Revisiting Madoka Magica: The List With Amber Audra

Back from the grave and ready to party.

Well. I'm back.

I guess I'd had some tentative plans, maybe you remember them, maybe you don't, but alright. Let's talk about what happened this summer.

So the thing is that I actually wanted to stop talking about my personal life here. Some things happened this summer that made me very uncomfortable with existing as an online person at all and I thought I couldn't continue this little thing comfortably while still talking about my dating life and my dead dad and all that other shit I weave in and out of semi applicable anime narratives. But without those, this newsletter really isn't much. You can get a synopsis or a recommendation from anyone. I guess if you're here, you're here for something different.

So let me offer you: More of the same.

We're going to dig our fingers into some of my unhealed wounds and talk about how it relates to an anime we've talked about before, Madoka Magica. But this time? Full spoilers. So watch now if you haven't. It's only 12 episodes and on hulu, crunchyroll, and the like.

Before we get to our favorite suffering magical girls, let's talk about your favorite suffering long absent newsletter writing girl: Me.

I don't think I've mentioned it in a published newsletter (though it was heavily alluded to in a never sent two parter on Dear Brother) but I used to have an eating disorder. Like a lot of girls, I was born with it, passed down from generation to generation from women before me, like a quilt I'd find itchy at first but grow so fond of as I got older. It was bad. And I am gonna go into some details, so if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm sorry. Skip the next paragraph.

Between 17 and 27, I was in rehab three times. To get to the point where you need rehab, things have to get pretty gnarly. And some things are irreversible, like the back molar I lost due to malnutrition and a short flirtation with bulimia. Thankfully, the damage I did to my brain, heart and kidneys was reversible. But I have a thin layer of white fuzz all over me, like a peach, that I got when my period stopped and it never went away. Once my old roommate pointed it out and I felt so embarrassed. You know, I guess, from reading this that I'm a bit of a fashion girl. I like to look good. And knowing that fuzz was so visible, that boys probably noticed it... was crushing. I did everything all the girls do that you'd imagine and I played into every cliche - I was a ballet major for a while in college and I'd abuse laxatives on an empty stomach in the locker room before going to lunch and getting black coffee. I don't want to say my lowest weight but I am honestly amazed I lived. I wouldn't have if it wasn't for a lot of doctors that literally fought with insurance daily to keep me in rehab to get more care. I owe them my life. Even so, the times I was sickest were some of the most rose colored for me. When you're depriving your body of so much for so long, you're basically just high all the time. And recovering is hell. Everything hurts. And every memory you lost when you damaged your brain with years of malnutrition come rushing back. Just like they're happening all over again. When I recovered from my last relapse five years ago, I started to get really into fitness and eating right and I swore I'd never do this to myself again.

I started every day out with a smoothie. I ate snacks. I cooked dinner. And I did good. I looked great. I felt great. And there was a little while there when I was the happiest I've been in my life.

But you see where it's going, right?

So I cut out the smoothie. And I didn't realize it but it was a slippery slope. My eating disorder is special. They all are but mine is food avoidance, which mainly manifests around stress. So when I'm stressed, I can't eat. When I find myself in stressful situations, I try to fix them or exit them as soon as I can because I know I don't cope with them well. Unfortunately, this spring and summer, I was under a lot of stress for a prolonged amount of time.

I started actually recovering... I don't know... two months ago, I guess. And like I mentioned, recovery is hell. No one has an eating disorder because they're doing well. I grew up in an abusive household, held to impossible standards. I was in a long term abusive relationship that, to be honest, I don't remember much of. But in recovery, it comes back.

This might not be the place for this. And I don't think I can weave it into a story that relates back to Madoka Magica but it's one I've never told before outside of therapy.

My ex and I were off and on. This cycle of him breaking up with me and me having to do a very specific set of intricate actions to prove to him I wanted him back, even if I didn't. So he broke up with me and in an attempt to lure him back, I asked him to come over to my apartment complex and go swimming. It was night and the pool was closed but my roommate and I always broke in so it was fine. We wouldn't get caught. But I didn't know getting caught wasn't what I should have been worried about.

My ex tried to drown me.

I never thought he meant to but I did very specifically tell him to not put me under the water because I'd panic. He did anyhow and he didn't let his hand up when I started to panic. Then he did and suddenly the lights were on. I was coughing and he grabbed my hand and we were running. There was water in my eyes and my damp hair was flat over my face and all I could think was where were my shoes? But I couldn't talk, only cough. It wasn't the cops that had shown up, just some cleaning people. But I'd forgotten that for so long and suddenly, one day, I woke up and it was like it had just happened.

I should be thankful my brain is healing.

But it's hard not to be anything other than devastatingly sad when you wake up and have to fight the same battle you fought already, over and over, years ago, just like Homura Akemi, arguably the main character of Madoka Magica. (I truly didn't think I'd be able to tie that drowning story in. The magic of storytelling, baby!)

Homura Akemi is a time traveler. All the girls in Madoka Magica have made Faustian bargains, trading one wish to become a magical girl, with terrible consequences that unfold over the course of the series at a break neck pace. Homara wished to be able to go back and save her best friend's life, not knowing the Sisyphysean campaign she'd set herself up for.

For years, Madoka Magica finds Homura trapped in a nightmare of her own making, trying and failing to saving Madoka Kaname over and over and over. Each month, she resets time only to have to mercy kill her best friend, reset time and do it all over again.

Does it sound familiar? It does to me.

Madoka is the representation of hope in the series so if we're going with an allegory here of Homura as eating disorder related trauma... Homura's wish is to recovery. But with each relapse, she is having to destroy her hopes for recovery, all the while reliving her worst memories over and over.

When we meet Homura, she's on her last try. She's changed. Hardened. The shy teen with braids and glasses is dead and a cold woman stands in her place - Her eyes are more dead than the other magical girls because, unbeknownst to them, she's lived this past month so many times she's pushing thirty. By the end of the series, she's given up. The 12 episodes of Madoka Magica show Homura at her strongest but she has fought so hard and for so long, she just can't anymore.

I have to admit, I understand.

I'm in my thirties. I'm tired. It's hard to fight alone.

But Homura wasn't alone. Once she began to gingerly accept Kyoko, once she opened up to Madoka, not just her world changed, but the entire world did. And the thing about eating disorders is that they want you to be alone because that's when they thrive. My eating disorder loves when I see What I Eat In Recovery reels because those girls are all so capable and happy and loved and I'm alone and everything takes me so long to do and I burnt my soup tonight anyhow because I got distracted so maybe I don't deserve to eat I guess.

Which isn't true.

I had already had this newsletter kicking around outlined when I talked my boyfriend the other night and he said something familiar to me. He was trying to be encouraging about how alone I've felt and telling me that I'm not really alone, even if I feel that way because he and all my friends are fighting for me, even if they aren't there with me.

"Just like Madoka Magica."

I guess that makes my boyfriend Madoka and me Homura! I've always said wlw relationships are not only the cutest but also the most successful! Better than my last relationship, where my ex compared us wish-fufillment style to Aiko and Punpun! Speaking of which, I just finished a Goodnight Punpun reread... What do you say?? After, of course, we tackle Madoka Magica Rebellion and PTSD next!!!

Rebellion is free on YouTube BTW so there's no excuse!

Also, credit where credit is due: I have linked it before, but this amazing read on Sayaka as a trans allegory hasn't left my head since I watched it and was very instrumental to me reframing Homuraduring my recent Madoka rewatch.