Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
This week I tried to keep moving through depression, cluster headaches, and recovery — with help from my son, 300 biscuits, and a catastrophic betrayal by Greggs. Recovery isn’t neat. Sometimes it looks like emailing Tate & Lyle about syrup and finding strength in the small, ridiculous things.
I thought I was building an impenetrable castle, but the concrete hasn’t set yet. One bad night of clusters and relapse slipped back on like old slippers. Recovery feels fragile, but still I patch the walls, clinging to rain, coffee, and my son as reasons to keep going.
A raincoat shouldn’t unravel me, but it did. Change — even good change — destabilises me. Clothes, food, identity: all shifting at once. I dropped anchors in Cyberpunk and macramé, but none held. Only a latte in my hand, flimsy against the storm, reminded me I’m still afloat.
I thought starving would erase my anger, but it only buried it alive. When WeeGee died, my anger was grief with its teeth out. Recovery means I can’t run anymore. I have to sit with Angry Rhio, feed her anyway, and let her break me open.
Recovery isn’t a straight line — it’s whiplash. Some days I can eat without thinking, others every bite feels like a fight. I delay meals, restrict without meaning to, and feel crushed by my body’s weight. It’s like crash-landing from space, suddenly aware of gravity pressing on everything.
Recovery feels like regret stacked on regret: my knees burn, my wallet bleeds, my coping is gone. I grieve everything at once. Yet in the smallest moments - wearing shorts, playing games, hearing my son say he missed me - I know regret says “go back,” but I’m still moving forward.
Today was a masterclass in being spectacularly wrong - from misreading dates to creating chaos worthy of a sitcom. Between ADHD brain noise, accidental drama, and Clippy-level self-critique, I somehow still found joy in coffee, pastries, and my son’s laughter. A disaster? Yes. But a warm, funny one.
Sorting my clothes in recovery AGAIN isn’t a cute “new wardrobe” montage. It’s expensive, exhausting, and a reminder of how fast my body’s changing. I’m saying goodbye to trousers I wore Tuesday, selling Jellycats to afford leggings, and discovering even Primark sizing plays cruel games.
Recovery has been chaos — crying, swelling, and thigh muscles outgrowing knee sleeves. But between the spirals, I found soft moments: plush pigeons, macramé bows, iced coffee with my son. Small, silly joys that felt like little lights in the dark. Somehow, they’ve been enough to keep me going.
Being sick in recovery forced me to stop, and without distractions, all I could do was feel. Getting better meant facing my changing body, creatine panic, oedema, and weight gain — all at once. And through it all, I realised something: coping mechanisms work so well, they stopped me from coping.
Absurd Universe 