Morgan DiPrimo writes about the friendships she formed during residential eating disorder treatment — and how those friendships gave her back something the illness had quietly taken: her laugh.
She describes her roommates and fellow residents, the nightly gatherings that turned their small suite into an unofficial sleepover, and the particular grief of watching friends earn passes and go home while she remained behind. Every goodbye reminded her of feeling like the “special education kid” who couldn’t find the right page — wondering whether she was failing at recovery, or whether something was simply wrong with her.
The turning point comes during a group therapy session. When the therapist blasts Katy Perry’s “Firework” and tells everyone to dance, DiPrimo retreats to the back of the room, determined to keep her dignity intact. Then a friend named Grace performs such a ridiculous dance move that DiPrimo can’t help but respond in kind. She drops to the floor and attempts the worm — five-foot-ten, uncoordinated, and by her own description resembling “a piece of overcooked spaghetti experiencing an electrical emergency.” Grace tells her she looks like a pasta noodle. The room dissolves into laughter.
The therapist pauses and tells her it’s the first time she’s seen her smile. DiPrimo realizes she had forgotten what that kind of laughter felt like — the kind that takes over your whole body and leaves no room for self-consciousness. For those few minutes, she wasn’t measuring or comparing. She was just there. And she understood, quietly, that she was fighting not just to stay alive but for a life that contained something worth staying alive for.
Originally published on morgandiprimo.substack.com.
