You know those soft, dreamy ‘day in the life’ videos where people drink matcha and journal at sunrise? Yeah this post isn’t that.
This is the day I managed to be spectacularly wrong in ways that made me almost go full Chuck McGill – isolate myself from the world and cover both myself and my flat in space blankets.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been dreading my psychiatrist appointment on the 15th. So much so that every single day, I’ve done my little ritual: walk over to the letter on the wall, check the date and time, and reassure myself – yes, it’s the 15th, and it is not the 15th today, you’re safe, carry on.

And I didn’t just check it once or twice. I checked it constantly. Every day, without fail. Anxiety on a drip-feed schedule.

Today, I went to do my daily check-the-letter ritual. I looked at the paper I’d practically memorised and saw it: the 13th.

Today is the 13th.

The appointment time had been and gone.

I had – despite checking this letter more than I’ve been body checking my weight gain – missed my psychiatrist appointment.

The Chuck McGill Meltdown

Cue the shaking, the head-in-hands squeezing, the pacing, the shouting at myself for being so stupid. My heart rate went through the roof as I grabbed my phone and rang the number, apologising profusely through tears.

Thankfully, they were surprisingly calm about it. They even let me speak to my psychiatrist over the phone, which I really appreciated.

Still, I couldn’t let it go. I kept swearing it said the 15th. It’s been right there on my wall next to the fridge – I’ve seen it every single time I’ve performed an RDL (Refrigerator Door Lunge) to grab another milk cake.

When the call ended, relief washed over me, but the restless energy stayed, tangled up with a heavy dose of “WHY CAN’T I READ NUMBERS”. I told my son I felt like Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul. “It was 1216, not 1261. ONE AFTER THE MAGNA CARTA!”

Honestly, with how many times I read that date wrong, I could convince myself Jimmy McGill broke in, xeroxed the letter, and swapped it back this morning.

Lately my brain’s been like a browser with 47 tabs open, all playing different YouTube videos, and the background noise is pure Wetherspoons on a Saturday night. It’s no wonder I misread the date – it’s hard to focus on anything over ALL THIS NOISE.

This was the first big mistake of the day. It would not be the last.

Rudely Interrupted by My Own Incompetence

Before being rudely interrupted by my inability to process a SIMPLE NUMBER, my son and I had been getting ready to go to Lidl.

I’d been craving a bakery item – a pain au raisin specifically – after avoiding them for weeks because Clippy (my ED) convinced me they were “too much” and “not functional enough” again. I keep progressing forward with foods, and then having to rechallenge the same fears I thought I had already beat. I also needed more milk cakes. My diet right now is basically 70% milk-based products. MyFitnessPal is already throwing calcium achievement badges at me. I’m rolling with the cravings and fitting them into my plan so the chaos goblin of extreme hunger doesn’t catch me.

After my heart rate returned to something resembling normal, we got ready and left. I was still buzzing with restless, meltdown-aftershock energy. For me, that can be dangerous – impulsivity can spiral into self-sabotage. “You’re SO stupid and can’t even read a date, so why eat at all today? WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANYTHING?”

I tried to think of what would help, maybe be impulsive in a different way? A fun way? A regulating way? So I asked my son, “Would you like to go to Starbucks right now? We can go to Lidl on the way back still and get our food, I just really need to do something”.
His face lit up as he said, “Yes I would like that a lot”, and I was so happy because that means he does want to go and isn’t just saying yes to please me. So we changed course and headed for the city centre.

These Boots Are Made for Budgeting

Before Starbucks, we took a detour through the shops. I needed Barebells salted peanut caramel bars (the best protein bars in existence) and they happened to be on 3-for-2 at Holland & Barrett. That cheered me up, I LOVE them. They’re what Snickers WISHES they were.

My son wanted fake Converse because real Converse seem to have been designed for people without toes (Seriously, who’s fitting in those?). He found a pair he liked in Primark. I found some fake Ugg boots on sale for £10 that matched my beige-and-brown recovery wardrobe.

I was so happy to find them. Think they’ll also go with my navy stuff too. I’m still in my Nike Air Max era and haven’t taken them off very much yet, but I love boots season which is fast approaching.
Boots in the bag, we braved the long Primark queue and finally escaped to Starbucks.

The Regulation of Baristas and Caffeine

We both ordered brown sugar shaken espressos. My son has ARFID and doesn’t usually order new drinks, so this was a big win. The barista – who knows I’m an Americano loyalist – asked why I was committing caffeine treason. I hadn’t seen this barista for a while, it reminded me of how much my recovery has changed since the time I saw him last and I smiled thinking about it.

We sat at our favourite bar table under the warm orange lights that make plushie photos look glorious. A few sips in, coffee regulation hit. My brain finally levelled out. Coffee is BRILLIANT for that.

I took photos of my bear and coffee, muttering “WHAT A DAY” exasperated by my propensity to cause utter drama for myself by just existing. Then we headed to Lidl.

The Glowing Pastry Altar

The bakery is right at Lidl’s entrance, it greets you like a glowing pastry altar. Perfect for Clippy-related courage: grab it immediately, no time to overthink or to have to build up courage. It’s like ripping a plaster off, just don’t think too hard and rip it off – pop a pastry in a bag, shove it in the trolley and move on to the safety of the salad aisle.

The last pain au raisin sat waiting for me like a sign from the universe (or just a sign for Lidl bakery staff to bake more, who knows). I took it.

We got everything else we needed but then we came to the blessed fridge aisle that contains all the milky goodness. I got VERY distracted by thinking of the deliciousness of milka milk cakes and picked up two packets. So when it came to the caramel coffee my son wanted, I was in a bit of a milk based daze.

I asked my son if he wanted one or two, and he said he has one spare one there. I swore that was the one I opened last night to make him an iced coffee and he told me there was DEFINITELY one unopened. I thought it was best to get two so he didn’t run out he’s been really enjoying them.

With many litres of caramel coffee and milk cakes packed into our suitcase we paid, packed up our suitcase and left for the comfort of the plushies we’d left behind.

The Coffee Carton Tetris Game

Back home, I opened the suitcase of shopping and started loading the fridge… where I discovered there were, in fact, two unopened caramel coffee cartons already there. Now we had FOUR OF THEM.

My son was right. I was wrong. AGAIN. My son descended into fits of laughter as I proceeded to lose my mind.

“I’M LOSING MY MIND JIMMY, IT WAS 1216 NOT 1261. MY BRAIN, MY MIND. IT USED TO WORK NOW IT DOESN’T ANYMORE”, I cried, channeling Chuck McGill before continuing just like he did, “Get me my space blanket Jimmy”. “I blamed you Jimmy, YOU WERE RIGHT”.

Somehow I managed to secure all four one litre cartons of caramel coffee, along with MANY protein shakes, MANY milk cakes and MANY quark yoghurts (THEY WERE ON SALE OKAY) into our TINY undercounter slim fridge. This is the type of fridge University students have in Halls. I have NO IDEA how I managed to fit it in there. Finally, my years of gaming paid off in chaotic fridge organisation. I knew giving EA all my money would pay off one day.

The sound of my son’s laugh filled me with such warmth. My chaotic way of being has always made us laugh, and I think he enjoys my jokes as much as he enjoys being right. We used to laugh like this all the time before my relapse, and today he told me he’s missed me so much.

I thought about that as I sat down with the pain au raisin – the last one in Lidl, practically glowing like destiny, a reward for my fridge Tetris quest. Clippy, of course, had popped in to ruin the moment: “It looks like you’re trying to reward yourself despite being a complete disaster. Need help stopping that?” But I ignored it. Instead, I ate my pain au raisin slowly, enjoying every buttery swirl, while my son ate his pink doughnut and told me again how happy he is I’m back – chaos, crying, jokes and all.

The Scatterbrain of Recovery

My brain has been like this now for two weeks. It’s been hard to get myself to focus on writing, focus on anything at all really. I read dates wrong, I forget why I walked into rooms, I lose my phone and find it in weird places. My emotions are all over the place, I have meltdowns a lot, I feel things so deeply with joy sending me off into a high, and little scratches cutting me so deeply they feel like the end of the world.

This stage of recovery is messy. I’m back, extreme emotions and all, and sometimes that means being more chaotic than ever. But at least now, sometimes, it’s funny. Sometimes it’s fridge-Tetris instead of just INABILITY TO READ A DATE and self-sabotage.

And despite being unable to read a simple number, today still had wins:
– I redirected impulsivity into something fun with my son.
– I ate the pain au raisin instead of punishing myself.
– I made my son laugh.
– I successfully played an S-rank round of fridge Tetris.

And I guess that’s what matters the most really.

The song for the post is dedicated to my son, for how much I appreciate you grounding me in the chaos today –

(By the way, my last post I was talking about a Starbucks trip from last week, I sorted my clothes out on the weekend. It takes me a few days to write posts. This is the first post I’m posting the day after it happened. I don’t go to Starbucks everyday – I am not made of money or joints that could cope with that. I wish I could though that brown sugar shaken espresso is something else).