Last night after my son went to bed, I sat on the sofa in my cosy living room, lit by string lights and the soft glow of my Macbook on my lap, and cried my eyes out. I hugged Biscoff the bear tightly, hoping he could somehow make the feeling less atrocious. Crying my eyes out and clinging to Biscoff has become a daily occurence since I made the first tentative steps into recovery.

But this time, it was different. This time, I wasn’t just crying because recovery is hard. I was crying because I desperately wanted to live. I wanted to journal. I wanted to be myself. And I couldn’t. I was so hungry I couldn’t focus on anything except the entire contents of my kitchen. My brain reeled off every single food item and their location – Biscoff cereal, Biscoff biscuits, Biscoff spread, peanut butter, bread – OMG BREAD. GIVE BREAD. NOW – desperate to get me to eat.

But I couldn’t I had eaten all my planned “safe” recovery meal plan calories for the day. There was nothing “allowed” left. I sat there, clock-watching, knowing the whole night would be spent fighting my own survival instincts just to stay inside of the lines of my slow and steady recovery plan. I was crying not just because I was hungry, uncomfortable, fearful of breaking the plan, but because I couldn’t be me. I couldn’t be the person who journals at night under soft lights. Corrupted Clippy – my deranged ED voice – had stolen even that from me.

Without realising it, something HUGE shifted inside me. I didn’t understand it at the time – I was too deafened by my own body’s survival intincts to hear it – but now I hear it clearly. Something broke open. The wave function of recovery was collapsing. Without knowing it, I was choosing to open the box.

In the moment, all I knew was that I had to distract myself from the gnawing hunger. Unable to write on this, my current blog, I pulled up my old one on my MacBook, and reached out to the one person who knew exactly what I was going through – myself.

Reaching Out to Myself

Throughout my recovery 13 years ago, I had a WordPress blog too, where I documented EVERYTHING – including becoming myself again. And there, staring back at me from the screen, was me. The real me, in my own words. I saw the woman who fought through the hunger and the fear. I saw her struggling, but also living, choosing, fighting. I remembered who I was. I remembered what I had lost. I remembered how hard I had to fight Clippy last time – and what that fight gave me.

Sitting there on the sofa looking at myself in a 13 year old mirror, I truly saw what this eating disorder has cost me – not just weight or strength, but myself. My values. My joy. My ability to live. I cried harder, not just because I was hurting, but because I realised I gave away an entire year of my life for this. For what? To not grieve? For the illusion of control? To feel safe? I don’t feel safe. What did it cost me? It cost me – me.

I started grieving for myself. I miss me. I miss sharing pizza with my son. I miss playing Cyberpunk 2077. I miss Mass Effect. I miss writing in my journal for hours, getting lost in my hobbies, getting hyperfixated with a new one because I saw a pin on Pinterest. I REALLY miss NOT clock-watching – and instead miss looking up at the clock and wondering how the heck it’s 3am already because I’d been so hyperfocused on something nerdy.

In that grief, something shifted. I was done. I got up. I went into the kitchen. I made a piece of peanut butter toast and ate it – not out of chaos, not out of anger – but because I wanted to reach for myself. Because I missed myself more than I feared what Clippy would say about it.

Still hungry a little later, there were more slices of peanut butter toast, but calmly. This time I savoured every piece, tasting it, feeling the comfort of the earthy notes sinking into the softest bread I’ve ever bought. I was being comforted by food. THIS IS NEW. I have NEVER allowed that, even when I was weight restored. Food was fuel, a negotiation, nothing more.

Sitting there, all warm from the comfort of peanut butter toast, with Biscoff the bear still on my lap, I made a vow to myself – and to Biscoff.

“I miss myself. I want to get her back. I want to love you even more too, Biscoff”

And so I set about making a new plan to do just that.

The New and Improved Recovery

I started typing into Diarly, my digital journal, and a road map of recovery began to come together.

“I want to find foods like tea and biscuits and peanut butter toast that comfort me, and eat those”
“I DO NOT want to clock-watch anymore”
“I must give up control to my body and trust it – I cannot control my recovery through meal plans any more than I can control Clippy”
“I will eat whenever I am hungry, even if it is a lot, before trying to eat in a consistent pattern”
“I will answer hunger as soon as it happens, to hopefully lessen the chaos monster that destroys entire tubs of peanut butter in 3 days. Maybe my chaos goblin alter ego is afraid of never being allowed it again and has anxiety, because peanut butter is always something I ban”
“I want to eat all the foods I’ve denied myself – even the ones I didn’t allow when I was supposedly in recovery last time”.

From that moment, my whole approach shifted. I decided to stop clinging to my rigid, slow meal plan and start allowing myself comfort through food. Not mindless chaos, but genuine care. Genuine warmth. I decided I would feed myself foods I wanted, when I was hungry, without fear. I would nourish the parts of me that want to come back to life.

I thought about WeeGee too – about how she tried to teach me this before: The Christmas Sandwiches, the comforting recipe book she gave me that I never had the courage to use. WeeGee wanted me to live this way. She wanted me to know I deserved it. She wanted me to experience comfort through food.

I also texted my son, who was asleep in the next room in his bed, unaware of the completely dramatic life changes happening in the living room. I told him how I want to recover, so I can be me – and we can be us again. I told him how I want to go to Greggs with him, to go to Cardiff with him, to eat fun food and order pizza together. His phone was on silent, but I wanted it to be the first thing he saw when he woke up.

And now in WeeGee’s honour – and for my wonderful AMAZING son – I vow to recover and get myself back.

You Can’t Cure Anorexia with Tea and Biscuits

I really wish the last sentence was all it took – that the post ended there. I vow to recover, and then I do. But I am not naive enough to think it’s that easy. I’ve been through recovery before. I have documented days, months, years of struggle. I know exactly what happens when you betray Clippy.

When you back an animal into a corner – when you threaten its continued existence – it fights harder to survive. Clippy is no different; it too has a survival instinct. I can’t just choose not to have anorexia anymore, any more than I chose to have it to begin with. I am mentally ill. Anorexia is a mental illness.

I still heard Clippy throughout the twelve years of recovery where I maintained a very healthy weight. It has never left me. There are no reasons to believe this time will be any different.

Recovery too is it’s own beast. There will be days I am afraid. Days where I don’t want to carry on. Days of ambivalence about recovery. Days where I feel like I don’t have any fight left. Days of worsening mental illness because I’m trying to survive without my coping mechanisms. Last time, the instability of recovery triggered severe bipolar episodes.

Recovery is traumatic, and gross, and painful, and scary. It’s not just before and after photos or aesthetic pictures of plates of food – although I’ll definitely post the latter. They’re not the whole picture. Behind the camera, I’ll be wading through quicksand. Which, funnily enough, is exactly what it feels like when you gain 2.5 kilograms of water weight in a single day on an underweight frame.

I’ll have to watch my reflection change. I’ll have to grow out of clothes. I’ll have to do the exact opposite of what diet culture calls “inspirational” – and gain twenty kilograms in weight. I’ll have to experience the joint pain, the digestive chaos, the sensory overwhelm, the blood sugar spikes and crashes. I’ll have to battle the daily terror of the scale numbers going up, and everything that represents.

I’ll be really brave in Asda, and buy a meal I’ve always wanted to eat, and then cry and have a meltdown at the thought of actually eating it. Bravery, no where to be found. Honestly, I’m shit scared. I don’t even know how I’ve managed to vow to do this., But I know I have to reach for myself. To bring myself home. To be with my son. To honour WeeGee. To live.

Recovery is awful. It’s ugly, terrifying, NEVER linear, and it will break me a hundred times in a hundred different ways.

But I will keep reaching for myself anyway.
Because I miss me to much to stay lost, and so does my son.

So no more tentatively approaching the box of recovery, let’s instead, collapse the wave function and open the box today.

and it’s hard to dance with a Clippy on your back, so shake him off :-