It’s been a while since I last wrote about being stuck in my ED recovery. You can read that post here. At the time, I was too scared to move forward, hovering around the same weight for over 123 days.
Well, things have finally actually changed. I’ve been eating in a surplus for a month and actually gaining weight. After being stuck in the messy middle of ambivalence, this should feel like a good thing – like an achievement.
But the truth is, most of the time, it feels like utter shit.
I don’t even fully understand how I’m doing it, or how I got here – especially given how much I cry about it, argue with myself, and look for reasons not to. It feels like everything has changed, and nothing has at the same time.
My actions have changed. I’m eating in a surplus. I’m gaining weight. I’m doing the things I couldn’t do for over 100 days.
But how it feels hasn’t changed much at all.
Just Sit With the Discomfort 😀
People have a way of simplifying extremely complex issues – even illnesses. To get out of the messy middle, to change anything in your life, they say you have to “sit with the discomfort” like it’s something small or manageable.
It’s not.
It’s not like wearing a scratchy jumper and deciding to ignore it. It feels urgent, loud, and convincing – like something is actually seriously wrong. My world doesn’t even feel safe anymore. It feels like I’m in a burning building, and someone is telling me, “Just stay in there. The flames die out eventually :D”
But I’m in survival mode. I’ve already clocked the nearest window, and I’m doing everything I can not to jump out of it. Survival mode has no logic. It only has: get me out of this danger by any means necessary. Sitting with it, therefore, doesn’t look calm or graceful.
For me, it looks like arguing with myself for hours. Putting things off. Pacing. Getting frustrated. Holding myself back from moving too much because I’m so uncomfortable with the surplus and want to undo it – and then doing the surplus anyway in a brief moment of bravery.
I wake up every single day hoping the flames have stopped licking the walls of my life. But the first thing I see when I open my eyes is the smoke. I feel the fear. And then the realisation washes over me that I have to do it again today.
I’ve been “sitting with discomfort” by living inside the burning building for a month. And most days, it feels like I’m suffocating in the smoke. People tell me how well I’m doing for staying in it. And I can see the benefits – I know they’re there. But all I can feel is the burning. The suffocation. Being trapped inside my own mind.
I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel strong. I just want to escape.
Yet somehow, this time, I’ve stayed. The most I could manage before was three or four days before I had to get out – retreating back to maintenance, thinking I was making absolutely no progress for 123 days.
But I was wrong.
Because that ambivalence – the back and forth, the stopping and starting – gave me space to do the work I didn’t even realise I was doing. That’s one of the reasons that now, even while fighting myself and feeling like shit, I’ve managed something I couldn’t before: I’ve stayed mostly consistent.
The Unfairness of Numbers and Other Compulsions
For the last month, there’s been a daily occurrence of getting really mad about the unfairness of numbers. This is where the fact that eating disorders are mental illnesses becomes very obvious.
I can know the logic. I understand that calories in vs calories out isn’t as precise as people make it out to be – because bodies aren’t precise.
I know about glycogen.
I know I’m building muscle.
I know creatine increases water retention.
I know that for the 123 days of maintenance, most of what I’ve been measuring is fluctuations in water and inflammation that are still happening.
I know all of that. Yet, I still look at the numbers and think: This is wrong.
Because despite everything I know, I haven’t eaten a large enough surplus to explain the weight I’ve gained – at least not in the way my brain thinks it should work. So I get angry.
I think my body is broken.
I think I’ve somehow entered a state where I’m just going to keep gaining forever.
I think I’ve broken physics.
My ED – who I call Corrupted Copilot – doesn’t care about what makes up the numbers. It doesn’t care if it’s fat, glycogen, water, or muscle. It cares about one thing: Numbers going up = unsafe.
And it’s not just numbers going up. It’s specific numbers. Numbers that feel tied to memories. To times in my life. To versions of myself I don’t want to return to. It’s like my weight isn’t just a measurement – it’s a destination. And the further away I am from it, the safer I feel.
The weirdest part is that my body is completely different now. I’ve never had this much muscle in my life. And yet it makes absolutely no difference. Corrupted Copilot doesn’t update based on new evidence. It doesn’t care that this body is not the same body.
If anything, it feels worse this time. Because my body responds quickly. It builds muscle easily. It doesn’t behave neatly within the models my brain wants it to follow. So now I’m not just fighting weight gain – I’m fighting the feeling that nothing makes sense.
That the rules don’t apply to me. That I’ve somehow broken something fundamental. I get angry about thermodynamics. I get angry about how we apply physics to bodies like they’re machines. Because if a car runs out of fuel, it doesn’t start breaking down its windshield wipers to keep going.
But bodies do.
So every day, I go looking for answers. I research. I re-learn things I already know. I try to make it make sense. But the truth is, I already understand it. This isn’t about logic. Because part of me already knows the logic, I read the same things yesterday. It’s that my brain doesn’t agree with it. So I’m not really searching for answers anymore.
I’m searching for permission. For validation. For some kind of certainty. For a moment of bravery.
And sometimes, I find it in the most random places – like watching some strong woman on YouTube say that all the training in the world is pointless if you refuse to eat enough.
And in that moment, it clicks just enough.
So I go to the kitchen. I get the food. I eat the surplus. And then I sit in it. The shame. The discomfort. The burning building. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I feel completely lost. Sometimes I feel genuinely unsafe – for doing the right thing.
And despite the fact I’ve done it today, despite the fact I’ve proven I can do it, tomorrow, I’ll wake up and do the exact same thing again. The same arguments. The same anger. The same need to convince myself all over again. Like nothing has been learned. Like it resets overnight. Like a compulsion.
Like I understand it logically – but emotionally, I never will.
So Why Am I Still Choosing the Burning Building?
If this is what “sitting with discomfort” actually looks like – the arguing, the repetition, the feeling like nothing is sticking – then why am I still doing it?
Well, it turns out that while I thought I was stuck and failing in ambivalence for 123 days, I was actually progressing. During that time, I gave myself reasons not to go back. Reasons to keep sitting in the fire. I actually feel like I’ve progressed further in recovery than I ever did last time. I experience joy from food now. I’ve improved my relationship with it. I’ve worked on my blood sugar problems.
Food doesn’t equal pain or side effects anymore – it’s pleasant and enjoyable when you’re not experiencing rapid highs followed by hypoglycaemia. I look forward to my burrito and quark bowl every day. I’ve made Welsh cakes that connect me to the only time in my life I did enjoy food.
Food has also given me stability. I’ve listened to my body after experimenting with different macros – its preferences – and followed them. Making my Iced Biscuit Latte and cold brew helped more than I expected.
It helped so much that even when I’ve fallen off the recovery wagon, I haven’t restricted.
I’ve eaten at maintenance. Because for the first time, I recognise that I actually have something to lose. I’ve never been in that position before.
Last time, I could drink Huel for two meals a day for months and not miss food at all. It felt the same as eating.
There are other things too. I’ve improved my mobility – which gave me a sense of embodiment I’ve never had in my life. I’ve improved my perimenopause symptoms. I’ve worked on my grief.
All that time I thought I was failing by stalling, I was actually moving forward. I can see that everything has changed from where I was a few months ago. I just wish I felt good about it. That I recognised it as an achievement. Because it is one.
I would be proud of anyone else for doing this. But I don’t feel proud of myself. I get caught up in the anger. And in the downsides – because there are a lot. It’s expensive. Food, clothes. I’ve had to get rid of six black bags of clothes that don’t fit me anymore. You can read about that here.
It’s a financial battle not just a mental one. And all the while, Corrupted Copilot whispers the same solution: Just stop. Escape.
I spend all day listening to it. Sometimes obeying it. And then at night, in brief moments of something that looks like bravery, I do the opposite. I stay. I throw more fuel on the fire to reach my surplus.
I’m Not Brave or Strong
I’m not here because I’m brave. Or because I’m ready. I don’t feel either of those things. I’m here because I’m terrified, angry, and frustrated – and I did it anyway.
For the Iced Biscuit Lattes.
For the Welsh cakes.
For the moments where I feel embodiment for the first time in my life.
And I know that for all of this to continue, my days ahead will still feel like I’m in a burning building. Some days are worse than others, and this week has been especially difficult.
Nothing about it will suddenly feel easy. It will still be repetitive. I will still get angry about the same things, over and over again. I’ll probably go and look it all up again after this – trying to find permission, trying to make it make sense – just to eat a croissant with pistachio crème.
And even though I don’t feel capable of that fight right now, I will do it anyway.
Because this is what “sitting with the discomfort” actually looks like.
Absurd Universe 