Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
I didn’t follow the rules. I didn’t eat 2500 a day or stop moving. But I still gained weight—fast. My period came back. My knees hurt. My thighs exploded. This isn’t pretty recovery. It’s painful, swollen, and constant. And yet, I keep walking. Even when I don’t want to.
I didn’t want sympathy, I just didn’t want to disappear again. These swollen glands might be nothing, but the peanut butter of resistance night? That was everything. A step off the rope bridge. I want to bring you with me — with balloons, and peanut butter, and something like hope.
I’ve tried grief therapy. It didn’t work. This book - The Pretty Painful Grief Book - actually is. It doesn’t sugar-coat or preach. It just asks the right questions. Some of them hurt. Some made me cry. But they helped. This post is about how I’m using it, and why it matters.
This is the messy middle — not crisis, not triumph. Just limbo. A breath held. A rope bridge swaying in wind I can’t control. I’m scared, not failing. I’m resting. Gathering strength. One day I’ll step forward. But today, I make camp. I make tea. And I don’t go back.
Burnt out from recovery, grief, and just existing, I hit a wall - and my body hit back. This is the day I didn’t plan to rest, but had to. From chaos drawers and cereal trails to wax melts and Super Salads, this was the day off I was forced to take.
Every time I eat, I feel her absence more. The last time I recovered, she was here. This time, she’s gone - and now the grief is louder than ever. I’m eating, I’m crying, I’m remembering. Recovery isn’t separating grief from food. It’s learning to carry both, one bite at a time.
I challenged a Macchiato at Starbucks today. It felt like fighting a raid boss with no healer—just me, my son, and two plushies. The drink was awful, but I did the thing. Recovery isn’t always rewarding. Sometimes it’s just surviving the fight. And sometimes, that is the reward.
I thought the bath would help. Galaxy glitter, soft water, space to breathe. Instead, the mirror warped, my legs felt like cement, and I didn’t recognise myself. Recovery is a circus, and this was the funhouse mirror moment. But I got out. I got dressed. I drank the macchiato.
Crying while macrameing a tiny bag for my Jellycat bear felt like the most “me in recovery” moment imaginable—grief, chaos, thread everywhere, but still trying to make something soft. I didn’t want to keep going, but my hands kept tying knots. Somehow, that felt like hope anyway.
Recovery today was a pick ‘n’ mix: bipolar highs, Lidl bakery lows, and a Jellycat bear walk in between. I challenged Greggs and pain au raisin, surfed a mixed episode, and somehow still ate dinner. It’s not linear, but I’m still here — with biscuits and bear in hand.
Absurd Universe 