The Self-Harmed

~What's it like~

"I think you get one point for presentation." He said, bending down.

He moved the boxes around and waved me forward.

"Here's your beefy one."

I bent down beside him holding onto his leg. My balance was still really bad.

He looked at me, "What's it like?"

"What?"

"To have an eating disorder."

I sat down, and we lay back on our elbows looking at the tree.

"Well it starts off easy. You have to hate yourself. The way you look, talk, feel. Everything. From there on it just goes downhill. You get cold a lot faster, your hands get really ugly and boney, your vision starts to blur, and you get dizzy.

You're balance sucks and your nails turn purple blue because you have a lack of nutrients. You start to crave people telling you look good because you've lost weight. When people start to talk about how you look, it makes you feel so small, so you want to be that small, and you just don't stop. I'll stop when I'm skinny, you can promise, but you never get skinny enough. When you reach your goal you start to have another one."

"How much do you weigh?"

"One-fifteen."

"How much did you weight?" He asked voice low.

"One-eighty." I said just as low.

"How did it get so bad so fast?"

"I don't know." I looked at the star. "It takes over your whole life, and the more you lose the better. When you get dizzy it starts to be a thrill for you. You love it, you want to feel it more. You want to look like all the other girls. The ones who are super skinny, and have bones sticking out."

"You're bones do stick out though."

"Not as much as I want them to Caden."

"You still want to starve?"

"It will never go away. The thoughts will always be in the back of your mind, no matter how better you get. It takes a second to be anorexic and a life time to try to fix it."

"Do you think it needs to be fixed?"

"It will never be fixed. I promise you that, Brother."

"Will you be okay?"

"One can only hope." I smiled up at the star.

"I wish I had something to tell you." He said. "You know how it is to cut."

"Tell me about you wanting to die." I looked at him, but he was looking at the star. "I've only done it once because I was in the crazy school."

He didn't look at me.

"It creeps up on you. Mostly when you're alone, but sometimes not even then. It's like a black hole that you have to constantly fight to not get sucked into. You're alone. No one understands that you want to die. They don't get it. You don't even get it. You just feel like you should be dead."

I looked at the star.

"Does it get better?"

"One can only hope." He smiled over at me.

"We should head to bed." He stood up and held out his hands. "Come on."

"Easy. I'm fragile." I held up my hands. "I get head rushes."

He pulled me up carefully.

"You good?"

"Yup."

We snuck past Maria and up the stairs. We hugged on the landing and then headed to bed. I pulled on a big T-shirt, some black Pj bottoms and climbed into bed.