14 years ago, I got an email from a mum who'd been following this blog. She wrote to say that her own situation was almost identical to mine and that she'd found this blog tremendously helpful, especially as eating disorder services for teenagers were virtually non-existent where she lived. She'd been following this blog, reading about what worked for us and trying it out with her daughter - she'd also found the incredible resource https://feast-ed.org/ through this blog and had joined its Around The Dinner Table Forum for parents of young people with eating disorders after she learned how it had been a lifesaver for me.
That was just the start... What happened next was amazing...
She and I hit it off from the start. The similarities between her family situation, as regards eating disorders, and ours were almost uncanny. We quickly became firm friends.
We began to email each other, in depth, for many months... then years...
Although we lived over 100 miles apart, we began to meet up half-way, in Sheffield, for lunch and coffee, something that became a regular thing over the years.
As the internet changed, we began texting and Whatsapping as well as emailing. Then Zoom meetings during Covid.
My son, Ben, recovered from anorexia and her daughter recovered, too.
Yet she and I stayed firm friends.
As the years went on, we both began to have issues with c-PTSD trauma symptoms as a result of the strain of getting our children through anorexia.
So we began to support each other.
As well as forming a fantastic friendship, she was one of the few people with whom I could truly be "me". Whatever was going on inside my head, I knew she wouldn't just "get it" but would have wise, sensible, practical advice.
She was a nurse, and when she retired, she volunteered with the ambulance service and with an eating disorder support charity. How amazing is that?
It's just typical of the kind of person she was.
Kind, loving and caring.
Just before retiring, she also worked with CAMHS for a while as good eating disorder services finally began to be established in her locality.
She was just one heck of a wonderful person and I feel so very privileged to have known her - and so thankful that this blog made her decide to contact me right at the start.
You know what I'm going to say next...
Just over a year ago my friend was diagnosed with breast cancer.
In November, they thought it had gone. We met up to celebrate - she looked great and all the ravages of chemo appeared to have disappeared.
She was her old self again.
But, by Christmas, the cancer was suddenly back.
Suddenly and aggressively.
Then just after New Year, her daughter contacted me to say she'd died.
My wonderful, beautiful, caring, loving, amazing, kind, compassionate friend was dead.
I cried non-stop throughout her funeral. I just couldn't stop myself.
I still cry today, two-and-a-half months on.
I am heartbroken.
My dearest friend, my "rock", the person I could talk about anything with and know she'd "get it", has gone.
I've lost three very dear friends from cancer. First it was the beautiful Sue (see blog posts from early 2012) and then two years later it was the amazing Charlotte. Both of these women selflessly supported me as I struggled to get my son, Ben, though anorexia.
RIP my dearest friends.
I miss you all like mad.
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