment felt unbearably precious. With time slipping through our fingers, there was no room for pleasantries or hesitation. He turned to me with a gravity I had rarely seen, cutting straight to the heart of what he needed to say.
“What hurts me the most is that I won’t be here to protect you,” he said, the quintessential big brother taking on the protective role he had always held.
“Let’s face it—Mom and Dad aren’t going to,” he added with blunt honesty.
He wasn’t wrong.
In that moment, we bonded over our frustrations with our parents, who always sought to rein us in. We were the family misfits—the black sheep daring to forge our own paths.
“Everything will be okay,” I reassured him, trying not to make promises I couldn’t keep.
He was the one battling for his life, yet in a quiet, unspoken way, I think he understood I was waging my own fight too. He hadn’t chosen cancer, just as I hadn’t chosen my eating disorder. While he faced his illness with courage, I avoided confronting mine entirely.
The truth is, I didn’t know if I would ever be okay—I didn’t even know what okay looked like. All I knew was that we were both clinging to what we could, each trying to survive in our own way.
“Just promise me you’ll never give up,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion as tears welled in his eyes.
A lump rose in my throat, and swallowing felt like trying to move a stone. All I could do was nod, my heart aching with the weight of his words.
I desperately wanted to keep that promise, to find the strength to heal so he could leave this world with some measure of peace.
But as much as I yearned to recover for him, I would later come to understand that true healing is a deeply personal journey—one that can’t be sustained solely for someone else, no matter how deeply they’re loved.
I didn’t know how to navigate the overwhelming grief without my eating disorder.
It became my lifeline, something I clung to desperately as if it could keep me afloat in an ocean of sorrow.
Though fragile and flawed, it was the only anchor I had amidst the chaos of losing my brother. It offered a way to dissociate from the intolerable flood of emotions, giving me moments of numbness when everything else felt insurmountable.
Losing him only deepened my dependence on it, as if holding onto the eating disorder could somehow provide the stability I craved.
With each day that his health worsened, my eating disorder tightened its grip, surging like an unstoppable wave to shield me from the pain I wasn’t ready to face.
I wasn’t there when he took his final breath.
I had spent hours by his bedside, watching his chest rise and fall, each breath slower than the last. The room was steeped in silence as if even the faintest noise might disturb the delicate threshold between life and death.
At one point, his labored breathing paused, and I froze, fearing it might be the end, only to see the faintest movement return moments later. That fragile instant remains etched in my memory.
Eventually, my dad urged me to take my younger siblings home.
I didn’t want to leave, but the weight of the room and the inevitability of what was to come became too heavy to endure. Before leaving, I gently touched his foot beneath the blanket and whispered, 'I love you.'
It was the last time I saw him.
We got the call later that morning.
He was gone.
I wanted to smash my phone against the wall, to shatter the weight of the words I had just heard. I knew this moment was coming, but I didn’t know how to handle the rage within me, so I turned to what I knew.
I purged it into a porcelain bowl.
It was raw, angry, and violent—the only outlet I had for feelings that had nowhere else to go. But no matter how many times I tried to flush them away, the grief and rage clung to me, unrelenting.
Afterward, I sank to the bathroom floor, the cold tile pressing against my skin, a stark contrast to the firestorm raging inside. I was too angry to cry.
The anger didn’t just stem from the loss; it was directed inward, sharp, and incessant.
My brother had died, and moments later, I had retreated to the very behaviors he had wanted me to overcome.
The shame was crushing; it felt like a betrayal of his memory. And yet, those behaviors were the only thing that dulled the searing pain enough to keep me moving forward.
The days that followed felt surreal, as if I were living someone else’s life.
My brother’s battle had ended, but mine raged on, more relentless than ever.
Returning to school after Christmas break, it was as though nothing had changed, as though the weight of my despair was invisible to the world around me.
That’s the way our society handles grief, isn’t it? We’re expected to hide it, to carry it silently as if it doesn’t leave us deeply wounded. But I was wounded—profoundly. Inside, it felt like a vast, unhealable void.
The expectation to suppress my anguish only deepened my dependence on maladaptive coping mechanisms.
I felt an overwhelming pressure to appear composed, to hide the chaos within, and so I turned to my eating disorder. It became the one thing that felt stable in a world that was spinning out of control.
Grief takes root in unexpected ways.
For me, it became entangled with my eating disorder, pulling me deeper into its hold.
I remember standing in the kitchen late at night, staring at a pantry full of food, paralyzed by the weight of loss and the desperate need to feel something else—anything else.
That moment encapsulated how grief and my eating disorder intertwined, with one amplifying the other in an endless cycle of avoidance and survival. Binging was how I numbed out. Purging became the only outlet for the built-up tension and turmoil within me.
The sorrow of losing my brother was all-consuming, and my eating disorder became a survival mechanism—a desperate attempt to shield myself from the weight of feelings that seemed impossible to bear.
It created a vast divide between me and the support I so deeply needed—the kind of connection that might have helped me process loss or offered me tools to cope.
Instead, I withdrew further, unable to reach out or let others in, which only tightened my dependence on my eating disorder as a way to navigate heartache.
That semester, I spent countless hours hidden in bathroom stalls.
I had memorized which ones were likely to be empty, mapping out the spaces where I could purge in secrecy.
My days revolved around the constant cycles of binging and purging, and as a result, I missed half my classes, jeopardizing both my health and my hopes of graduating. My academic performance crumbled under the weight of missed deadlines, while my physical health deteriorated from the unrelenting strain.
Each act felt like a desperate attempt to persevere, even as it drove me further from the life I was clinging to.
Engaging in my eating disorder became my way to numb the unbearable sadness, anger, and helplessness that threatened to consume me. It offered fleeting relief from the pain but at an ever-growing cost.
Over time, I came to understand my eating disorder not as a conscious choice, but as a harmful survival tactic—one that helped me endure the unremitting pain of loss.
Yet, it was simultaneously destroying me.
My body was deteriorating under its grip. I avoided doctors and dentists, terrified of revealing just how much damage I had inflicted upon myself. Without my parents’ oversight, I was left to navigate life alone, fragile and fractured, wrestling with the weight of mental illness without a safety net.
The faint glimmer of hope that kept me tethered to reality was the possibility of building a future with someone I loved. Yet even that dream felt fragile—seemingly out of reach for someone who had been told repeatedly that having children wasn’t an option.
More immediate was the pressing truth: I couldn’t love myself. How could anyone else? Allowing myself to be loved felt impossible when I couldn’t see my worth or believe I was deserving of love.
Years later, in therapy, I came to understand just how deeply distress had fueled my eating disorder.
This realization shifted my perspective entirely—it helped me see that my need to control food was an attempt to regain power in the face of profound loss.
Acknowledging this connection gave me a starting point for healing, allowing me to begin untangling grief from the coping mechanisms that had once kept me afloat.
With my therapist’s guidance, I started recognizing patterns, naming my emotions, and discovering healthier ways to carry the weight of my heartbreak.
While this understanding didn’t erase hardship, it allowed me to separate my grief from the coping mechanisms I had clung to, opening a path toward recovery through mindfulness, connection, and self-compassion.
In the years that followed, after enduring a long journey of healing, my broken body, once almost crushed by grief, gave birth to our fourth child—our first son, whom we named after my brother.
That moment marked a profound turning point in my restoration journey.
Holding him in my arms for the first time, I felt the weight of a new beginning, a blend of joy and sorrow that seemed to encapsulate the complexity of healing.
His birth was a reminder of the resilience I had discovered within myself and the love that continued to grow despite the shadows of loss.
As the years passed, mending continued—not just for my children, but for myself. I began to embrace moments of joy without the shadow of guilt.
Motherhood taught me that grief and joy could coexist and that living fully doesn’t mean leaving the pain behind, but carrying it forward with love and purpose.
Looking back, I’ve come to view my eating disorder with compassion.
It was my way of surviving the overwhelming wave of sadness in the absence of tools or support. I’ve let go of the shame for not "healing fast enough" or for relying on behaviors that once felt selfish or destructive.
Just as my brother didn’t choose cancer, I didn’t choose an eating disorder. We were both fighting battles we never asked for.
Grief is vast and ever-present, revealing itself in different forms and intensities.
When I lost my dad unexpectedly years later, it was as if I was losing my brother all over again. This time, however, I had tools, support, and an understanding of how to sit with grief rather than be overtaken by it. I allowed myself to cry, rage, and mourn without reverting to old patterns.
It became an emotionally transformative experience, reminding me that grief, while heavy, doesn’t have to consume us entirely.
Here’s what I’ve come to realize:
Grief and joy are intricately intertwined, two sides of the same coin.
This understanding echoes through my journey—through the crushing loss of my brother, the love and resilience that motherhood revealed, and the moments of healing where I learned to carry both sorrow and hope in tandem.
As mothers, we encounter grief in countless ways—the birth that didn’t go as planned, the child you envisioned but didn’t have, the chronic illness or diagnosis, or the unwavering passage of time.
For me, grief took many forms—the profound loss of my brother and later my father, and the quieter, persistent grief that often shadows motherhood.
It was found in unexpected birth experiences, the challenges of breastfeeding, the moments stolen by poor body image and postpartum depression, and the crushing weight of unmet expectations that left me questioning my worth.
Each layer of loss has woven itself into the tapestry of transformation.
Accepting grief as a companion rather than an adversary has transformed my perspective, allowing me to see it as a profound teacher.
Though painful, it shapes us, embedding itself into the very fabric of who we are.
Motherhood has taught me that despair doesn’t diminish joy; it amplifies it, reminding us of the resilience that propels us forward.
In embracing both grief and joy, I’ve learned that healing isn’t about erasing pain but about discovering meaning and love in the spaces it leaves behind.
Your grief matters.
If your eating disorder feels like the only thing keeping you afloat right now, know this: You don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you endure, and that survival is a testament to your resilience, even when it feels fragile.
I see the immense courage it takes to keep showing up.
You might carry shame for your struggles, wondering why the love you feel for the people in your life—especially your children—doesn’t seem like enough to help you recover.
You might feel like a terrible mother because of your challenges—shouldn’t your children be all the motivation you need?
But mental health struggles aren’t about a lack of motivation.
Of course, you want to get better, just as I wanted to get better for my brother. Sometimes, though, we hold onto what keeps us sick because it feels safer than facing grief or shame.
That doesn’t make you a bad mother—it makes you a survivor.
You’re doing the best you can to stay afloat for the people you love, including your children.
But promise me this: Don’t give up, and don’t stop seeking healing.
Start by giving voice to your grief. Acknowledge what you’ve lost, and extend compassion to yourself for surviving the unbearable.
You are not alone, my friend.
I wish my brother could see me now, holding our children and keeping the promise I made to him—to never give up, to fight for myself, and to honor his legacy.
Grief didn’t break me; it became a thread woven into my story, a source of strength and transformation.
Each step forward stands as a tribute to his memory, a reflection of the love he gave me, and a testament to the truth that even in the darkest moments, healing is possible.
Until next Sunday’s Supper…