The Barrister Boy (COMPLETED)

Thoughts

Charlie

"Trust is like paper, once it's crumpled it can't be perfect again"

-Oscar Auliq-Ice

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     Charlie Spring, a late teen from Truham who is soon to become an adult and turn eighteen, has been openly gay since his high school years. This may not seem like an important fact, or one of the first things you would need to learn about a person, but in Charlie's case, it is what makes him who he is today.

     I don't mean this in the sappy way that he sees being gay that large a part of his personality. I mean it in a way that, being outed as gay at only fourteen, has impacted the young lads life massively.

     Charlie felt as though he had no control over his life anymore.

     Although in a public society no one really puts much thought into who others dated and fancied, he attended an all boys grammar school. As you can imagine, not the most diverse of places. 

     A group of bullies had exposed him to the rest of his peers near the end of year nine, and after only truly figuring himself out a few weeks prior, it made Charlie more unprepared on how to handle this sudden outcome.  

     He felt as though a protective layer had been removed from him, and all that was left was this weak, vulnerable teenager.

     Charlie felt he needed to gain that control again. But how ? 

     The Spring boy ended up developing an eating disorder, Anorexia. His thoughts had dug him this far into a hole, and yet none of it was his fault, he would constantly blame himself.

     The continuous comments against him at school pushed him too far, and made his sensitive mind engulf him, leaving barely any hope for his future or his happiness.

     He became numb, a feeling he wished he had never had to feel, even though it made him feel nothing at all. Charlie started to cut. He would paint his upper arms in red ink, and let them scar over. Like when you push too hard with your pencil, even if you rub it out as hard as you can, you can still see the drawings and always will. He knew self harming was not a good path to take, but he just needed to feel something again. After that it became a part of his routine, and he felt obligated in a way to hurt himself everyday.

     Control. 

     When he was in year eleven, fifteen years old, he got help.

     Charlie's older sister, Tori Spring, had noted these 'habits', and came told her parents. After a long wait of nearly 5 months, Charlie was admitted at a psychiatric ward as an impatient.

     After a 3 month stay, he came home in early December.

     This desperate desire for constant control is not what made Charlie develop his OCD, but what made him and the doctors realise there is more behind his Anorexia than the typical weight insecurity and restriction. 

     The hospital had helped him, the nurses kept his spirits up, the therapist helped him stop cutting as often, therefore breaking the unhealthy routine, and they all showed him that he has control over himself. There were obviously good days and bad days, goals for how long to be clean and then relapses. But roads are never straight, and Charlie knew this was part of the journey to his final destination, being content with his life.

     Nearly three years later with the help of friends and family, things still weren't better and he knew they were never really going to be better, but the bad days were less frequent, the pencil marks were slowly disappearing and, most importantly, Charlie was happy. Now he was just waiting for that special someone, to make everything okay, forever.

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a/n 

This isn't very long, and has literally no Nick, but it's an important chapter for Charlie's backstory. 

Hope you liked it! If you did, maybe vote 🤷🏻‍♂️. 

-Ollie