Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
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.
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 thought eating more would just mean gaining weight. Instead, everything came back - my energy, my thoughts, my emotions, and parts of myself I’d kept muted. It turns out you can maintain your weight and still be underfuelled, and fixing that doesn’t just change your body. It changes you.
I thought “sitting with the discomfort” would feel calm, controlled, maybe even empowering. It doesn’t. It feels repetitive, frustrating, and loud. Like arguing with myself every day over the same things. And still, despite all of that, I keep choosing to stay and do it anyway, even when it feels impossible.
I wasn’t just clearing out my wardrobe. I was letting go of versions of myself I had held onto for survival. Some protected me. Some hid me. All of them mattered. But I don’t need to be them anymore. I can carry what mattered, without carrying everything that kept me there.
Yes, this is an ENTIRE post about Iced Biscuit lattes, and how they've given my life meaning recently. One must imagine Sisyphus drinking Iced Biscuit lattes. There's a recipe if you want to make one too.
I didn’t realise I was hurting myself, because it didn’t look like harm. It looked like doing the right thing. Pushing through. Not restricting. Carrying on. But my body felt it. The consequences were real. Recovery, for me, isn’t doing everything. It’s learning when stopping is the kinder choice.
I decided to make Welsh cakes during a cluster headache episode with no wooden spoon, minimal cookware, and a frog supervising the operation. This involved a mission to Lidl, a run-in with trauma, questionable amounts of Red Bull, and the very real possibility of producing frozen, burnt pancakes again.
For months I thought nothing was happening because I was too scared to move. But writing this made me realise something uncomfortable: Scared Rhio wasn't completely stalling. She kept going while terrified. Maybe recovery isn’t waiting for Urgent Rhio to fix everything. Maybe it’s learning to collapse one wave function at a time.
On my son’s birthday, my knee sleeves stopped fitting, and something inside me caught fire. Muscle I worked for felt like betrayal. Recovery stopped being theoretical and started burning. Ambivalence isn’t neutral ground - it’s standing in a doorway, one foot in the flames, afraid to move either way.
Absurd Universe 