People think the hardest part is watching someone you love refuse to eat.
It isn’t.
The hardest part is watching them believe they don’t deserve to.
My daughter genuinely believes she’s a bad person. Not because she’s done something terrible, but because her illness has convinced her she is beyond redemption. Every conversation circles back to the same heartbreaking refrain.
“I’m a bad person.”
“I don’t deserve to eat.”
“I don’t deserve my children.”
No amount of logic reaches her because this isn’t a choice. It’s an illness talking through her.
I’ve tried reminding her that she’s losing weight. I’ve told her she’s becoming dangerously unwell. I’ve told her I’m frightened she’s dying. None of it seems to break through.
Then I realised something.
Maybe the question isn’t, “Why won’t you eat?”
Maybe it’s, “What is this illness trying to subtract from your life?”
Imagine waking up tomorrow and, for just a moment, imagine you had been subtracted from the world. Imagine your children waking up without their mum. No hugs. No laughter. No birthdays. No ordinary Tuesdays. Just an empty space where you should be.
That’s where this illness is taking her.
The cruellest part is that starvation doesn’t just weaken the body—it weakens the brain. The very organ she needs to judge whether these thoughts are true is being deprived of the fuel it needs to think clearly.
You don’t have to deserve food to eat.
You don’t have to earn oxygen before you breathe.
Your brain needs nourishment before it can tell you the truth.
As her mum, I can’t argue with the illness anymore. I can’t reason with a brain that’s starving. All I can do is keep loving her, keep advocating for her, and keep hoping that one bite might be enough to help her brain find its way back.
What makes this even harder is trying to navigate a mental health system that moves at a pace completely disconnected from the urgency families are living with.
I sent an email outlining serious concerns begging for a plan, Days have passed now without even an acknowledgement.
When you’re watching someone you love fade before your eyes, silence from the people responsible for their care feels unbearable.
Families are often expected to hold everything together while waiting for systems to respond. We become carers, advocates, coordinators, and crisis managers, all while carrying the fear that if we stop pushing, our loved one will fall through the cracks.
I know my daughter isn’t choosing this. I know the woman I raised is still there somewhere beneath the illness. I refuse to believe that the voice telling her she’s worthless is the truth.
Because I know the truth.
She is loved.
She is needed.
She deserves to eat.
And I will keep reminding her of that until the day she can believe it for herself.
The Lady in the Back Row 