what's the most ridiculous thing you've seen me do
oh god i'm gonna need a second to think about this
also what's appropriate and not appropriate
when we used to have locks on our fridge and cupboard door
and coming home to you trying to saw off the locks and you're using the wrong song and having
no idea how to do it because obviously you didn't know anything about songs but
that was like a a big shock for me like wow like this is like living with an addict it's
crazy to like look back on those times and yeah it very much is like a drug addiction like you are
willing to do whatever it takes to like get that next fix and for me it was binging and purging
how do you describe our relationship to others um i usually describe you as like my best friend
um i say that we're really close we share all the same values and we have a lot of similar interests
but we're opposite in many many ways you're logical i'm very emotional and like guided by
my gut you don't really struggle with anything in terms of mental health like you're very easy
going and i'm uh debilitated by a lot of things although i think i've become much more resilient
because i haven't had a choice living with chronic illness
yeah just our temperament is is very different you're shy quiet
avoid confrontation i will confront anybody like it doesn't phase me and i'm very silly very
outgoing
um when you think about us as kids what do you remember
i remember
we were very playful but also fought a bit as kids whatever i did you did and whatever you
did i did so whether that was me playing with dolls because you did or you playing
with thomas tank engine trains because i did then as we got a little older it felt like you
were sort of focused on more by mom and she spent she would come home late you know like
past 7 30 because of my eating disorder no not not that age even younger like she would
just come home you need help with homework you know whatever so i just kind of learned to be
independent i guess from a really young age and sort of just get by school and everything
on my own i think how old was were you when i first got sick i think you were fifth grade
fourth fifth grade yeah yeah so i was still youngish i always felt guilty about that that
you were sort of forced to grow up at such a young age and like go into this caretaker position
for me i think i feel bad because you still feel that responsibility like at home
like i remember not that long ago you told me that you feel like you're responsible for like
keeping the family together and that if like you were to set boundaries with dad um that he would
like get a divorce from mom or that everything would fall apart and that made me so sad that
you carried that weight and responsibility for a lot of my childhood i remember feeling
like unloved like you were the favorite um i would write mom like letters under her door
and be like why don't like i feel like you don't love me um yeah i always felt envious of you and
i'm really just like invisible and i think uh our my eating disorder sort of like brought
us closer together because you were one of my biggest supports but yeah i think there was a
lot of pain for me growing up because i felt like you were the favorite and i was the problem child
that's interesting because from my perspective it felt like that as well in a way because like
that i was the favorite because it's like your sports took precedence over mine your homework
needs to cross like whatever you needed was always like more important than whatever i
needed because you were older and things were more significant in your life that's interesting
yeah i always viewed you as like everything came so easy to you were so good at
school and you had all these friends and like i was the one who was struggling with
everything but yeah you're right like so much of it comes down to perspective
how are we most similar and how does that scare you
i think one way in which we're similar that you don't realize as much is that we both
let anxieties control our lives anxieties and fears and for you it's much more apparent because
you have very visible anxiety that's like i can't do it i can't do it what am i going to do whereas
for me it's much more like subtle and i might not talk about it or say anything but like for example
the college submitting the test scores thing that was like when i realized that i had missed the
deadline in inside i freaked out and i was super anxious like oh my god what is mom going to say
what are you going to say am i going to not get into colleges i just shouldn't say
anything and i just won't get into those schools it's fine and she won't find out
but then when i told you you told her anyway and then she was mad at me for not asking her for help
not not the fact that i messed up with the fact that i didn't ask for help yeah and i still live
that way a lot of the times like my laziness with a lot of things where i put things off the last
minute that's a lot of times because i'm scared of failing and i'm scared of doing a bad job or
messing up right and that dictates a lot of the way that i live even though it doesn't appear to
be fear-based or anxiety-based and it scares me a little bit because you struggle a lot with anxiety
like i can clearly see it is very debilitating for you and it has been for your whole life
and so for me it's something that i need to be better at because it controls too much of my
life too and what other ways do you feel like it controls your life like how else
does it show up for you outside of academics i think in any aspect of my life where failing
or messing up can be a big consequence or making a big step i could fumble and
i guess lose a lot from that fumble do you think that's part of why you withdrew from grad school
um yeah definitely a little bit but it's also because
i knew i was unhappy and yeah i did i didn't need to continue being unhappy
in the way i was yeah in this time it's not necessary yeah i'm sorry
that kills me because like my biggest thing is like i don't want to be a burden
it's not a burden though you're someone i love i want to do it yeah it's only
a burden if i don't want to do it yeah i'm sorry that it affects you in that way though
um do you feel like my depression getting like really severe in the past few months has
like similarly impacted you like that or you think you're used to it
i had to change so much when i was younger and become so much more mature so much
quicker do you feel resentful that you had to sort of like give up those pieces
um it wasn't resentful towards you it's just the circumstances everybody whenever we had family
meetings being like oh how's donnie what's she up to is she okay how was her eating disorder
and then for me i was just like wow you're so tall you grew a lot and like that was it
and so i felt like everybody cared about you but they didn't really care about
my life so much right but i think also getting so much closer to you at such a young age when
you were going through a phase where you became a lot more i guess i could use the
term woke you know when you got into tumblr and you got into social justice and all that
you put that on me because you were like i'm not going to have a bigger brother am i going to have
a brother who's intolerant of people yeah and that kind of made me mature in that way as well yeah
and respect people and have a lot more compassion yeah yeah i was just wondering like would you be
the person that you are if we if i hadn't gotten an eating disorder if we hadn't gotten close
not at all i don't think i would be the person that i am today if i hadn't gotten an eating
disorder i think and i'm not sure that you would be as emotionally intelligent as you are um yeah
if this were to be our last conversation what is something you'd never want me to forget
um
this were our last conversation
i think i would want you to never forget how much i love you um
and how grateful i am for all the sacrifices that you've made when you were little and even now um
i would never want you to forget that you've like literally saved my life like so many times
um even in like the last year when like my health has been so bad and i've
like genuinely thought about killing myself um my
relationship with you has always been like this really strong grounding force in my life and you
you help me see the good when everything feels really dark and you help me feel hopeful and
and believe that there's something better coming and you help me stay curious about the future
and i would just want you to know how grateful i am and that like i do recognize all of these
things that you've done and i appreciate them so much and i've been trying to
do better at like letting you know when you do things and like saying thank you because i don't
want you to forget thank you what would you want me to know if this were our last conversation ever
to not feel guilty about any sacrifices i've made
that i would do it all again and do even more if i could
that i wish your life could be different i wish it could be better
it pains me every day to see you have to struggle through so much
i wish that too like i wouldn't change the fact that i have
that i had an eating disorder but i would change in a heartbeat having chronic illness
i think like i often get stuck wondering what my life would look like
i mean it's i'm still able to do a lot of things i'm still in school but
like i can eat like 10 foods uh my colon doesn't work i can't go to the bathroom on my own
i feel like i want to crawl out of my skin every single day um i can't even touch things a lot of
the time because of my mast cell disease like my life has become very very small
yeah i wish it could be different too yeah it's i wish it could be different but i also know that
like all the wishing in the world doesn't change things like and so a lot of my work has been like
finding which ways am i not trapped like where do i still have freedom where do i still have choice
and like adding to my pile of good in my life um and you help me do that like you are such
a big pile of good for me um and you help me feel like my life is worth living so thank you
why do you love me
what's not to love
obviously part of it is the way we grew up together having gone through so much
of the similar things growing up with our parents the way that they loved us
the way that they weren't able to love us going through your eating disorder together
obviously it's not the same for each of us because i didn't have it but both of us having to be so
emotionally open i remember one time when we just we were literally just crying our eyes out next to
each other and you had snot all over your shirt and i had it on mine and we hugged each other
knowing that i give you that kind of care and love and i did all that for you and knowing
that you would do all of that and more in a heartbeat for me if i ever needed it
knowing how much you care for other people how much you prioritize other people whenever you
can possible whenever it doesn't put your own health at risk knowing how much of your
life you've dedicated to helping strangers you've never met and will probably never meet ever again
you're just so selfless in all these ways that so many other people are not it's really inspiring
thank you for that
you