Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
I decided to make Welsh cakes during a cluster headache episode with no wooden spoon, minimal cookware, and a frog supervising the operation. This involved a mission to Lidl, a run-in with trauma, questionable amounts of Red Bull, and the very real possibility of producing frozen, burnt pancakes again.
I almost didn’t write this post because I feel like I’m always the person with another problem. But cluster headaches are part of my life for months every year. Hiding them never helped me. Even during relic malfunctions and pain, life still happens - sausage rolls, book towns, and Minecraft houses full of chickens.
Apparently I really love stories about love - as long as they’re set in space, have incredible music, and occasionally break my heart. These are the films and series I’ve watched more than five times, the ones that stay with me long enough that I’ve even drawn some of their most unforgettable scenes.
This week has been a strange mix of gastritis, scaffolding noise, and small victories. I defeated Optimus Amazon Prime (a mountain of cardboard boxes), accidentally fell into the TikTok illusion dimension, and hugged a loaf of bread. Survival, it turns out, is mostly made of small, ridiculous victories.
For months I thought nothing was happening because I was too scared to move. But writing this made me realise something uncomfortable: Scared Rhio wasn't completely stalling. She kept going while terrified. Maybe recovery isn’t waiting for Urgent Rhio to fix everything. Maybe it’s learning to collapse one wave function at a time.
Day four of my surplus wasn't to be... Again. I had the audacity to take iron to help my anaemia. Iron stops play. Oh the IRON-y
On Tuesday, I chose the leggings. I chose the pistachio foam. I chose the surplus. My body is loud, the systems louder, but we carried each other anyway. Temporary clothes, temporary afflictions. The commitment however is permanent. Tuesday stood on its own.
On my son’s birthday, my knee sleeves stopped fitting, and something inside me caught fire. Muscle I worked for felt like betrayal. Recovery stopped being theoretical and started burning. Ambivalence isn’t neutral ground - it’s standing in a doorway, one foot in the flames, afraid to move either way.
My son turned 21 and we celebrated with pizza-induced drama, frog merchandise, half-term crowd navigation, a Primark queue redemption arc, and Biscoff Welsh cakes shaped like butts. There were meltdowns, Maple Leafs, pigeons on trains, and cavolo nero. In other words: completely on brand.
Four hours of sleep, a pigeon in my coat, birthday presents in a paper bag, and the BBC cutting away from a gold medal performance. The ice was slippery in more ways than one. Depression didn’t cancel the day - it just made everything louder. But the good bits were still there.
Absurd Universe 