Having my castle collapse — and now rebuilding it — is the metaphor I’m using for my eating disorder and my recovery from it. Being concise isn’t exactly my strong suit, probably thanks to ADHD — I could talk for Wales! So I thought my castle-building updates deserved their own space. These posts won’t follow a strict timetable; they’re just honest snapshots of where I’m currently at in recovery, covering both progress and setbacks. This post covers this week, from the last weekly update until today. You can count on me for complete honesty — I’ve never felt the need to candy-coat the negatives. Sometimes things are just absolutely terrible for no reason, and I believe there’s freedom in being real about it. Recovery is horrendous but I’m doing it anyway.

The Hot Chocolate Cat State

Bonfire Night was less about fireworks outside and more about the chaos going on inside my head – medically defined as Cluster Headaches. I didn’t even get to sleep until 8am, which meant that by the time I finally crashed, it was only for five hours. Naturally, I woke up feeling guilty for sleeping ‘so late’ — because apparently, my brain thinks surviving on a grand total of five hours counts as a luxurious sleep-in. I couldn’t even be mad about the noise of the fireworks for how loud my brain was conducting it’s own deafening excruciating seasonal internal firework display, complete with grand finale, which instead of the London Eye, centred around my left eye. 

But, amidst the blurry exhaustion and internal fireworks, there was one ED victory: hot chocolate. I really wanted the hot chocolate, but also really did not want the hot chocolate, and held this superposition for most of the day without it collapsing. It was almost like I was expecting this superposition to collapse without my intervention, therefore negating any need for observation and action. Eventually though, I summoned the courage to check if the Schrödingers Cat hot chocolate was alive, and well, he wasn’t just alive, he was enjoying the real hot chocolate I made – the cat even got the cream I added on top. The cosy mug of hot chocolate complete with squirty cream and marshmallows was a welcome short relief on a day that had been interrupted several times by not just the noise of fireworks displays outside, but by the ones in my head. My ED was not happy with me especially not after disregarding the diet hot chocolate version it was suggesting I have instead, but I really was. 

The Chicken Shawarma Love Affair

The chicken shawarma and I have a long unrequited relationship. I have been admiring it from a distance for absolutely months and not having the ability to just tell it how I feel by buying it. Every time I glanced in its direction in the brightly coloured fridge, the M&S fridge spotlight above it making it look somewhat angelic, I have day dreamed about the days we could finally be together. I have a complicated relationship with food even during periods of recovery – I always have safe foods, but for different reasons. When I’m in an ED, my safe foods are usually about numbers, and when I’m in recovery my safe foods are due to ARFID. This chicken shawarma meal, in the present was about both. I have a safe food dinner that is safe for both, so any attempt at changing it might be met with ED hostility and also ARFID anxiety. It doesn’t matter if the numbers are the same, it’s still going to be difficult for me. However, I did buy it, and I brought it home, and I actually also ate it. Finally the day I had been dreaming of had come to fruition, this night was, The Night We Met. 

Oftentimes I have had the courage to buy it, but then it just sits in my fridge until it goes off and I have to throw it away despite all of my values about wasting food – which are not even enough to persuade me to eat it. Actually, I also have issues with it being in the fridge, as if it will contaminate everything else in there. It was incredibly tasty. I’m a big fan of the smells and flavours of Middle Eastern food, the novelty of food and of knowing about different cultures does sometimes help. I actually thought it was missing a flat bread, but despite it’s lack of flat bread it was so satisfying and tasty. Contrary to what my brain thought, nothing bad happened and I added another brick to my castle by momentarily breaking free of the hold safe foods have on me.

Johnny Silverhand and the Fight Against the Corporate Sandwich

I have very strong feelings about Turkey Sandwiches (you can find my original post on it here). Eating it meant a lot to me, and I even wrote a review afterward. But eating it during the day was a big deal for me because my ED usually insists otherwise. Since my best friend WeeGee passed away, I’ve avoided daytime meals altogether, taking the path of least resistance with my ED and, for three years, denying I even had a problem. I might have been actively maintaining my weight, but I wouldn’t eat until late in the day, often not before 5 pm.

My ED wanted me to “save” the Turkey Sandwich for dinner, to replace my usual meal with it. But I thought I could lay a brick in my castle by eating it at lunchtime instead — and then maybe lay another one if I still managed to have dinner later. I knew it would be hard, but I convinced myself that maybe, if I was brave enough, it wouldn’t affect me.

So I ate it during the day — go me! — and later, I had dinner too. But then my ED came back like Johnny Silverhand, going full nuclear with his rebellion against the foundations and bricks I’d been trying to build. Suddenly, he was there, ranting against this “turkey sandwich castle” with all the chaos of a rockerboy.

I know I have to sit with this version of my ED, knowing that Johnny ED is wrong, that I don’t have to act just because he’s raging. But I just wish I didn’t have to listen to him at all. The frustration I feel with my ED’s outburst brings on another massive wave: grief. It makes me miss WeeGee more than anything because I know she’d understand exactly what I’m dealing with. I met her in recovery 12 years ago. Being in recovery now stirs up those memories—of how she reached out, of how I didn’t feel alone anymore. But now, I’m here alone with Johnny’s rants and the grief I feel without her, left to navigate both the rockerboy chaos of my ED and this giant wave of missing her.

I wondered if I am pushing too hard to build bricks, had I done too much over a short space of time? And then I wondered if that was Johnny talking again – ED’s are so confusing. I did survive the night of the turkey sandwich but it was full of repetitive thoughts like, “How am I supposed to do this without WeeGee?”, “I wish she was just here, I miss her” and “Wow, I’m so ridiculous for being so upset about eating a sandwich” and well, Johnny going off on his rants every five minutes about how the only way forward is the total destruction of my castle. These weren’t exactly the lullabies I wanted to hear before bed. 

The Turkey sandwich reaction, is not just due to the sandwich, but of the sum of all the bricks I added in this post – ED can often spiral after a series of achievements, making each small step toward recovery feel like a threat to its control. Eating disorders are complicated and messy. Sometimes the wins feel like a real achievement, while other times, after a string of wins, ED pulls a Johnny Silverhand rant, becoming defiant and even self-destructive. I know, with experience, this is completely normal, and I know I have to make the most of any bravery I have and celebrate them regardless of if Johnny starts ranting about destroying the very bricks I’ve built. I maybe building slowly, but each brick matters.

I leave you with a song, dedicated to my love of Chicken Shawarma.