Weak knees, strong will
Week 4, 2026
This week, I had to see an osteopath about my knee. If you know me, you’ll know that knee injuries are a bit #triggering for me, so I had been valiantly ignoring the weird burning electric shock pain I was experiencing, until my right knee went numb :) so off I went.
My osteo seemed reassuringly unconcerned by the actual pain I went in for - can’t remember the exact diagnosis but it’s something to do with a nerve maybe. Anyway, as part of the appointment, he checked my reflexes. You know when they tap you with a little hammer? And I had… none. No reflexes could be found anywhere he looked for them.
He seemed a little bemused by this, but because I am who I am I was thrilled. Is this normal? It’s not? You mean I’m special???? I practically skipped out of there on my weak little knees, straight into an off-license to buy some fruitella as a nourishing post-appointment snack.
Once the initial elation from discovering a new fun fact about myself I can trot out on boring dates wore off, I started to realise that having no reflexes makes… so much sense? Here is why:
No spatial awareness literally none
Which means I am always always littered with bruises
I don’t really understand where pain is in my body? Like um something hurts but can’t tell you where
Can’t do team sports
Or solo sports come to think of it
Terrible sense of direction can get lost in a restaurant coming back from the loo can I blame this on the reflexes thing?
And look if you google ‘no reflexes’ it all seems quite alarming, and there is every chance the tiny hammer test just didn’t work, but the evidence is quite compelling, is it not?
I’ve become a bit fascinated with my body recently. More specifically, my brain. I’ve been listening to people bang on and on about the body keeping the score ever since that book went a bit viral on Instagram, but it’s sooo interesting to be presented with actual evidence of it. You know it has taken my brain four weeks to chill out enough that I can sleep through the night since I stopped drinking? FOUR WEEKS.
And things I thought were personality traits - laziness, forgetfulness, willing every day to just end already - yeah, turned out I was just fucking tired. Annie sent me a voice note the other day, saying you know you’re actually quite wholesome, you get joy from seeing a pink sky or a cool looking bird. I’ve never related to the word wholesome in my life. But I also never knew that I didn’t have reflexes.
People keep asking me if I’m going to start drinking again, and my answer is this: probably, maybe, absolutely, definitely not. Genuinely, I do not know! And I am having trouble extracting who I am from who I have identified with for years.
You see we build these personalities for ourselves that eventually become cages. And the body and the brain are quietly keeping the score, turning treats into habits into reflexes until we can’t unpick who we are from what we do. Can’t see the little cycles we’re spiralling down into. Going so deep and so narrow into ourselves when there’s actually loads of other stuff we could be doing.
There’s this CMAT lyric that says ‘I spent all my money on things that keep me tired’. And if we remove all the virtuous my body is a temple stuff for a sec, I think it kinda boils down to that. What a waste? What’s the point? What else is out there that I can be getting up to?
:) xxx
PS. I bought this pig picture at a car boot sale isn’t it magnificent?
Wow!
PIG PIC RULES.