SMALL DISCLAIMER! This topic may be too sensitive for some viewers. It involves my personal struggles with an eating disorder, and if that is triggering to you, please do NOT read. I cannot stress this enough! Please DO NOT read if you are sensitive to this topic!685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhN9mHtznIU
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And there she was.685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡekHvTPldWv
Disheveled hair clinging to a sweating face. Chest heaving in uneven gasps, gagging between breaths of fear and torture. How would anyone tell she could be suffering like that? How I was suffering like that. Not quite skinny enough to notice the agonizing thoughts of self-hatred that permeated through what she preached as a love for working out. Binging on cereal passed her four broccoli limit for the evening, so she tied herself down to the floor of the bathroom until the contents of her stomach were nothing but painful cramps and bile.685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkbWV7NX27V
She sobbed into her forearm, asking herself why she just wasn’t dedicated enough to stick to a restrictive diet? Why couldn’t she be skinny and beautiful and strong? Why were all the girls on the fitspo hashtag so much more than the girl she had made herself out to be on the floor of the bathroom?685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnsy6QmlpGT
I knelt beside her, touching lightly on her back. She never lifts her head up, but how could she notice a hand that did not exist?685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9qAwLkAEF2
“I hate myself.” I could hear her whisper under the breaths of her cries.685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc9aOyEAXhr
“I’m a hypocrite, I know.” I laugh quietly, “But we’ll be okay. You’ll read things that I’ll say now, and scoff at them, but it gets better. It won’t ever be gone, it won’t ever be 'just okay', but you’ll learn to be okay enough. To not be afraid of eating the foods you fear, and yes, you’ll catch yourself hesitating, but you’ll do it anyway. You’ll cook with oil, you’ll fry your chicken in a pan to make it cook faster, and maybe one day when you are where I am today, I’ll come back and tell you that there is a time when you have no qualms eating what you want. And you love yourself, and you workout because it helps with stress, and not because it’ll make you skinnier, but because it makes you happy. What I can promise you today is that the me that I’m living now is better than the you that you were living yesterday.”685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3HKzZ4BthV
For a moment she lifts her head, and stares at me as if I am there existing with her in that moment. She swallows hard and gets up. She pauses at the door of the bathroom, turning the door knob. Our mother calls out to her, and she clears her throat.685Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnUBuv6P4yV
“Yeah, I’m going to go workout.”
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