Chip, once again, sat in her doctor's office. She had just been spontaneously weighed and had gained, which was good but it set an indescribable type of fear within her not to know the exact number. Rosa was better at hiding the numbers than Dr. W ever could be. So she was just feeling very much aware of herself and how her jumper, which was extremely baggy and always had been, now felt tight and as if it constricted movement of her chest.
"Why do you punish yourself this way, Chip?" Rosa asked as a response to a comment Ciara had made many sessions ago. She had decided that now, it was the perfect time to get into it. They had spent the last three sessions trying to figure out her triggers so they could figure out some sort of why to soothe them or even prevent them from happening - Rosa's biggest worry for Chip right now was a relapse due to the knowledge that she had gained.
Ciara was, quite frankly, stunned by the abruptness of the question and remained silent for at least ten minutes. She just couldn't voice her answer, nor fall onto just one singular reason for it all. Her head swam with the various responses, all of which ticked over in her head with no interruption from Rosa who just waited patiently. The soft fluttery music of the record player in the corner of the room gave her something to focus on so she could sort her thoughts. "I fucking hate myself," she whispered, hugging her knees close to her body protectively.
Rosa's eyes softened, her throat thickening to the point where she felt completed to clear it. She had heard all sorts over the years of her practise, all ranging in severity. But hearing those words from anyone never failed to make her feel sick. "And why is that?"
Ciara scoffed, going to run a hand through her hair before she stopped and realised that her hair was tied up and that was not possible. "How long have you got?"
Rosa did finally clear her throat and shuffled in her chair, "Well the sessions nearly up but I want you to do something for me. Write these things you hate onto a piece of paper, a4 and you may use only one side. Bring it to the next session."
-
Ciara sat at home, at her desk, the evening before her next session with her therapist. She had procrastinated writing her letter for the entirely of a week. Every time she looked at the paper she just couldn't focus all the words onto the page. She just couldn't figure out a way to communicate it all, her head span with dozens of phrases and words but she couldn't just focus on one out of them all. She had even tried writing in pencil, so she could remove anything that was not right at the very second she realised that it was not something she actually felt. But none of it was working.
She suddenly and abruptly stood, grabbing her paper and pencil, before she headed downstairs. Ciara grabbed a set of keys from the bowl that she had never once before reached for but felt them calling out to her this time. She, after a moment's hesitation, put the key into the lock of Cal's car and sat in the passenger's seat. Instantly she felt more comfortable, more soothed and could easily decipher her thoughts out of the good ones and the bad. And she just let herself be present for a moment. She stared at the now long scentless air freshener hanging from the mirror and looked over the various cd's that he kept in the glove box. She scoffed upon finding one of her own cd's that he had stolen but made no attempt to remove it, wanting to keep everything the same as it had been. As she sat in the car and took a single deep breath, Ciara put pencil to paper and everything came flooding out in an instant.
-
"Do you have the letter?" Rosa asked the next day, the very second that Chip sat down in her usual seat in the office.
"Straight in the deep end, okay," she chuckled nervously and reached into her jacket, pulling the folded paper from her jacket pocket.
"Now I want you to imagine your six year old self, sitting in that chair over there and tell her all those things."
Ciara's eyes went wide, her gaze focused on the empty chair opposite. She sighed and opened the paper, hand shaking exponentially. She took a deep and steadying breath, clearing her throat. "Your shoulders hang oddly. Your eyes are misshapen, you suck the life out of conversations... Your stomach is not flat enough, your thighs take up too much space on chairs. There's too much fat in your face, it makes you look undesirable. You're never good enough, it's all your fault," she paused to wipe the tears from her eyes, reaching for a tissue that lay in a box on the table in front of her. "It's all your fault. Everything is your fault and you deserve to suffer like this for that. You deserve not to feel comfortable in yourself, you deserve all this unhappiness. You deserve to not feel like you're living anymore..."
"What's your fault Chip?" Rosa whispered as Ciara folded the note back over, not having the will to read or even look at the rest of the contents. She had quite small handwriting and the page was jam packed with words.
"My Dad died."
"Of what, may I ask?"
"His heart was clogged with fat," she cleared her throat and wiped her eyes once again, making sure the remaining makeup around her eyes did not budge too severely. "Heart attack when no one was home."
"Were you the one to find him?"
Ciara shook her head, trying her hardest to remain present and not fall back into the thoughts of that afternoon or the awful things that had happened afterward. "No Cal was. He kept me outside, said he had a feeling something had happened when he unlocked the door on the walk home from school. I heard his crying though."
Rosa almost stammered but managed to quickly cover it up, instead asking, "I don't understand, how do you think that's your fault?"
Ciara teared up again, feeling so vulnerable that all she wanted to do was curl into bed and fall asleep so she could be in a place where she no longer had to deal with all this. "Every single day I would help with dinner, Mammy would always yell at me for putting too much oil or fat or butter into a meal but Da would just laugh and say it made it taste better anyway... So I, wanting to please him, always put more than Mammy said to in every meal," she paused for a sniffle trying her hardest not to completely break down in the office. "And every Wednesday and Sunday I made desserts that he would always eat the most out of. Because it made him happy to see that I was happy..."
"So when it all happened you cut back on the oil and the desserts, in fear of the same thing happening to you?"
Ciara nodded, her voice a mere whisper, "I never even realised I was doing it."
"Chip. It is not your fault, okay? Your Dad had an existing condition, no amount of healthy or unhealthy eating would have helped what happened to him. And you know that if you don't start gaining soon, you're going to have heart issues as well?"
"I know... It's not the act of dying that scares me. It's the death not being on my own terms. Death from this, from not eating to prevent a death that could happen due to eating, just seems... I don't know... better to me? Is that delusional?"
"It's not delusional, just disordered thinking. Which we can alter with a little practice. Next week, I want you to bring a home baked cake to our session. Made with full fat butter and full fat milk. Is that okay with you?"
Chip nodded warily, not knowing if she really was ready for such a thing. Even the thought of baking that cake had her stomach reeling. She knew that Rosa would try to get her to eat a slice of whatever she made, no matter the contents or the calories. The very thought of that had her wanting to run away and never return and she was ever so close on that bus ride home.

YOU ARE READING
Basorexia - J.MAGUIRE
Fanfic(𝐍) 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍 "𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓀𝒾𝓈𝓈." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CIARA [CHIP] BYRNE - had quite a lot going on in her life tha...