The Crisis Diaries: Five Months of Not QuiteFalling Apart

Published 8 May 2026

By Antonia @Unremarkable Me

There are many respectable ways to return to writing after a long and deeply inconvenient absence.

You might make a plan.

You might light a candle.

You might open a fresh notebook and whisper something hopeful about new beginnings.

I, naturally, went through the bin looking for a pen.

Not just any pen, obviously. That would be ridiculous.

This was my pen.

My beautiful Mont Blanc pen. The one that writes like silk and has been taught manners. The one that

was gifted to me. The one I used when I first started writing for Unremarkable Me, back when

writing did not feel like content or work or “output”, but like a small act of defiance performed with

ink.

Some people have lucky socks. Some people have crystals. Some people have a water bottle with

motivational times printed down the side, as if dehydration can be cured by mild emotional

blackmail.

I had a pen.

And somewhere in the middle of the last five years, it became more than that.

It became proof.

Proof that I had come a long way from the fourteen-year-old girl who could barely read, who could

write her name and a few small words, who looked at written language as though everyone else had

been handed a secret map and I had been given a crayon and a look of concern.

Proof that I could make sentences now.

Proof that I could tell stories.

Proof that I could take the mess, the pain, the ridiculousness, the fear, the medical admin, the

“please explain your symptoms in one sentence while the appointment clock judges you”, and shape

it into something that might make another person feel less alone.

That pen became the sword I slayed my demons with.

Yes, I know. Dramatic.

But if chronic illness has taught me anything, it is that sometimes you have to romanticise the small

things, because the big things are already wearing steel-capped boots and walking directly across

your nervous system.

And lately, the big things have been busy. Over the last five months, life has not so much thrown us a curveball as lobbed the entire sporting

goods aisle through the front window.

Sam ( my partner in crime and love of my Life) became seriously unwell after what started as a

small injury to his foot. With type one diabetes, small foot injuries do not always stay small.

Diabetes UK explains that diabetes can increase the risk of serious foot problems, and foot care is

something that has to be taken seriously, not filed under “probably fine” and left to develop a villain

origin story. (Diabetes UK)

For Sam, that small injury became an ulcer. Then hospital. Then waiting. Then pain. Then infection.

Then surgery. Then the sort of medical conversations that make your stomach drop before your

brain has had time to catch up.

There were words no one wants to hear.

There were treatments no one expects to become familiar with.

There were long waits, poor communication, and hospital meals that seemed to have been

assembled during a power cut by someone who had once seen food described in a dream.

There was also me, floating around the edges of it all, technically not the patient and therefore

apparently expected to remain calm, practical, and emotionally available, like a lightly medicated

administrative fairy.

This is something I did not fully understand before.

Not being the patient in a health crisis can be much harder than you expect.

When you are the patient, there is fear, pain, vulnerability, and the loss of control over your own

body. I know that side. I have lived that side. I have the commemorative trauma and the medical

letters to prove it.

But when the person you love is the patient, you are trapped in a different kind of helplessness.

You are not in the hospital bed, but you are not outside the crisis either.

You become the witness.

The advocate.

The food courier.

The translator.

The person who remembers medication names.

The person who asks whether the pain relief is actually touching the sides.

The person who notices when someone is being spoken to like a naughty child rather than a

frightened adult.

The person trying to keep everyone calm while your own nervous system is quietly chewing

through the furniture.

And if you already carry medical trauma, that experience comes with a special little garnish of

psychological horror.

PTSD can develop after very stressful, frightening, or distressing events, and it can affect sleep,

concentration, mood, and the body’s sense of safety long after the event has passed. The NHS

describes PTSD as a mental health condition linked to traumatic experiences, while Mind notes that

treatment can include talking therapies and, for some people, medication. (nhs.uk)Medical PTSD is not always recognised in the way it should be. It does not always look like saving private Ryan.

There is not always a dramatic flashback in the rain with violins

Sometimes it looks like being unable to make a phone call.

Sometimes it looks like sitting in your bedroom, rehearsing how to describe symptoms to a stranger

while your whole body says, “Absolutely not, we are not going back into that building.”

Sometimes it looks like being very calm during the emergency, then falling apart later while loading

the dishwasher.

Sometimes it looks like being brilliant in a crisis and completely unable to choose dinner.

And sometimes it looks like losing a pen and reacting as though the last small thread holding your

identity together has been swallowed by the house.

Which brings us back to the bin.

Because at some point after Sam came home, after weeks of hospital life, daily practical demands,

my own kidney infection, and the general household ambience of “haunted but trying”, I realised

my pen was missing.

I checked the obvious places.

Then the less obvious places.

Then the places no pen has ever reasonably been.

Drawers. Bags. Bedside tables. Sofa cushions. Near the kettle. Under notebooks. Inside notebooks.

Places I had already checked, because OCD likes to return to the scene of the non-crime and ask

whether perhaps you looked incorrectly the first six times.

And then I went through the rubbish.

The outside rubbish.

The bin that was ready for collection.

Because apparently I no longer had dignity, only a search perimeter.

There is a very particular kind of mental torment that comes with losing something meaningful. It is

not simply, “Oh no, where is it?”

It is:

What if I threw it away?

What if I was careless?

What if it is gone forever?

What if I have lost something I cannot replace?

What if this one small thing mattered, and I still could not keep hold of it?

I would rather give something away than lose it.

Giving something away is a choice. Losing something is chaos wearing your cardigan. My brother understands this because he is exactly the same. Some families pass down jewellery. We

appear to pass down the ability to search for missing objects with the emotional intensity of a

murder investigation conducted by people who have not slept.

After three days, I accepted that the pen was gone.

By accepted, I mean I was sad, furious, disproportionately wounded, and quietly considering

whether the universe had developed a personal vendetta against my stationery.

Then I needed to get my EDS UK posters out of my project bag.

And there it was.

In the corner.

My pen.

The little Puta!.

Not in the bin.

Not gone forever.

Not swallowed by gremlins, though I still maintain they remain persons of interest.

It was in my project bag.

.With the posters.

With the part of me that still wants to write, organise, advocate, make people laugh, make people

feel seen, and occasionally shout into the void using well-structured paragraphs and a suspiciously

cheerful font choice.

I just stared at it.

There are moments in life that are profound because they are beautiful. Sunsets. Weddings. Babies.

The first sip of tea when it is exactly the right temperature.

And then there are moments that are profound because you are standing in your house, emotionally

battered, medically exhausted, holding a pen you found in a bag, whispering, “You absolute little

bastard.”

Reader, I was delighted.

I had my sword back.

And yes, I know it sounds small when measured against everything else.

A pen is not a hospital bed.

A pen is not an infection.

A pen is not surgery.

A pen is not the fear of amputation.

A pen is not a kidney infection, a pain flare, a vacuum pump, a dressing change, or the sound of

your own nervous system setting off fireworks at midnight. But sometimes the small thing is where the whole story hides.

Because I have felt stuck.

Not lazy.

Not uninspired.

Not ungrateful.

Stuck.

The kind of stuck that happens when crisis becomes the weather.

The kind that settles in after months of being useful. After you have spent so long prioritising,

monitoring, remembering, fetching, explaining, worrying, chasing, advocating, and pretending you

are fine enough to keep going.

The kind that makes reading a book feel impossible because your attention span has packed a bag

and gone to live somewhere quieter.

The kind that makes writing feel like standing outside your own front door without a key.

And I have missed Unremarkable Me.

I have missed the rhythm of it.

The purpose of it.

The little spark of taking something awful, absurd, or quietly devastating and turning it into a piece

of writing that says, “Look. This happened. It matters. And if it happened to you too, you are not

alone.”

That is why this is not just a comeback article.

This is the start of The Crisis Diaries: Five Months of Not Quite Falling Apart.

Over the next few pieces, I want to tell the story properly. Not because I think our life is unusually

tragic or because I have suddenly decided to become the Dickens of medical admin, although

frankly there is material.

I want to tell it because there are things in this story that matter beyond us.

The difference between type one and type two diabetes matters.

The way hospital staff communicate with autistic patients matters.

The way partners and unpaid carers are expected to hold everything together matters.

The way medical trauma follows you into every new appointment matters.

The way people say “let me know if I can do anything” and then vanish into the wallpaper matters.

The way discharge is treated like an ending, when for many families it is simply the crisis changing

address, absolutely matters.

Carers UK describes unpaid carers as people looking after family members or someone close to

them, and provides advice and support across areas such as practical help, finances, assessments, work, and wellbeing. (Carers UK) The UK government also has information on support for people

caring for someone, including financial support and carer-related rights. (GOV.UK)

But here is the awkward little truth hiding behind all those neat support pages.

When you are in the middle of it, you often do not have the spare capacity to become an expert in

the help you are technically entitled to.

You are too busy making sure someone has eaten.

Too busy checking medication.

Too busy watching wounds.

Too busy managing your own symptoms.

Too busy trying not to cry in a hospital corridor because the vending machine has rejected your card

and apparently that is the thing that has pushed you to the edge today.

Support is only useful if people can actually reach it.

And sometimes, when you are already drowning, what you need is not another vague offer, another

form, another phone line, or another person saying, “Have you tried self-care?”

Sometimes what you need is someone to turn up.

With food.

With petrol money.

With clean bedding.

With the dogs walked.

With the washing done.

With the courage to sit beside you and say, “This is awful. I am here. Give me a job.”

Not sympathy confetti.

Help.

Actual help.

The last five months have taught me that I am good in a crisis, but that does not mean crisis is good

for me.

It has taught me that being calm is not the same as being okay.

It has taught me that my body will keep score even when my brain is trying to run a meeting.

It has taught me that the person beside the hospital bed is also going through something, even if

they are not the one wearing the wristband.

And, because life has a sense of humour darker than a hospital tea stain, it has taught me that

sometimes the thing you think you have lost is sitting quietly in the project bag, waiting for you to

look properly.

So here I am.

Back at the page. Not fixed.

Not refreshed.

Not glowing with wellness, unless we are counting inflammation.

But here.

With my pen.

With my story.

With my slightly feral little heart.

I thought I had lost my sword.

Turns out, I had just put it down.

And maybe that is where I begin again.

Love Unremarkable Me