There was a time when looking after myself wasn’t a battle.
I didn’t have to force myself to eat well. I didn’t need motivation videos or habit trackers or promises about “starting again on Monday”. It was simply who I was.
For years I was disciplined with food. Not in an obsessive way, but in a way that reflected how much I valued my health. I ate well. I trained hard. I moved my body every day. Weight training wasn’t just exercise; it was part of my identity. It grounded me. It gave me purpose. It made me feel strong.
Even when bipolar first tore through my life and I found myself hospitalised, that part of me somehow survived. I remember finding ways to keep moving, to exercise, to hold onto some sense of myself. Amid all the chaos, confusion and fear, I still recognised the person staring back at me.
But after the second hospitalisation, something changed.
It’s difficult to explain because it wasn’t dramatic. There wasn’t a single moment where I decided to stop caring. There wasn’t a conscious choice to give up.
It was more like a light slowly dimmed.
The drive disappeared.
The determination disappeared.
The energy that had carried me through years of consistency simply wasn’t there anymore.
I’ve spent years trying to summon it back, believing that if I just tried harder, found the right routine, the right diet, the right motivational quote, I could somehow reconnect with that version of myself.
But the harder truth is that sometimes it feels like she vanished.
And then there is lithium.
Lithium undoubtedly gave me things I desperately needed. Stability. Safety. Protection from places I never want to return to.
But it also changed things in ways that are rarely spoken about.
For over a decade, I had very little interest in processed foods. They simply weren’t a significant part of my life. I could take them or leave them. They weren’t calling my name from cupboards or supermarket shelves.
Then lithium arrived.
Suddenly foods that had barely occupied my mind for years seemed impossible to ignore. Cravings appeared that felt foreign to me. Foods I had effortlessly avoided for years became foods I actively wanted.
I sometimes describe it as though somebody rewired my brain’s relationship with food overnight.
People often see weight gain and assume they understand the story.
Eat less.
Move more.
Try harder.
Have more discipline.
But what if the person standing in front of them already spent years proving they had discipline?
What if the person they are looking at once built their life around health, movement and consistency?
What if the struggle isn’t laziness but biology?
What if the medication that keeps someone alive also changes the way they experience hunger, cravings, energy and motivation?
I’ve gained three stone.
Three stone.
Some days that number feels impossible to comprehend because I can still remember exactly how it felt to live in my previous body.
I remember walking into a gym feeling confident.
I remember putting on clothes without thinking about how they fit.
I remember recognising myself.
Now there are moments when I feel as though I should have the word “MEDICATION” written across my forehead.
Not because I want sympathy.
Not because I want excuses.
But because I want context.
I want people to know that this isn’t the full story.
That there is more behind the number on the scales.
That there was a woman who spent years looking after herself before her brain became unwell.
That there were medications, hospital admissions, recoveries and sacrifices.
That the body they see today isn’t simply the result of poor choices.
Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel frustrated. Sometimes angry. Sometimes sad for the version of me that seemed able to do things so effortlessly.
But beneath all of that, there is another feeling.
Grief.
Because what I miss isn’t just the smaller body.
I miss the certainty.
I miss the drive.
I miss the feeling that if I set my mind to something, I could do it.
Perhaps this is one of the quieter losses that comes with bipolar disorder. Not the dramatic episodes people talk about, but the subtle disappearance of parts of yourself that once felt permanent.
The challenge, I suppose, is accepting that the person I was may not return in exactly the same form.
And maybe that’s where I’ve been getting stuck.
Waiting for her.
Looking for her.
Trying to become her again.
Maybe the task isn’t to resurrect the old version of myself.
Maybe it’s to discover who I am now.
Not despite everything that’s happened, but because of it.
A version of me who carries the scars, the medication, the weight gain, the grief and the gratitude all at once.
A version who may never be who she was.
But who still deserves compassion while she figures out who she’s becoming.
SHELVED 