I regret starting recovery.

I regret it because now my head is in full entropy mode. I can’t focus, I forget everything, my mood whiplashes from depression to hypomania in the space of an afternoon. Depression is easier to see, hypomania not so much. I just feel like I suddenly feel better, and only after I’ve ranted about injustice for an hour do I realise: “Oh wait, maybe I’m hypomanic”. Too late then.

I regret it because grief lives in my bones, heavier than ever. My best friend’s birthday a few days ago cracked me wide open. I’ve stacked up more losses than the Welsh football team and my brain is trying to grieve them all at once.

I regret it because eating has stolen my only coping. My ED worked. I’ve tried everything else – Cyberpunk, Sims, distraction tricks, sitting with overwhelming feelings. Nothing worked. And when nothing worked, I broke down and binged, just desperate to feel anything else. But that just swapped one pain for another. Physical discomfort on top of being mentally broken.

I regret it because my body hurts. My knees scream every time I bend down, I have to wear sleeves just to walk around my flat. Fire in every joint. And my body itself feels like a stranger. I bump into furniture, try to squeeze through gaps I no longer fit, end up with bruises all up my legs. Even sitting on the sofa, I’m shocked at how much space I take up, it shocks me every single time I look down.

I regret it because money pours through my hands like water. Food, clothes, again and again. Recovery doesn’t just eat me, it eats my wallet. I spend more than I earn and I don’t know how I’ll keep up.

I regret it because of people. I was ghosted without a word, because recovery is smoke and not everyone waits to see who comes through it. And being left like that – without explanation, without even one word – is cruel. My brain tells me it happened because I’m a horrible person who doesn’t deserve food, instead of the truth: someone else chose to cut me without facing me. Actions speak louder than words, and silence is still an action.

I regret it because it takes everything. Every waking moment is recovery: planning meals, buying food, waking up to find nothing fits and running out for clothes, distracting myself after eating, trying to stay mobile so I don’t lose mobility, dealing with medical fallout. And when I finally get five minutes? I can’t even afford to do something nice.

I regret it because so few people understand. They look at me like: “You didn’t eat, now you do. Done.” No one would expect an alcoholic or drug addict to be fine the moment they quit – but somehow with eating disorders, they do. Anorexia, bulimia, BED… these are addictions. I am in withdrawal. I am grieving the one coping mechanism that worked. It has made my mental health worse for quitting, which is normal at first.

I regret it because nothing else works as well as my ED did. Nothing.

Mais, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien – But No, I Don’t Regret Anything

But maybe I don’t regret everything.

Because there are moments – small, fragile ones – where I don’t hate my body.

I wore shorts. Twice. That might sound like nothing to anyone else, but for me it was the first time in decades. I walked outside and felt the air on my legs, and it didn’t feel like shame, it just felt like… life. The second time, I only put them on because it was hot, and it wasn’t until I was walking home that I thought, “Wait, I just wore shorts outside without even thinking about it?” That felt like such a recovery win.

My son keeps telling me how glad he is that I’m back. He says it often, like he can’t quite believe it. He repeats how much he missed me and how he doesn’t want to lose me again. Every time he says it, I know this is worth it. Because I’m not just recovering for me – I’m here for him too. I can be more supportive to him in his transition and we laugh through adversity a lot more.

I can play video games again. Not half-asleep, not just going through the motions – actually play. I feel passion again. I want to talk about Cyberpunk for hours and dive into the philosophy and moral dilemmas it constantly throws up about life, technology, and death.

There are people who do understand, who check on me, and even thank me for being so open and honest about my recovery. There are people who send me long paragraphs of resonance. That kind of validation and recognition makes me feel less like I’m shouting into a void, and more like my voice has company.

I’ve been reading New Scientist with every new issue, and I feel this rush of love for the universe and how complicated it is. I want to know more. I want to know how it works. My ED forces me to be self-involved, but this is a sign my thoughts can travel outward again – to the universe, to something bigger than myself.

And even in something as simple as The Sims – when I changed my character from “old me” to “new me” – I realised I’d already become someone else. I’m not sure I even like her yet, but she’s here. I’d feared meeting myself in recovery, because since my best friend died I’ve felt so lost. I didn’t know who I’d find. But she was here all along, waiting for me to notice.

They’re only moments. And God, they’ve cost me so much. My knees ache, my wallet’s bleeding, my heart is cracked wide open. But in those moments, I don’t regret everything.

Because regret says, “go back.” And even with all I’ve lost, even with everything that hurts, I still move forward. I feel every single regret at the beginning of this post, every single day. I’ve cried more times than I can count, worried about how bad my mental health has got.

And yet, sometimes there’s light. Sometimes it’s my son telling me how much he missed me. Sometimes it’s something as simple as wearing shorts. Sometimes it’s slipping up like bingeing and seeing how I immediately getting back on track.

So maybe it’s both. Maybe I regret everything, and maybe I don’t regret anything. A regret superposition.

Because regret is the language of pain, and I’m in pain every single day. But underneath it, recovery is the language of love – love for my son, for life, for the universe, even for the parts of myself I don’t fully know yet.

Oui, je regrette tout. Yes, I regret everything.
Mais non… je ne regrette rien. But no, I don’t regret anything.

For the song – it’s the song that inspired this entire post because the lyrics are exactly how I feel, so my brain started singing it on repeat –
“No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing
Neither the good that was done to me
Nor the evil, I couldn’t care less
No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing
For my life, for my joys
It starts with you today”