Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
Quetiapine quieted my anxiety, but in the silence, depression stepped forward. Without that frantic engine driving me, everything feels slower, heavier. I’m learning who I am without constant fear - while grieving the one person who always felt like proof that I was loved, even when I disappeared.
I climb the mountain. I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere. Then an unforeseen bear appears, mauls me, and eats the very symbol of my progress. It looks like I never climbed at all. There’s no parka to prove it. Only I know I was there.
Being sedated has made mindfulness accidentally achievable. My brain is finally quiet enough to exist without spiralling. It won’t last, and I know that, but for now I’m living inside the stillness — decorating my base, rescuing teddy bears, and letting slowness be enough.
In psychiatric waiting rooms, time doesn’t move forward; it pools. Medication becomes another chair, another number called eventually. You wait inside your body while side effects pass like weather. The work is not fixing anything, only staying warm, fed, and alive until the fog lifts. Surviving and creating meaning while you wait.
Turning 42 wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. Between cramps, cancelled plans, free Starbucks, Jellycat penguins, and Biscoff cake, I found glimmers I didn’t think I’d feel again. Even though the gold didn’t last all night, it existed - and that alone felt like a tiny miracle in the dark.
I went for an ultrasound convinced my swollen lymph nodes were planning my demise, only to be told they’re just dramatic and like to stay enlarged for fun. I still haven’t felt the relief, but I did get kindness brownies, deep chats with my son, and a strangely good day out of it.
Tomorrow I have a scan, so today I cleaned my kitchen and tried to quiet the chaos in my head. Time is slipping or stretching—I can’t tell. My mixed episode dials me up to 9000, but at least future-me will come home to a little order and one small mercy.
I woke up hungover from a binge, full of regret, and went to buy a Greggs sausage roll. It didn’t heal me, but it was an act of not giving up. Recovery isn’t light breaking through clouds—it’s staying alive through entropy, bear biscuits, and the black dog’s chaos.
Woken by my GP and a ringtone loud enough to break the dead, I found out my liver enzymes are high and my lymph nodes still swollen. I didn’t feel much about it. Just took Sticky Junior to the doctors and kept eating sausage rolls like nothing’s wrong. Maybe nothing is.
During one of the hardest weeks of my life, my son handed me a purple Liberty bag with a Jellycat bear inside. This is the story of Enfys — a rainbow in bear form — and how she reminded me I’m loved, even when I can’t feel it.
Absurd Universe 