text: TW: Eating disorders, Mental illness You’re cool, everyone says you are with your skate board and your CDG Converse and that Pulp Fiction hoodie. You aren’t like every other basic person. You own your style and everyone knows it. You skate into the village, a rout taken nearly daily, keeping to the flat paths and gentle curbs, your cloudy brain is easily ignored. When you arrive you are breathless and heart working over time, but you brush it off as normal. The co-op is busy, full of afternoon shoppers but you’ve got to get them. You nearly ran out. Grabbing a sugar free monster you weave to the checkout - making it to the packs of gum. The life savers that are packs of gum. Taking four packs you go to pay, handing over the money with slightly trembling hands - ugh the black coffee. You make your way out - open the can to ingest more caffeine and wait. Your friends turn the corner and you smile. You hug. Enjoy the feeling of how thin you feel in your friend’s arms. They don’t tend to notice shedding of weight -you’ve always been thin, it’s natural. You get a head rush when you begin to walk, but you’ve perfected of the art of walking it off, making it unnoticeable to the others. ‘chips?’ one asks ‘ate at home’ you reply ‘ but you guys get them, I don’t mind’ They agree to get some chips. You chat about school and people you don’t like, people you find funny and what music is good. You don’t care. All you want is to tell them it. You need to say it. But you can’t. Never has a secret wanted to come out so bad but is held on to so tight. ‘teach me how to skate?’ One asks ‘ it looks cool’ ‘sure’ I said ‘ keeps you fit as well’ That was odd, it slipped out so easy, you need to be more careful - no talk of weight or keeping fit, people might wonder. ‘you can use my old board if you like’ you suggested ‘ I can drop it round tomorrow’ We parted. You began the skate home, you are wobbly - too wobbly. Slipping off on to your feet was no problem, just a bit of a piss take. When you are empty it happen often. You walk the rest of the way home at rapid speed - enough to get your heart rate up. At home, your mum asked if you need dinner. ‘no we got chips’ a simple reply. Mum looks worried. Your clothes are getting baggier and you face is pale, she notices how much water you drink and coffee you consume. You push her concerned looks out of you mind and begin to undress once you make it to your room. Avoid mirrors. Don’t look down. In and out as quick as you can. The rules of showering. Once you’re clean you step on to the scales. A balloon of joy fills you. You’ve lost more than usual. That extra skate did it. You update you weight tracking app and see your BMI fall, another smile creeps along your face. You enter the food you ate today into your diary. Under 500 cals - your daily goal and more happiness. These endorphins consume you for only a small amount of time. You get into bed in pain, feel your stomach yearning for something - you drink to shut it up and take a laxative for good measure to get any food out so you’ll be lighter in the morning. You haven’t relived yourself in days, you’re constantly constipated as you intestines are never used and heavily abused. Sleeping with three blankets is the only way you keep warm. You think of what you’ll have to eat tomorrow as you try and drift off. Planning how you’re able to avoid dinner by dropping that skate board round, planning on what exercise you can do when and thinking of strategies to relive hunger. You cry. This is your life. Pain, hunger, loneliness. All to control that number on the scale, to have the perfect body - when deep down you know that it will never happen. You know this cycle of pain will just make you see yourself in a worse and worse way and you’ll never be satisfied with that number. You wonder what it is like to not think of food 24/7, you wonder what it’s like to be happy, you wonder what it’s like to be full.