Trauma-ridden and adopted by matpat

Purging

I scarfed down the whole sandwich in about a minute, my brain had finally given up on restricting my food and afterwards I grabbed an apple. And then five Oreos. That first bite of food caused a revolution and I became an out-of-control, ravenous beast. After I was finally able to stop myself, I ran to the bathroom. I didn't even bother closing the door, I left it wide open. I knelt down over the toilet and jammed my finger as far down my throat as I could. No matter how deep I stuck my finger, my stomach refused to give up the food that I had blessed it with. Angry tears started to roll down my face. How could I let myself do that? How could I let myself take a step back. After all of the work I had put myself through to shrink my body? I kept sticking my finger into my throat. The calories kept leaking into me, making me feel gross. If only it disgusted me enough to make me throw up. I had gotten to the point of gagging and then Mat walked by the open door.

He came in as I was still trying to induce it by touching the back of my throat. "Y/N? What are you doing? Are you trying to make yourself throw up?" There was no point in trying to lie anymore, he had seen it with his own eyes. "Yeah..." "Why?" My eyes began to burn from the tears filling them. He wouldn't understand. Nobody else seems to be able to see it. "Because I am fat and disgusting!" He knelt down next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "No you aren't! Who put that into your head?" "I don't know.." "Y/N, I know you have heard me say this a million times and it is easier said than done, but you really need to stop being so hard on yourself." "I'm not being hard on myself, I know how fat and disgusting I am and that needs to change." "Please, PLEASE be honest with me. How long have you been doing this?"

I looked at the ground. "Y/N Patrick, answer me right now." His voice got more forceful, but not exactly threatening. "I've been trying to limit food to about 750 calories a day and have been going on runs and exercising for about a week..." "Y/N! You've been starving yourself for a week! How long were you planning to keep this going for!?" "Until I was skinny..?" He looked at me for a second and sighed. "I hate when you do this. I hate when you hurt yourself. I hate it when you try to lock me out of your life. I hate it when you think you aren't good enough. The wall surrounding my mind started to crumble under his words. "I hate it too, but I can't stop." My voice cracked and I hugged him. "You don't want it to stop." "I do! I really do!" I choked on my tears. "There are just all of these voices in my head telling me that I can't!" "Don't listen to them." "It's not that easy." "I can't even imagine the kind of things that you have been going through every day since before I even met you, but please just try. I beg of you, please try to ignore the voices. I know they are telling you all the things to hate about yourself; and you listen to them! I just wish you could love yourself as much as Steph and I love you." "I want to! What I would do to just look into the mirror and not despise what I see! I miss when mirrors were just for brushing my teeth, I miss when knives were just for preparing food. I miss when the scars on my body were just from playing outside." "Do you want me to make another appointment with Ms. Kurnick?" "No. She didn't help. She never helped." "Then, what do you want?" "I want to go back to the hospital."

"Are you sure? It will be around five hours until the procedure is over." "My friends need me, they have been in the waiting room for half an hour wondering what happened to me. Nora and Marco need me. Birdseed needs me. I need to go back." "Okay, let's go. But first, I want you to take a few snacks. And you are going to eat them." "Okay." "Keep the wrappers in your pockets or backpack. I need to be able to trust that you ate them." "Fine." I grabbed a few granola bars and a bag of pretzels and went into the car.

-time skip to fifteen minutes later, at the hospital-

I entered the doors to the waiting room and all of my friends were standing around the door. "Y/N! Where have you been? We heard Mark call your Dad about you having a panic attack or something." Zach told me. "Oh yeah, I kinda had a panic attack and my Dad took me home." "Damn. By the way, Marco is out of surgery if you want to go visit him. Nora is talking to him right now." Hailey added. "That was quick." I said, confused. "Marco only had one bullet that needed to be removed, so it didn't take that long." We all walked down the hallway together and went into his room. Nora was sitting on the stool right next to him. There were already like five "get well soon" balloons and dozens of flowers surrounding the room, bringing cheerfulness and warmth to the previously sad, barren room. "Hey Marco, how are you doing?" I asked him. "Honestly, not bad! The surgery went fine and I'm on pace to be discharged in a few days." "That's awesome!" Hailey encouraged. "How's your partner?" Nora asked me. "Still in surgery, they had three bullets to get removed. The doctors said that if they make it, it would probably take around six hours." "Oh that sucks, I hope they will be okay." Nora said. "Me too." "I am so hungry, but all of the nurses are really preoccupied with the other victims from the shooting so I don't want to bother them." Marco complained. I grinned, I had an idea. "Oh, I brought a few snacks with me! Do you want a granola bar or some pretzels?" I offered. They took one of the granola bars. "Thank you so much!" "You can just give the wrapper back, I can throw it out."