~Lams~ Love At First Glance || College AU *COMPLETED* *DO NOT READ*

Chapter 33: Honesty

Warning: EVERYTHING THAT COMES WITH ABUSE AND EATING DISORDERS *cough* longest chapter *cough* also umm skip this chapter if you don't wanna READ WHAT TOOK ME 3 HOURS TO WRITE

                                                           ~John's POV~

I take the microphone with the piece of paper over my eyes, attempting to hide my face.

'How am I gonna start this?'

"I don't know how to start this, but I didn't know this person very well. I didn't know that they were suicidal, but maybe using my story can help everyone understand to get help when you need it, and how you should help anyone with problems like her."

I took a deep breath.

'Great, I forgot everyone on campus is in this room.'

"First things first, I haven't told this story to anyone. The thing is, I don't tell people my problems because I feel like I can handle them on my own and I don't wanna drive people into my messes. I don't want to hurt anyone and if you knowing I'm hurt, hurts you, I don't wanna tell you when I'm hurt if that makes any sense at all. I really should've told someone when I was in my bad mental state, but I made the mistake of not telling anyone. Alright, here we go. It's not a secret I don't think very highly of myself, I joke about it a lot, I'm pretty open about it, but when I was younger I had a lot of confidence. People gave me compliments and said nice things and I believed them and was proud of myself. As I grew older, I realized, "oh heck, I'm a homosexual." and when my father found out, I was abused daily, and I began having doubts. I started thinking that people were lying to me or they said things and didn't really mean it. Words can't affect you if you don't let them, people say that all the time, but it's easy to forget that it goes the same way with positive words as negative. That lead me to telling myself that I wasn't good enough and I had to do better. My standards started getting higher and higher without me realizing how bad it was getting. By the end of my junior year of high school, I felt like I wasn't good enough for anything. Even though people would be telling me, "Wow, you're doing so great, you're so talented." I would say thank you, not to be rude, but it was in one ear, out the other. I didn't hear it. I went into senior year with the same mindset. Not feeling like I was good enough for anything, standards for myself always getting higher, and that's the problem. I push myself so hard to get better at everything and I do improve, but it's still not enough for me. The bar keeps getting higher before I can grab it. Like climbing a staircase where the top keeps getting further away and the ball and chain attached to your ankle is getting heavier and heavier, but you keep trying. Eventually, this branched out to more than what I was doing, it started seeping into my self-image which wasn't high in the first place either. It wasn't only telling me what I was doing wasn't enough, it started telling me I wasn't enough and that's when I starting wanting to fix it. I started eating less, trying to be happier with myself. I'm naturally very thin and I've never had problems with weight before, but it was like a switch in my brain that all of a sudden, that wasn't good enough either. It became all I could think about. My whole day revolved around what I ate, what it was, when I ate, how many calories, every detail. I wanted complete control. I remember a specific day that all I let myself have was half an apple, and 10 cheerios, and I felt happy about it. "Look at how in control I am" but I wasn't. I was in this downward spiral I built up fears and rules and my head got foggier and foggier every day. Lack of nourishment prevented me from being able to think clearly and I was making irrational decisions, like beginning to cut myself. I was telling myself this is what I had to do to be happy. Of course, it was extremely painful cutting and starving myself. Eventually, I decided I would go the entire day eating as close to nothing as possible, then eating a bunch at the end to stop the pain, followed by erasing it. This whole awful cycle went on for several months. I don't even remember anything else I was doing in my life. It all became a blur. The only thing I remember looking back now was being so tired, and cold, and sad all the time. I wasn't able to see I was getting thinner and thinner. Nothing was good enough. My brain didn't let me see how horrible it was getting. I don't know what happened but eventually, I was able to break through and tell myself this isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to live like this anymore, and I had to get better. Now here's the thing people don't realize. Eating disorders are the easy part. The rough part is breaking them. You create these fears and rules for so long that when you want to escape the jail cell you've built around yourself, they beckon you to stay, and try to drag you back in promising happiness and how they're only here to protect you. They let you feel like you're the one in control when you're not. You're the puppet on strings and when you try to cut yourself free, not only do you face your fears head on, but you live them. Here's some information of what happens to your body when it's starving, after an extended amount of time. When it realizes, it's not getting enough food to create energy for itself, it starts slowing down your metabolism which is the process of converting calories into energy. It slows down to conserve the energy it has left for important things like keeping your heart pumping and your organs working. But the tricky part is, when you start re-feeding it, things don't go back to normal right away. Your body doesn't trust you'll keep feeding it again and it starts storing extra energy for the next starvation. If you don't understand what that means, basically it stores extra weight as energy, predicting it won't have food again for a long time. Your metabolism is still slow, and you face the nightmare that drove you to the disorder in the first place. It's not just in your head anymore. Before I go any further, I would like to say that people can be happy at any weight. I'm not saying these things in order to make anyone feel ashamed, because weight shouldn't matter in general. It's about how you think of yourself and as long as your relatively healthy and take care of yourself, unlike me, I believe that's the most important thing, but this wasn't just as simple as getting thinner. There's so much more too it. I wish I could express to you how toxic your mind becomes when dealing with something like this. It's not how your brain would normally function when it's clear. You know what you're doing to yourself wrong but you just can't shake it. It has a death grip on you. So I was attempting recovery, all on my own may I remind you. I didn't tell anyone what I was going through and it was indescribably difficult. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I had to be the doctor and the patient. I kept saying, "This is what will make you better, you're on the right path." but there was another voice in my head that kept repeating,"You're a disgrace. Look what eating has done to you. This isn't what you want. Come back to me. I'm here for you." and I didn't want to listen to it. I kept telling myself that everything was fine and I was doing the right thing and I had to give it time, over and over. I wanted to believe it so badly, but the voice wouldn't leave. It's always there. I didn't want anyone to see me. I felt like I was a disappointment to everyone and didn't deserve to be in front of people. I could feel their judgement in my head. I didn't deserve food, I was unacceptable, I never wanted to leave my room, but there was one thing. College. I had already planned to go before things got so bad. I wanted to get away from the abuse but I was also in such a terrible state. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I was panicking, I wasn't ready but it was approaching so quickly and there wasn't anytime to go back. I told myself this was my punishment and I did this to myself, so I put on a mask, and pretended to be fine. I was trying to act like myself so much that I wasn't even me anymore. I became a stranger to who I actually am. Even though I was horribly uncomfortable, my weight was higher than my average, my cheeks were swollen, my mind was telling me I was a let down to everyone, my self-image and esteem was at an all time low. I tried my hardest to push through it. Every person I met the voice inside me said, "You're such a disappointment, you're not good enough for them." but I didn't let the mask slip off, and I kept trucking through. It was the lowest I have ever felt in my life, and I felt like I was a lie to everyone. After the first week was over, I was so mentally torn to shreds. I wasn't okay. I felt like all the progress I had made to get better had just been ripped down. The voice was louder than ever, drowning out the other one that was telling me everything would be okay. One day I was checking my emails, and I realized that I had gotten an invitation to a the masquerade ball my family hosts every year. Like an absolute idiot, I accepted. Skip ahead a few weeks later, I was abused by my father in the middle of the ball, and people hit record on their phones, and I just wish they didn't. Suddenly, it was all over the news. They didn't blur out my face either. I though I had been through the worst, but this destroyed me. I was mortified, and I felt like I couldn't do anything, but just watch as a few minutes of video footage blew up all over the news. I felt like I had disappointed everyone who had see my face. A nightmare when so many people heard about an abuse and they want see what happened, and when they see it, you're at the darkest point of your life. It wasn't because of the injuries, it wasn't because I wasn't where I wanted to be appearance wise, it's that nobody knew the state I was in. I fell so much deeper into darkness. I felt like I was drowning in my own emotions. Every time I would try to get back to the surface to breathe, another wave would come crashing down on me pulling me right back under again. I started having even darker thoughts, and I knew I should've been scared of them, but I wasn't and that's what scared me. The voice was echoing in my head, almost completely muting out my thoughts. Everyday I just wanted to feel happy again, I wanted to wake up and everything's just normal. Not one day passed without me hating myself. I felt broken like no one could fix me, black fog surrounded me everywhere I went, and I couldn't breathe. I was stretched thin. I was trying so hard to swim but the waves kept coming, each one stronger than the last...., but I kept going. I don't know why, and there wasn't a reason, and I couldn't really find one, but I just did. Though I didn't have a reason for myself to give up pushing through every thing, I wanted to be there for people like me who felt like they were drowning and couldn't go to any one. I want to exist for other people. I don't really care about myself. That may or may not be a good thing to say, I don't really know at the moment. But there's one thing I told myself that helped me. I consider myself a weak person. I can get knocked down easily and I knock myself down a lot too. We always talk about how strong a person is, but I feel like it shouldn't matter how strong or weak you are, as long you get back up again. Something could knock down a weak person, and not even affect a strong person, but as long as you keep getting back up, that's all that matters. One more thing, if you need help, reach out to me, reach out to anyone. We're here, and we'll listen. I would happily help anyone who's facing the same problems I once did. If you've listened to me for this long, thank you. I really appreciate you listened to a random person sharing their story, and wanting to help other people."

I tore the piece of paper in half, revealing my face.

A large round of applause came from the auditorium as I walked off the stage.

an// HEY THANKS IF YOU READ THAT

THAT TOOK 3 HOURS TO WRITE SO THANKS