This is a description I wrote of how I felt when I was in a particularly dark place last year.
Trigger warning: eating disorder
Hands shoved in pockets, head to the ground, she shakes her hair in front of her face to hide from the biting sting of her peers' harsh words. Chocolate eyes once bright with life are now dull, dust gathering in her pupils so that the tears hurt when they come. Her figure is hunched from the huge backpack of pain and insecurity sitting on her shoulders.
In lessons, she worries. Her grades are slipping, not enough to be noticeable but she notices. She notices every slip, every tiny mistake and drags it out of proportion, analysing and overanalysing until it becomes yet another buzz in the hive of anxiety in her brain.
With her friends, she worries. She observes how they laugh and joke, free from the hurt that holds her down, and obsesses over whether she's saying too much or too little. Is she funny? Kind? Accepted? Jokey comments made for laughter are like bullets, each one damaging her further as she dwells on every word, but pretends they don't matter because that's all she can do. They are sick of her crying for help, after all.
At lunch, she holds back tears and tries to ignore the mantra constantly playing in her head that only grows louder with the food all around her.
You shouldn't eat that.
I have to, it's the only way to get better.
Don't eat it. You know what will happen.
Does my weight really matter?
It's the reason everyone hates you.
But everyone else is eating, why can't I?
Because you're not good enough. Eat, and you fail.
But I'm so hungry.
Are you a failure?
No.
So she sits, and eyes the full plates around her, pushing plastic lettuce around with her fork. Sometimes her friends help, or ask what happened when she was doing so well. But more often than not, they ignore her and she stays silent, too busy focusing on the battle in her brain to take part in her friends' laughter.
At home, she hides. She disguises her pain and tells her parents that school was fine before pleading coursework and disappearing into the sanctuary of her room, memories splattered over the walls and inspiration hanging from every surface.
She doesn't cry. Years of building up walls and denying any emotion have taught her how to hold in tears, so she doesn't let any spill. Instead, she stares at the wall, plays music to distract herself, writes until she realises no one will ever read it. So she loses herself, floating away to the far away lands she invented as a child where she is fierce, brave and strong rather than an insecure teen trying to battle her way through mental illness alone.
Trigger warning: eating disorder
Hands shoved in pockets, head to the ground, she shakes her hair in front of her face to hide from the biting sting of her peers' harsh words. Chocolate eyes once bright with life are now dull, dust gathering in her pupils so that the tears hurt when they come. Her figure is hunched from the huge backpack of pain and insecurity sitting on her shoulders.
In lessons, she worries. Her grades are slipping, not enough to be noticeable but she notices. She notices every slip, every tiny mistake and drags it out of proportion, analysing and overanalysing until it becomes yet another buzz in the hive of anxiety in her brain.
With her friends, she worries. She observes how they laugh and joke, free from the hurt that holds her down, and obsesses over whether she's saying too much or too little. Is she funny? Kind? Accepted? Jokey comments made for laughter are like bullets, each one damaging her further as she dwells on every word, but pretends they don't matter because that's all she can do. They are sick of her crying for help, after all.
At lunch, she holds back tears and tries to ignore the mantra constantly playing in her head that only grows louder with the food all around her.
You shouldn't eat that.
I have to, it's the only way to get better.
Don't eat it. You know what will happen.
Does my weight really matter?
It's the reason everyone hates you.
But everyone else is eating, why can't I?
Because you're not good enough. Eat, and you fail.
But I'm so hungry.
Are you a failure?
No.
So she sits, and eyes the full plates around her, pushing plastic lettuce around with her fork. Sometimes her friends help, or ask what happened when she was doing so well. But more often than not, they ignore her and she stays silent, too busy focusing on the battle in her brain to take part in her friends' laughter.
At home, she hides. She disguises her pain and tells her parents that school was fine before pleading coursework and disappearing into the sanctuary of her room, memories splattered over the walls and inspiration hanging from every surface.
She doesn't cry. Years of building up walls and denying any emotion have taught her how to hold in tears, so she doesn't let any spill. Instead, she stares at the wall, plays music to distract herself, writes until she realises no one will ever read it. So she loses herself, floating away to the far away lands she invented as a child where she is fierce, brave and strong rather than an insecure teen trying to battle her way through mental illness alone.
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