Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
Imagine sitting in the metaphorical waiting room for therapy, convinced your name will never be called. Then suddenly, it is — and an hour later, you’ve had massive realisations about grief, silence, and finding yourself again. My first grief therapy session was unexpectedly eventful, and it’s just the beginning.
Ambivalence is a superposition—wanting and not wanting recovery at the same time. This is what living with an eating disorder looks like: battling decisions that shouldn’t be battles, facing Greggs like it’s a boss fight, and walking away from cheese like it’s a trap. Clippy wants control. But so do I.
This week was chaos incarnate. I had MANY meltdowns, became an anti-capitalist hero via a magazine subscription app, my son delivered an epic BBC takedown, and I spent a lot of time hugging Jellycats—when they weren’t in quarantine. But somehow, I’m still here. And honestly? I’ll take that as a win.
Eating disorders in your 40s are isolating in ways no one talks about. Perimenopause, body changes, and the loss of identity as a parent collide with an illness society believes only affects teenagers. This post dives into my lived experience of navigating these challenges while feeling unseen, unheard, and unsupported.
When everything crumbled — blood tests, eating disorder relapse, endless chaos — I leaned into maximum entropy. Physics couldn’t fix it, but it made sense of the mess. So, while our universe succumbed to entropy, I bleached my son’s hair. Order emerged in the chaos, his hair flawless, my new Jellycat pig, Hamilton, watching.
Greggs was my safe haven—until Corrupted Clippy hijacked it. Standing at the pastry counter, dread replaced joy. My eating disorder, unnoticed for weeks, now controlled me in ways I couldn’t deny. I’m grieving not just food, but the pieces of myself it’s quietly stolen. A fight I didn’t see coming
I woke up with one simple goal: put the washing away. Instead, I found myself crying in a pile of clothes while my brain played the “Greatest Hits of My Failures.” Laundry Mountain loomed large, my ribs hurt, and the chaos felt endless. Why is something so small, so hard?
Grief is a wave function. It runs in the background, unseen, until it collapses. I held mine off for years to be strong for my son. But after 2023, it caught up with me — and I’m still petrified. Grief, love, fear — it’s all tangled. And this isn’t even everything.
Frankie Frog, my son’s Build-a-Bear, became a harbinger of connection during a dark year of grief and relapse. We threw him a birthday party with cake, sandwiches, and Froggy wine. He’s more than a plushie — he’s comfort, chaos, and a reminder that love and joy persist, even through the fog.
Grief and relapse go hand in hand. The person I’d turn to for strength is the one I’m grieving. I’ve retreated into survival mode — the airlock, as I call it. It numbs the grief and quiets my thoughts, but it’s a trap. Right now? It’s where I am
Absurd Universe 