Anorexia numbs all of your feelings and emotions. While you’re trying to recover, your feelings can come back all at once and all of a sudden but they’re unstable. Often like waves of intensity that retreat back to nothingness again.

For me, the flood of emotion tends happen not long after I eat and may have been triggered by the binge I talked about in my “The Night We Ate” post. It might look like I’m crying over beans — I might even say I’m crying over the beans — but what really happened is that while the beans were taking centre stage, my feelings came up and smacked me across the face, not unlike when Will Smith hit Chris Rock.

Except in this version, I am Chris Rock — and Will Smith is every emotion, memory, and painful event I ran from a year ago, plus everything I haven’t dealt with since. And in the audience, there’s Clippy. Watching it all. Arms crossed. Smug.

“Keep that food out of your damn mouth,” he says.

And I sigh, because I know it’s going to offer it’s ‘solution’ soon — waiting for the moment I’m overwhelmed enough from getting hit again and again that I might just take him up on it.

It’s Not About The Beans

It really isn’t about the beans, although I do have my problems with Heinz Beanz, and not just the z at the end of beanz. Ugh.

My only problem with beanz (nope can’t do it, they are beanS from this point forward)? I eat beans every day and I buy the 415g can and weigh out half — not a Clippy (My eating disorder) thing, just a “my brain is TERRIBLE at estimating” thing. The greatness of Day One beans (300g, overflowing toast, saucy joy), followed by the crushing sadness of Day Two beans (100g, pathetic little smear, beans dry, toast drier).

Please tell me how EVERY can I’ve weighed this year has not ever had 415g of beans in a can. Every single one is exactly 400g.

I may or may not have worked out EXACTLY how many cans of beans I’ve been cheated out of, in a Johnny Silverhand–inspired corpo rant –

“These corpos have long been taking advantage of us. I am now owed 6.84375 cans of beans, V. It is time to storm Heinz Headquarters”

My son shakes his head at my mid Asda rant, but I know I’m right. Shrinkflation and lies, a dystopian movie starring Heinz Beanz.

So, aside from my absolute fury at shrinkflation, it wasn’t about the beans. What was it about? Well, as I always say to my mental health team, “It’s EVERYTHING”. Lets unwrap the everything that led to me melting down similarly to how my cheese melted in my beans.

More Vitamins Than TikTok Shop

I’ve had to start adding cheese to my beans to take more vitamin tablets than you’d find on a gym bro’s TikTok feed. Vitamin and electrolyte supplementation is vital for recovery, especially with my current vitamin D deficiency. And I’ve been upset — REALLY upset — that I’ve been forced to add cheese to my beans.

Beans are a safe food of mine. The way I eat them is part of a routine that helps me feel okay. This is tied to my ARFID, not my anorexia. They’re the last safe food I have left, because Clippy — my eating disorder — has put all the others on the ABSOLUTELY NOT list. Sometimes because of calorie content. Sometimes for reasons I don’t even understand. Clippy makes these rules. Not me.

For example: potatoes? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Crisps? Totally fine. I wouldn’t make that rule it doesn’t even make any sense. I also wouldn’t ban the foods that make me feel safe. That’s why I don’t recognise Clippy as me. I’d make more logical decisions. I’d keep my safe foods and work around them.

Beans have been a battle to keep — but it’s one I’ve won almost daily. I’ve eaten them every single day for over a year, aside from the two days I blogged about where I had Chicken Shawarma and Katsu Chicken Curry. They’re part of the structure I’ve clung to, a small corner of safety in the middle of everything else I’ve lost.

But now, I’m being forced to alter that safe food for my own best interests. I understand why. I really do. But understanding doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. And this change — this tiny, stupid, cheesy change — was the tipping point. The thing that knocked over the emotional Jenga tower. The equilibrium shattered.

Everything, everywhere, all at once.

And I melted down. Like the cheese in my beans and EVERYTHING rushed in.

I Miss WeeGee So Much

One of the biggest triggers for my relapse was losing my best friend, WeeGee. We met in anorexia recovery. So, I kind of screwed myself over by falling back into my ED to deal with the grief. My eating disorder reminds me of her — because I was deep in it, just like I am now, when we met.

She came into my life during a time like this. And today, I suddenly thought of her… because crying over cheesy beans is exactly the kind of thing she would have understood. She would’ve known exactly what to say. No judgement. No minimising. She would have known there was something massive behind it — that I was carrying too much — and she would have just sat with me, quietly, until I was ready to say my everything.

I’ve tried talking to other people, but they’ve made it pretty clear they just don’t get it. Worse, ED’s are so stigmatised that I had to leave my main Instagram account for what’s left of my sanity. I feel really isolated in my ED — because I am literally alone with it. No parents. No real support network.

Just my son, my online friend Hal, and a dietitian. That’s why I blog here — because I needed someone to talk to.

Before, it didn’t matter that I had no family support — because I had WeeGee. She was my found family. And today, I got hit by this wave of grief so big — just because I wanted to talk to her about cheese — that it caught me completely off guard. But my grief for her, wasn’t alone. It was followed by a shadow.

I Got ANGRY About The Entitled Car Park Lady

I really, REALLY hate that whenever grief surfaces for WeeGee — the loveliest, most caring, loving person I’ve ever met — she is followed by the shadow of my mother. I spoke about it in my last post, how she messaged me despite me going no contact with her. I’m really very angry.

The reason she haunts my grief is because the last time I saw the absolute Karen of a mother, I told her about WeeGee. That she had JUST died. My mother didn’t care. She made it about her entitlement to a car park space in a public car park.

“If you think that’s bad [losing your best friend to cancer], someone stole my parking space at work.”

It was at that precise moment I knew she didn’t care about me, or love me. Had I told WeeGee I lost a friend, I know what she would have done. She would have given me a card with her beautiful words in it, she’d have given me little gifts — something incredibly thoughtful — she would have been there for me. She would have hugged me.

Instead, I’m left with Entitled Car Park Lady who has only ever abused me my whole life, and tried to abuse my son. And she gets to walk around healthy — free to abuse everyone however she pleases — and the loveliest person who actually loved me died.

After I went no contact, I came to realise all of the MUCH WORSE things Entitled
Car Park Lady had ever done to me, because I finally saw the truth. She is incapable of even loving her own child. Or grandchild. She is incapable of even faking it.

At this point I was shaking with rage, justified anger from over 30 years of abuse came flooding to the forefront, while still really upset about WeeGee and angry that I couldn’t just grieve for her alone. I was becoming dysregulated and looking for an escape faster than that time I bought my autistic son the wrong chicken nuggets when he was 7. So I knew I had to do something.

But Then There Was Simon.

Through tears and agitation and, well, rage, I realised I am going to have to learn to sit with this. I’m going to have to learn to be with my emotions again, so I thought of safe ways I could do just that. I’ve ordered a new journal — the one I previously bought is lined and it turns out I HATE lined journals with a passion. I’ve ordered a grid journal, and I am IMPATIENT because it gets delivered tomorrow and I really wanted to journal THIS MINUTE.

But, I thought, oh, I know — I could make stickers and print out photos for when my journal arrives tomorrow. I can sit cutting them out, and I always find that helpful. I had the idea to make a pretty recovery log. I thought it would be a good idea as there’s things I can’t share here as I try and keep my content a bit safer in terms of triggering content.

I’d be able to chart my achievements and progress, too and make it PRETTY. It’s one of the reasons I needed a grid journal — I did try and use the other journal but I was getting really annoyed at making tables on lined paper because RULERS ALSO SUCK.

I spent a while making stickers on my MacBook, but then, the living rent-free in both my flat and my head, Simon decided to barrel in with his absolute incompetence and demand all of my attention. Simon is my Epson printer.

Simon is the WORST printer I’ve ever owned in my life. It is allergic to Sequoia, my Mac OS. Ever since I updated, it’s been an absolute nightmare — and yes, I’ve done everything I can. Updated drivers. Updated software. It just refuses to function. Refuses to let me change ink. Refuses to be a functioning printer.

I took out all my rage on Simon when, after spending time making aesthetic, Pinterest-worthy stickers, it refused to print them. It took ages of bartering and bribery and messing around with settings before it finally decided to print. It still flashes its lack of yellow at me, despite having FULL yellow.

It is just as incompetent at printing as my mother was at showing empathy. Also like my mother, I was nice to Simon despite the fact it didn’t deserve it, hoping my kindness in the face of absolute incompetence would somehow make it work.

Sometimes, always seeing the best in a situation makes no difference whatsoever. But, through rage, tears, inky fingers and a tidal wave of emotion that kept trying to resurface and with an irritating voice getting louder in my brain, I cut out my stickers.

Then There Was Clippy

My grief-and-rage-induced meltdown, covered in cheese, kept resurfacing. The Will Smith of emotion and feeling kept coming to slap me in waves. I was exhausted all evening, which made me tempted by the most corrupted passenger on my brain’s manifest: Corrupted Clippy.

Corrupted Clippy knows to shout louder when I’m tired. Exhausted. Melted down like cheese on beans. It offers its observations and solutions:

“This is because you binged the other day. That’s why you’re having so many emotions. Food causes this.”

“If you listen to me, you won’t have to feel like this every evening.”

“Remember — you are here because you couldn’t live with this before.”

It’s partially true. I have a wide knowledge base about nutrition, supplements, and food in recovery. I know so much about it — I’ve read studies, heard every NHS professional’s version of it. I know how to eat. I know how to do it safely. I know what I should avoid. But I don’t know how to live with being me.

And Finally There Was Me

My emotions are either too intense or flat and nothingness. The trauma is always present, no matter how hard I try to leave it in the past. And my grief is overwhelming. I have anxiety so bad that I often don’t leave my flat more than once a week.

It is disabling to be me. It is disabling to feel these thoughts and feelings.

I can’t get anything done. I can’t think of anything else. I have no choice in the matter — no matter how many “Choose Happy” quotes I see on Instagram. I didn’t realise that was something a person could do, because I can’t. There is only constant distraction. There is only escape.

When I recover, I will still have mental illness. I will still be neurodivergent. I will still have Bipolar Disorder. I will still have PTSD. I will still be physically disabled.

There is no healing journey for those. There are no valiant cheese battles won with Clippy that I can be proud of. No fear food wins. No milestone victories. There is only me — struggling to live with them, because no one tells you how to live with them. There is only judgement for not healing fully, for never healing enough despite all the work you’ve done to heal, for not being cured and mentally stable. There are only Instagram quotes and empty platitudes that, as you get old, get just as old and tired.

That’s why I am here. That’s why I relapsed.

I ran away because I couldn’t live with this. And now I’m here, trying to figure out how I do — or else I’ll continue to be stuck here, because recovery only feels like the lesser of two evils.

But I ate the cheesy beans. And I took my vitamins. I had a meltdown over it. I fought Simon. I sat with my feelings about WeeGee and the Entitled Car Park Lady. Yet, I didn’t feel like I won anything. However, I’m doing this recovery anyway, for the lesser of two evils, because at least I can cry, play video games, and eat pizza.

Recovery is never linear. There are bad days, good days, emotional rollercoaster days, and even really ugly, gross days full of weird and unsightly side effects.

But one thing I know for certain right now — despite Heinz blatantly scamming me out of 15g of beans in every single can —
the cheesy beans are staying.

For the post anthem, there’s nothing quite like Lion’s Roar, First Aid Kit :-

And the lion’s roar, the lion’s roar (My ED)
Has me evading and hollering for you (Calling out for WeeGee)
And I never really knew what to do (I don’t know how to do this without her)