wlw imagines!!

~58~🤍

this whole thing heavily mentions having an eating disorder so please please please do not read this if it will trigger you. that is the last thing i want.

Today was the day I finally got to see her again. I'd missed her so much. And everything felt so much heavier without her. When I was with her, I wasn't alone, I wasn't carrying the weight of my struggles on my own, she was there to help. While she was on holiday, she was still there to help me, but it was different. She wasn't here. not here with me.

So that meant, while she had been on holiday, I'd found everything that tiny bit more difficult, where everything felt like a chore. And I hadn't told her. I so badly wanted to. So badly wanted to beg for her help. For her to come home. But that wasn't fair. She was enjoying being there. I couldn't take that away from her. Yes, maybe I should have told her that I was struggling again, but I didn't want her to worry. I wanted her to enjoy it without constantly worrying about how I was doing.

Whenever she called, I told her I was doing good. That everything was okay. She didn't need to know. Not yet.. Right?

Wrong.

We'd been messaging all day, and obviously I called her before she got on the plane. When she messaged me to say her plane had landed, and that she was on her way home, I knew I needed to get up. In the weeks that had gone by without her here, I had barely left our bed. I couldn't. Everything felt wrong without her. I basically only got out of bed to shower and brush my teeth, and I didn't even want to do that.

When I stood up, I looked at myself in the mirror near the bed. I looked a mess. I was wearing a cropped shirt, and pyjama bottoms. I could see how much weight I'd lost. It was noticeable. I didn't even mean for it to happen. I just seemed to lose my appetite. And when I was hungry, I physically could not get up. It was too much effort. I did try eating every so often, but never very much. It felt so difficult. Heavy. Too much.

I didn't mean to fall back into my bad eating habits. I'd been doing so well. But it was bound to happen at some point, like people say 'relapse is a part of recovery'. But I thought I was fine now. I thought I was better.

When my girlfriend called, she checked on me. Making sure I was eating. Making sure I was taking care of myself. And maybe she would've noticed if I hadn't got so good at hiding it over the previous years when I'd been struggling. I learnt every lie to tell to make people believe me, to make everything seem fine. So of course she didn't notice. She couldn't have known. I didn't want her to know.

I stared at my worn out reflection. Just one look at me and anybody could tell I was exhausted, despite staying in bed all the time. No amount of sleep could rid my body of this tiredness. This wasn't the kind of exhaustion that sleep could fix. It felt like nothing could fix this. I was trapped. Again. I was never going to escape. Trapped inside my own mind. Forever.

I turned to the side, slightly moving my shirt up. Turned back to the front again. Ran my hands over my stomach. Recovery felt good. But not as good as this. This felt like the only thing I had control of. And I was too deep inside it now. Too far in to stop. I didn't want to be doing this, it just sort of happened. I wanted it to be a one or two day thing, but two days turned into three. Three days soon turned into a week. And it just spiralled from there.

'Tomorrow I'll stop.'

That's what I told myself. But when 'tomorrow' came, I couldn't. Stopping felt wrong.

When I finally snapped out of my thoughts, I rushed towards the wardrobe, yanking my shirt off to throw a hoodie on instead. She could not see me like this. It would hurt her so much. And I couldn't have that. I knew that when she was back, things would be easier. Maybe not back to normal, but things wouldn't feel so heavy anymore. I wouldn't be on my own, trapped only with my own thoughts.