Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
Somewhere between absolutely trashed and thriving, I’m taking iron, navigating ridiculous hunger, challenging my anxiety, surviving another cluster episode and finding my way back to art. My body might currently feel like it’s been run over by the Brexit bus, but somehow, underneath all the chaos, I’m feeling more like myself.
For years, I believed age and chronic pain had taken art away from me for good. A year of recovery, deliberate nutrition and strength training later, I picked up my pencils again.
Significant anaemia, an invisible surveyor, and an attempted betrayal of the sacred pistachio-crème snack plate: this week has been a lot. Between cleaning, iron tablets, cluster headaches, and a late-night chaos-goblin incident, I’m learning that recovery means rest, fuel, Minecraft ambience, and refusing to make cereal happen.
Anaemia, NHS blood tests and the devastating loss of Greggs’ Katsu Chicken Bake. I discover my iron deficiency has somehow got worse, try not to let my brain FIX EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW, accidentally cosplay a 90s Special K diet, and learn that bodies remain inconveniently resistant to urgency.
I’ve been doing recovery “wrong”, apparently. I eat protein bars, track my food, weigh myself and make choices that would horrify parts of the recovery internet. And yet, I’m recovering. Here are some recent wins - including buying food despite Corrupted Clippy helpfully warning me that, horrifyingly, I might actually eat it.
Netflix knows almost nothing about me, yet somehow convinced me to buy laundry products and a bin air freshener. Instagram knows everything about me and decided I needed a life-size cardboard cow. Somewhere between targeted advertising, AI paint-by-numbers and influencer marketing, I started wondering who actually influences me anymore.
A bad perimenopause day becomes an argument with my OCD, a hunt for missing medication and a walk through town feeling more like my shadow than myself. Somewhere between Welsh graffiti, questionable mental health advice and Corrupted Clippy offering an escape hatch, I decide to eat the Katsu chicken bake anyway.
I watched the Perseid meteor shower expecting the same wonder I’d always felt, but grief was there too. Beneath the excitement was the absence of my best friend, and the person I was before she died. I still love the stars. I just wish, sometimes, that they were magic.
Mass Effect changed my life. It helped me through some of my darkest moments, became part of my relationship with my son, and filled my home with memories. But what happens when something you love becomes connected to things you no longer feel comfortable supporting?
Four hours of sleep, one mysteriously functional window and the return of the Invisible Surveyor. Between housing chaos and a surprisingly useful doctor’s appointment, I think about anxiety, OCD, perimenopause, grief, recovery and the strange guilt of resting - before retreating back to Night City with Greggs and exhaustion.
Absurd Universe 