Lend me your dream

Chapter 7 - Suzon

Uncle Gus's visit to Valentin was such good news for the end of the summer holiday. We were going to start our fifth year in secondary school. For this step, we would go to a new school. We would live new adventures, meet new people and help them, as required. We were so excited! It was the start of a new chapter that we had to cleverly complete.

Valentin and I were in the same class. We had been inseparable and closer than ever since the crazy adventures that we had lived together in the summer. We had found new friends. Our little cool and diverse group was composed of Martial, the comic relief, Dolorès, a real doll up girl, who beyond appearances, was so fun. And there was Suzon, a big girl eating all day long. She was a deeply kind person, but she was a bit aloof. She was more of a follower and was often the spectator of our jokes and antics, but it seemed to be a choice to hang back because she didn't look really shy. We would focus on her with Valentin for our next mission.

At first, we thought that it was gluttony. But it was more complex. Suzon was a vulnerable and insecure teenager. In fact, we understood that she suffered from bulimia. She was clever, she had a natural charm and was a pretty girl, but she seemed to hide it. She didn't want to make herself look better and open up to others, probably to protect herself... From what? Why did she repress the beautiful person she truly was? Why did she become a "food addict"? She ate continually and her lunches were always awfully big. It made us uncomfortable in the group to see that she harmed herself by inflicting excesses to her body. But how to broach the subject without hurting her? Our few attempts had led to a profound malaise because her sense of guilt towards herself was palpable. Rather than talking with her, which was too difficult, her dreams could be a way to know the reason for her worrying attitude to food.

For Uncle Gus, we had dealt with a dream which clearly stood out. But it wasn't the case for Suzon. She had diverse and varied dreams. It would be more difficult to understand her torments. Surprisingly, food wasn't much shown, it was more of a detail. One specific dream would help me to understand Suzon. It was her first dream that I saw, where she was clearly viewable. It was short, but hard-hitting. Suzon stood in front of her mirror for a few moments. Judging by her posture, she didn't seem to assume what she saw, and in the reflection, she looked desperate. Then, the mirror cracked from its center, drawing a spider web, before breaking into a multitude of fragments. And the dream finished like that... We understood that her physical appearance made her suffer, but why did she trap herself in this body that she abhorred? Dreams followed each other and this malaise concerning her appearance was more and more obvious. She dreamt that she was slim. Another time, she dreamt that she walked through a corridor of distorting mirrors which slimmed her. During another dream, she went shopping and tried a beautiful flower dress on, which immediately ripped, and then, the saleswoman brought her the same one in size XXXL. I saw her dancing, but the other party people were briefly kicked out from the dance floor with every step she took. Another time, she dove into a pool, and the gigantic splash morphed into a fist that she got in her face... She rarely dreamt about herself, but when it happened, her mind was very harsh. She wasn't the depicted monster.

However, I realised an astonishing fact: the eyes of others didn't seem to be a problem. That was solely a battle with herself. At least, that was what I thought till then...

As usual, Valentin helped me to make an assessment. Although I first ruled out the possibility of the influence of other people because they weren't present in Suzon's dreams, Valentin wanted to follow up on it. For him, her personal malaise because of her overweight couldn't be unrelated to the way others saw her... In reality, she was a distant girl, absolutely not tactile. She kissed us to say hello in the morning, to be polite, but her heart wasn't at it. Never a hug or any spontaneous touch as a sign of affection. Perhaps her knee wasn't the only reason why she was out of gym class at school... She avoided physical contact with other people. Valentin wondered if food and overweight were, unconsciously or not, a way to repel others.