Intertwined

Growing Up

A/N: Hey all of you gorgeous readers.

Trigger warning for Eating Disorders. 

This chapter is centred around Carly. Full disclosure in that my description of Carly's eating disorder is based on my experience with one. I just felt like I couldn't really make it up entirely. It would have felt wrong to me, so I've used traits and habits and patterns I knew and know about.

I hope you are all doing well. Please feel free to message me if you need to talk.

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Carly was starting to feel more confident in herself. Starting to feel like she was growing up. She was finished her final exam and assessment for her apprenticeship, she was now 18 and had managed to get her license, with no more accidents. Much to Mia and Carly's relief.

Tonight she was going out with all the other graduating nursery apprentices from the area.
Two worked at Reece's nursery and they were nice to Carly, but she didn't know them that well and there were five other apprentices who worked at different local nurseries, that she had only met a few times, briefly before off site exams. They were all meeting at a local bar for dinner and drinks.

Carly had been the last of them to turn 18 and she was excited to get to know some new people her own age. She loved her Nursery family. She didn't know how it would ever be possible to do life without them, but she also wondered what it would be like to have more friends her own age.

Carly had been bullied and teased quite a bit in school. It had really shattered her self-confidence, caused her to withdraw into herself. As a result she didn't have any friends her own age, outside of her cousins and maybe Eric. Although she was still a little hesitant to hang out with him.

During all the bullying that happened at school, Carly became anxious and depressed and she found it difficult to eat. Then one day she realised she could go quite a while without eating anything. She felt a strange sense of satisfaction when she realised that. She would ignore the stomach grumbles, the hunger pains, the shakes that began after a few hours, and focus on a time she would allow herself to eat again. If she made it to 10am, she would try and push it to midday. If she made it to midday, she would push it to 2pm. By that time she would allow herself an apple and some tea, or sometimes half a sandwich. She had to eat slowly though, because if she ate too fast she would get cramps.

If there were too many other people around she wouldn't eat much. It made her nervous. Carly knew they might ask questions about her eating, might suggest she should eat more and part of her wanted to, but she couldn't. The feeling of being in complete control of this one thing, of when she allowed herself to eat and portioning her food into small increments was addictive. It helped her to breathe normally, keep the panic on hold. It was the only thing she knew she could do that helped her feel even a little bit better. The longer she went without eating, the better she felt about herself.

An eating disorder might not make sense to people who haven't had one and that's ok. Disordered eating isn't logical. Just remember to be kind to those going through it and that not everyone who has disordered eating has it in the same way for the same reasons. For Carly it stemmed from her feeling unworthy, unlikable, a punishment and a reward, and to satisfy the need to feel in control and 'good' at something. She wasn't even conscious that those were her reasons. It was a physical and mental reaction to her emotional turmoil. Being a teenager is hard enough, add bullying and a sense of feeling disconnected from your peers, and well, that makes it even harder. At least it did for Carly.

If she ate too much, Carly would reprimand herself. No, actually it wasn't that gentle. She would berate herself. All her doubts and the things she hated most about who she was would bubble up as revolving verbal abuse in her head.