Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
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 went from brown hair to brown hair via a spectacular detour involving Vantablack ends, Anish Kapoor jokes, a scalp that felt sunburnt, and enough hair dye to chemically alter my postcode. It also turned into an unexpected lesson about how invisible struggle can be.
The internet prefers suffering that is tidy, inspiring and tied up with a bow. Unfortunately, my brain didn’t get the memo. This is not a post about overcoming anything. It’s about what happens when you stop waiting until you’re better before allowing yourself to be seen.
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.
This week has been a strange mix of gastritis, scaffolding noise, and small victories. I defeated Optimus Amazon Prime (a mountain of cardboard boxes), accidentally fell into the TikTok illusion dimension, and hugged a loaf of bread. Survival, it turns out, is mostly made of small, ridiculous victories.
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.
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.
Absurd Universe 