anxiety.

eight.

"i've been worried all my life, a nervous wreck most of the time. i've always been afraid of heights, of falling backwards..."

scarlett.

i woke up to the buzz of my phone vibrating against my side table. i groaned, turning over to check the notification. i hoped for it to be mason but it was only a notification from twitter. i rolled out of bed and groggily walked to my bathroom where i proceeded to take a shower. i stood and stared at my reflection in the mirror once again. i turned to the side and then to back and then to other side, not leaving any inch of my body unlooked at by my eyes. i questioned if i'd ever be happy with my body.

it started in seventh grade. i used to get picked on for being overweight by a group of girls from my school. they weren't wrong, i was overweight and that was a fact... but it wasn't by much. it was only by 10 pounds or so. except, i never cared too much about my body image until i learned i was supposed to. it wasn't just them though, i was facing pressure from my family to lose weight as well.

i never meant to take it as far as i did. i tried to lose weight healthily but it seemed like it wasn't working fast enough. that's when i started starving myself. it wasn't that bad at first, i was only skipping breakfast; which turned into skipping breakfast and having a light lunch and a regular dinner so my parents wouldn't be suspicious. eventually it turned into no breakfast and no lunch and avoiding dinner as much as possible. within 6 months i had lost 40 pounds and was unhealthily underweight.

it was extremely hard to stop. i became obsessed with the weight on the scale and the thinness of my body. other people started commenting on how great i looked. how could i hate what i was doing to myself when it made other people love me? i didn't end up recovering until the beginning of ninth grade. i never got help due to the lack of knowledge of my eating disorder from the people around me. one day i just looked in the mirror and i was happy with my body. i finally thought i was the girl i wanted to be. i cried out of happiness that day.

it's hard to say that i've overcome it. i guess i have in the sense that i don't starve myself anymore but i do still have the excessive tendency to stare at my body and sometimes i think about not eating all over again. i know this time that there's nothing wrong with my weight but sometimes it doesn't stop me from skipping a meal or two.

there's more baggage to me than people think. no one, well now mason, knows about my about my anxiety and still no one knows about my anorexia. i sighed finally releasing myself from the mirror and deep memories and walked back into my room to get dressed. i started at my closet for at least 10 minutes. i had no idea what to put on, mason wouldn't tell me where we were going.

what am i supposed to
wear??

mason 👼🏼
just dress casual :)

i guess that answers what to wear, but it provided me with no insight to what we were doing. ugh, i hate having such a a curious mind. i started to get anxious thinking about tonight. what if i did something dumb and embarrassed myself in front of mason? that was the best non-specific scenario i could think off. i tried to shake the thoughts out of my mind, so i finished up a little bit of homework. i relaxed more knowing my agenda was clear and i had nothing to do all of sunday. i glanced at the clock and my eyes bulged out of my head. it was a quarter after six, mason would be here at seven, and i still had to do my makeup.

i quickly rushed to complete a full face of makeup and had five minutes to spare before mason would arrive. i packed the backpack i used as a purse and sat downstairs waiting for the text from mason. i endlessly scrolled through social media until i heard the doorbell ring. he rang instead of texted, interesting. i shouted a quick 'i got it!' to my parents before opening the door. there stood mason with his signature smile, dressed in a pair of black joggers and an adidas hoodie. god, he looked cute as ever.