I haven’t blogged much lately.
Not because I don’t want to – actually, I have so much I want to say, it makes me want to cry from the overwhelm. There are these huge ideas building up in my head – about identity, recovery, my new clothes, all of it. But trying to get it right has been paralysing, and the pressure has made it hard to write anything at all.

Recovery is absolutely exhausting. Mostly, I’ve just been resting or even napping due to extreme fatigue, or thinking about food so much that I no longer feel like myself at all and having existential crises over it, or buying more food, and panic-buying clothes because nothing fits me anymore. It’s been difficult to do anything else – everything feels like too much pressure including fun things like macrame and writing.

So today, I’m doing the only thing I know how to do when that happens:
I’m writing about my day. Just today. Nothing bigger, nothing deeper than what it was. Because this blog helps me. It’s a space I don’t want to lose. So this is me – showing up, even in the middle of the mess – trying to find my way back into it.

Resistance is Volatile

There are two things I needed to get done today. First: pack up my broken headphones and take them to a UPS pick-up shop so I can send them back to Bose.

One night, while I was in the kitchen bravely staging a resistance against Corrupted Clippy (what I call my ED voice), armed with a plate of thick, claggy peanut butter toast that defied every rule Clippy had ever imposed – the universe replied with actual resistance. As in, electrical resistance. My headphones, charging quietly in my bedroom, shorted, overheated, and nearly caught fire.

Apparently even my electronics can’t handle me pushing through. They fried themselves in solidarity.

Those headphones feel like part of me. They’re grounding, calming, comforting – sensory armour. I guess we’re a bit too linked, because the resistance I showed in the kitchen must have quantum-entangled with the charging cable in my bedroom and overloaded everything. Poof. No more headphones.

I’ve missed them a lot. It took Bose a few days to get in touch, but if I send them off today, hopefully the replacement will arrive soon. Thankfully they only stunk out the flat instead of very nearly creating a Bose-flavoured re-enactment of the “This is fine” meme.

The second task on the list is going to Lidl to buy even more food, because recovery means running out of everything in just a few days. But before all that, the first battle is always getting dressed – and lately, that’s a full-on boss battle.

Getting Dressed

Why is getting dressed so hard?

Well. Fun fact I didn’t want to know, but now I live with it:
When you’re recovering from anorexia and your abdominal muscles have been starved and weakened, they literally can’t hold your organs in like they used to. So when you eat – especially when your gut is already inflamed and slow – everything kind of… pushes out. It’s not just bloat. It’s your body going, “I’m trying, but I have no scaffolding left.”

I wake up looking six or seven months pregnant. It gets worse even after a small snack. So yeah, “outfits of the day” aren’t too fun when you have to wear an absolutely massive T-shirt to Lidl to hide the ridiculous distension – and it’s not just about appearance. It’s also physically sore. My skin feels like it’s on fire. I can’t bear to have fabric touching some parts of me.

Weirdly, what helped more than hiding it was a new pair of ¾-length Pilates princess leggings I bought. I’m absolutely not a Pilates princess, but I like the style – it reminds me of gym wear as leisure wear from the 90s, when I was growing up. The leggings all have a tummy control panel, but not to flatten – to hold. To do the job my muscles can’t do right now.

They didn’t squash me. They just held me. And that’s exactly what I needed. My organs felt less like they were sloshing around in a loose bag. Walking was easier. My whole core felt less vulnerable, less unsupported.

All the anorexia recovery advice says to just wear hoodies and giant tracksuit bottoms. That’s great advice – if it isn’t 30°C outside. I don’t want to pass out from the heat, thanks very much. Giant T-shirts and ¾ Pilates leggings work, though, if you’re reading this and – like me – feel like no one on the planet has ever recovered during summer.

Thankfully, the leggings still fit me today, even though my body seems to think gaining kilos overnight is a totally normal thing.

Now that I’ve fought my thoughts, Clippy, the clothes I put on, and the weight my body keeps throwing at me, I guess it’s time to brave the heat outside.

The UPS Biscoff Ice Cream Shop

Walking outside felt like stepping straight into a hot oven. I really dislike summer – 30°C is the point where I stop functioning like an actual human and start evolving into some kind of melty Ditto from Pokémon. Antipsychotics cause heat intolerance, and I already run hot as a person. Add in the thermic effect of eating more food lately, and spontaneous combustion honestly feels like a real possibility.

My son and I despise summer. We’ve bonded deeply over our shared heat-induced whingeing.

Me: “I’m BURNING.”
My son: “ME TOO, IT’S HORRIBLE. This reminds me of Mass Effect 2 – that Tali mission.”
Me: “OMG YES, Haestrom! OMG I can hear my shields being depleted by the heat, QUICK, GET INTO THE SHADE.”
My son: “Beep beep beep beep beep! Shepard! My shields!”
Me: “GET INTO THE SHADE QUICK!”

We both get very overstimulated by high temperatures, and there wasn’t even the mercy of a breeze. Thankfully, Lidl and the UPS shop aren’t far – but the UPS shop somehow felt even hotter than outside.

There was an ice cream freezer by the till and, while waiting in the queue to send off my headphones, I seriously considered climbing into it. Not just to cool down – there were Biscoff ice creams in there.
I would’ve bought them in a heartbeat, but they definitely would’ve melted by the time we’d made it all the way through Lidl. I may have to go back just for those. This is now a non skippable main story mission.

My son said, as a recovery idea, I should try to eat all the Biscoff food we can find, and honestly? That sounds like a great idea. Biscoff ice cream is now top of the list. I haven’t seen them anywhere else.

With my Bose headphones finally sent off, all that was left was Lidl – and hopefully, Lidl had what we needed: food… but more importantly, air conditioning.

Every Lidl Helps

Walking into Lidl felt amazing – not just because you’re immediately greeted by the altar of sourdough and fresh bakery items, but because the air conditioning was cranked up full. Ahhh. Bliss. I felt every cell in my body stop panicking. I suggested to my son that we walk around Lidl very slowly to make the most of it. He agreed, then immediately ran off to grab his favourite Lidl bakery brownies.

I picked up a croissant and, of course, my current obsession: the sourdough loaf. I’ve even been preferring it to other types of bread – which I didn’t think would happen, given my long-standing bread fixation.

I’ve genuinely been enjoying Lidl so much lately. The prices match – or are cheaper than – Asda’s own brand, but the food quality? So much better. People always say things like, “Well, it comes from the same factory, so it must be the same.”
Okay. Panasonic makes multiple home appliances in the same factory. I doubt you’d try to iron your clothes with an air fryer – but sure. Same factory, same product. Makes perfect sense. Also, how can you not tell the difference between a McVities biscuit and a sad cardboard slightly stale tasting one? I feel bad for your tastebuds.

Thankfully, Lidl’s own brands don’t taste like cardboard. I’ve been eating their Biscuit Pillows cereal lately – basically Lidl’s version of Krave – and I think they’re better than Krave. The texture is smoother, less bitty (none of that sandpaper texture nonsense), and the filling is Biscoff-flavoured. Absolutely delicious.

We mostly shop at Lidl now because recovery is expensive, and I run out of food so quickly it’s hard to keep up, both financially and logistically. That’s before you factor in needing new clothes constantly because nothing fits for more than a week. So I’m genuinely grateful that Lidl’s food is not only affordable, but actually enjoyable.
We can’t afford Asda anymore – but we didn’t have to sacrifice taste or food quality.

I also love the middle of Lidl, especially the rotating bonus food items each week. This time they had Biscoff biscuits, which made both me and Biscoff the bear very happy. No Biscoff ice creams, sadly – I’ll have to go back to the UPS shop for those. Worth it.

I was having so much fun finding new things that I forgot all about the heat – until we stepped back outside and it hit me like a truck.
Time to make like Saul Goodman in the desert, dragging our haul home – only instead of millions of dollars, we’ve got a bag full of food… and Biscoff.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

After getting in and putting the shopping away, it was time for dinner. I’m still on my salad bowl kick. I’ve been having this nutrient-dense, macro-dense salad every single day. There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating processed food in recovery – it’s actually pretty necessary due to calorie density, and, well… fun foods need to be incorporated.

But I’m 41, and after I reached about 38, I started to feel like utter garbage – sluggish, nauseous, digestive issues, blood sugar swings, gross hangovers – from eating too much processed food. I used to love diet orange Fanta, for instance. I cannot touch the stuff now. It makes me feel awful. Basically, these salad bowls help balance out some of the Biscoff carnage I put my body through. They just make me feel better. I really look forward to them every day.

This salad includes red romaine lettuce, spinach, kale, cucumber, tomatoes, chicken tikka, red onion, cheese, jalapeños, and nooch. I use both lime juice and salad cream – which I call British salad goo – as dressing. I have a toasted tortilla wrap on the side, cut into shards. I make little mini wraps with them and dip them into the salad goo. It’s fun to eat and, thankfully, required no cooking in this heat.

It’s Getting Hot In Here

Our flat got hotter and hotter all evening. We live in an eco flat that keeps heat in, and well, we don’t have air conditioning. It was hard to do anything but complain to each other every five to ten minutes about how hot it was. My son tried to take his mind off it with his Switch, and I decided to try and write for a bit.

We joked that our Jellycat bears are probably melting too and are wishing for less fur. I think they feel like me – living in a new, giant, heavy suit of fluff they can’t take off. The heat makes recovery so much worse. It’s hard to be dissociated from your body as a coping mechanism – to get through the distended and oedema-filled shape period – when every part of it is covered in sweat and on show thanks to the temperature.

But hey, now I have more Biscoff biscuits and sourdough to cry into, at least. Definitely could have done with a Biscoff ice cream right now.

Still – I wrote a post YAY. I showed up. I did the things and hopefully my Bose replacement will be here soon. And in recovery, sometimes that’s the biggest win of all.

I am getting so hot, but I dont wanna take my clothes off :-