The real monster is in your mind

Chapter 3 - the war begins

The next morning when Lily looks at her mum she can the concern and the fear written all over her face, she tried really hard to get Lily to eat her breakfast. It was a battlefield, the bowl of food the battleground. Lily could feel the war raging within her, the voice screaming at her to resist, to throw the spoon down and refuse. But she took a deep breath, focused on the concern etched in her mother's face, and forced herself to take that first bite. It tasted like defeat, each spoonful a surrender. She wasn't doing it for herself, she was doing it to prevent the fallout, to keep the peace. But she knew this was just the first battle in what would be a long, long war. She knew she would ruin Christmas for her whole family if she was in hospital though.

"you know you shouldn't care what they think you should just not eat, why are you letting other peoples feelings influence what you eat? You have worked so hard to get to this weight and to look like this now your just going to throw it all away like that? Like it was all for nothing. What are you doing your making the wrong choice you shouldn't be doing this Lily. You are meant to be in hospital for Christmas, you want to be in hospital remember. You can just live of meal replacement shakes for the rest of your life, how about that that sounds good right? Now go pack a bag because you are going to the hospital."

Lunchtime was an even harder fight, all lily wanted to do was run to her room and get away from the food, she was shaking and she felt sick but she knew she couldn't refuse again, otherwise she would cause another fallout and more fights, more than the ones that where already happening in her head. Every gram of food had to be weighed out because if Lily suddenly ate "too much" now she could get refeeding syndrome. Where your body goes into shock because it hasnt had food for son long and cant cope with it. Lily didn't even know this was a thing but it is apparently. This helps her eating disorder though because it means she has to count calories to the exxact number because she cant have more than 100 calories extra each day.

Her and her mum where writing down everything lily was eating in a notbeook, lily could do almost any calculation in seconds now from the amount of time wasted adding up calories.

Sooner than later Tuesday rolled around, Lily was eating a bit more by then but she was terrified and it was hurting more than ever. She wasn't doing it for herself, she was doing it for her family and the people who cared about her because she could see how much it was breaking them to see her like this. So she decided she would eat the tiniest little bit more. She had a milkshake for lunch, it was terrifying but that was more lunch than she had had in months. The voice screamed at her so so loudly that day

"what are you doing, you shouldn't be getting better. You don't deserve to and everyone wil think your fat and greedy if you have that milkshake, your supposed to only eat every 24 hours what are you doing you fat bitch your going to gain so much weight then everyone will hate you even more and you will be miserable forever."

everyone keeps telling me im dying

"good, thats what I want to happen"

I don't know if I want to die

"you wont die, they are just being dramatic and trying to scare you its not that bad"

my heart keeps skipping beats

"your not in hospital"

because I havent told anyone and hospital sounds scary

"don't tell anyone, you need to get more sick then you can go to hospital. Hospital isnt scary, hospital is where you should end up"

When lily stood on the scales that night she had lost another 2lbs. She thought she would've instantly gained loads of weight as soon as she ate even the tiniest bit more but she wasn't, she was still losing weight. Quickly.