it only feels like being tortured

It only feels like being tortured

I ate the rest of my breakfast without moving or feeling and Emmet let me be while I did it knowing that there was something wrong inside of my head that would have made acting even half normal an impossibility. I ate quickly for me thinking that if I just did it and didn’t think I couldn’t worry about what it was doing to me or what it was doing to Pollyanna somewhere in a different room. It didn’t help that Pollyanna was yelling loud enough so the whole unit could hear her and it didn’t help that there were four empty seats at the table where the rest of the staff had had to drop there breakfast and go running as the wrist alarms burst into life signalling that they were rather urgently needed elsewhere. I had been partly responsible for that.

“Right, dishes in the dish  washer please.  I am running a relaxation group at 10 am for anyone that is interested. Other than that make yourself busy distract your self’s if needed and seek out staff to talk if you need to. Have a good day.” I hated the kitchen rush after breakfast so Emmet grabbed my plate and took it to the kitchen while I waited for him struggling not to make my own bolt for the door and away from him. It would have been so easy to make myself sick after that breakfast. My tummy already felt like a washing machine after what I had done in breakfast but I fort it. I also noticed Lauren loitering at the door with her eyes on me. Emmet had passed guard dog duty over before he had left the room.

“Good work Mi,” Emmet said to me after he slipped back into the room and came to my side. “I know that that was a real struggle for you this morning and you did very well.” I let him take my hand as he talked to me. It masked the fact the my head was screaming in equal measure to either slap him across the face and run before I could get wrestled to the ground or place both my arms around his waist and squeeze him until I could get the thoughts of Bella and an Ensure covered Pollyanna to leave my thoughts. I sucked my tummy in until it hurt, my top suddenly feeling too tight on me and it was a bit, I wasn’t really a size 8 anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time.

“Can we go and talk?” I asked Emmet going on my tip toes so I could whisper it somewhere vaguely close to his ear. 

“Sure thing, Do you want to go to your bedroom? or I can try and commandeer a room if you want me to.”

“My rooms fine,” I said as I began to walk towards it and Emmet followed, watching my feet as they took the two flights of stairs to my bedroom. Once there cuddled up on the top end of my bed wrapping a white fleas blanket with pink flowers on it around my legs to try and stave of the cold, yet another reason why the name sunshine for my bedroom was obsolete. Now it was winter it was always bloody freezing in the bedrooms even with the heating on constantly.

“So what can I help you with?” Emmet asked sitting on the opposite end of my bed from me

“Is Pollyanna OK?”

“I don’t really know honey; I have been with you since wake up so I can’t tell. I can tell you that she is being looked after though if that helps.” It should have. It would have made most people from the outside feel better. I had heard Emmet say the same thing to concerned parents as I floated past their conversations on the thread bear blues sofas in the hallway. They looked at me with cautiousness concern and fear etched onto their faces as they tried to judge whether I was likely to cause them harm.

“Not really,” I admitted. “I know what being “looked after” means Emmet. I have been “looked after” by some people in here and it can feel a lot like being tortured to death.”

“I can’t guarantee that she won’t be feeling that however I can guarantee we are not doing that. We will only be doing what is in her best interests because at the moment Pollyanna is too sick to know what is best for her.”

I smiled at Emmet thanking him for trying to make me feel better but I couldn’t help hide the grimace that came after it. Bella always said that I was too easily hypnotized by the staff, even more so when the staff in question where Emmet and Esmee but Bella never trusted anyone properly. She lived her whole life with walls and fences around her only believing one lie that she was fat and had to be thinner. She was dead, just a picture in my sketch book made from memories and she still wasn’t thin enough. That was what was sad. She died at war with herself still. And I hated it.

“Bella would be so angry at me,” I moaned eventually not managing to sugar coat even for myself how betrayed she would be feeling.

“Who’s Bella?” Emmet asked propping himself up to one side on my bed so he could look at me properly the slats groaned in there annoyance of the giants repositioning.

“I know you are a nurse and look after a lot of people but I was hoping even you wouldn’t forget the dead that quick.”

“Hay there is no need to snap at me. I am very aware of what Bella you are on about now I was just wondering if maybe Sophie had found herself a fried to play with which was worrying me slightly. Anyway why would Bella be mad at you? You meant a lot to her.”

“I told.” I said wondering how two simple worlds could make me feel cold inside. “I told on Pollyanna when she ran off. Bella never told. She found me so many times puking or cutting and she never told. To her it was the worst thing… I let her down; she would never forgive me” I stuttered.”

“Yeah you’re right she would be really angry at you and I am sure that somewhere she is yelling or sulking but she’s wrong and I would tell her that to her face if I could and you know it too somewhere inside you which is very positive. You loved her and that is brilliant what makes it brilliant was the fact that you loved her in spite of her flaws. Bella was here for a reason. She was poorly like you and everyone else here. She just spent a lot of time fighting that. If she was well and she found you or anyone else hurting themselves she would have come and told one of us so we could help, but she wasn’t well. I need to believe me that you did the right thing letting me know that Pollyanna had run away because you knew she was in danger or she was going to hurt herself and that wasn’t OK. It was a good thing and I hope that you can see that and stand up for that no matter what Bella would say because you are in the right. No matter what it feels like to her and I would make a guess at pretty bad you helped Pollyanna this morning more then what Bella did when she covered up for you.

number nineteen's snitch (mi's side)

right im out of the psyc ward again and feeling as good as i can be considering. I hope that this chapter is ok. Anything you really hate or love please let me know. vikki.

Number nineteen’s snitch

I went to breckfast. I had no more of an argument for him. Sophie couldn’t beat that even though she tried. She shouted and she screamed until it felt like the whole unit would fall down around me but I would have still moved unblinking though the corridors to get to the dining room. I would eat for him; At least for now.

The table was set up for nineteen to sit at but only two of the bowls where full of the food that was non-negotiable. I hated that it was so hard. I hated the fact that seventeen other people could sit at the table and chose there toast and exactly what they wanted on it. I hated that number eighteen was so swamped by a storm she had to eat though, and there were no words for number nineteen. Nineteen was… perfect…almost dead

.

Nineteen arrived from behind me shaking; weather it was because she still felt the extreme cold under all the layers or because she was terrified was hard to tell but I felt for her in a way; Her war was worse than mine. If I had one girl in my head having a temper tantrum she had twenty thousand babies screaming inside hers. The trouble is there was one main problem that she couldn’t see. She didn’t know it or understand it but the babies were crying in her head because they were hungry.

“Can I sit over there?” I asked Emmet, Pointing to the other side of the table that was blocked in by walls and chairs. I had no real desire to be there.  I wanted the chair that was closest to the door more than anything else in the world at that moment but nineteen needed it more than me. She really did.

Emmet agreed my request and swapped the bowls over. My portion was a lot smaller than it used to be. I could see that now as I looked into the hell that was the other bowl. I couldn’t have done it not even for Emmet or Esmee. Not to day.

I started eating my food with the squeeze of Emmet’s hand on my leg and Jean handed Pollyanna her spoon as her prompt. She looked at it like she had just been given the controls of the TARDIS and told to fly it. It would have probably been less alien to her then a spoon and a bowl of over 600 calories. It wasn’t going to happen. She wanted it to, she was starving, but it wasn’t.

Her breath began to come in shortened pants again as she delicately pushed the side of the spoon against the china and brought the measly amount of corn flakes to her mouth and started to chew. I had already got three much larger bites down into my stomach. Emmet had eaten nearly half his bowl and was looking for more.

It was agony to watch as the  repeated the action from bowl to mouth. I could see why people would be frustrated with her. For anyone who saw exactly how thin she was or who could see the size of her ankles as they bounced under the tables it was a living hell. You wanted to yell at her, scream at her that she was so small, but I had been her. I had nearly thrown up in my pasta. I chocked on my spoonful remembering and heaved once into my hand.

“Wow, all right, it’s all right. Something’s just gone down the wrong way, here Emmet said handing me a cup of water from the table which I took in both my hands and sipped at until the coughing had subsided.

I took another spoonful of my cereal and went back to my breakfast before allowing my eyes to drift back over to Pollyanna. Big fat tears trickled down over her nose and cheeks as she crunched on a tiny mouthful of cornflakes. I begged someone to end her pain. It seemed almost cruel that Jean sat beside her watching out the corner of her eyes as she at her own breakfast with ease. I knew the theory behind it. I knew that it was meant to help but theory’s had to be adjusted to the person. We needed to share in her pain and celebrate that fact that she had managed about 75 calories more of cereal in the morning that she had managed in a long time by herself, but 75 calories wouldn’t keep her alive. The whole damn bowl alone wouldn’t keep her alive. It seemed impossible that she still was yet I had heard them say the same thing about me on the first few weeks I had walked theses halls and sat at the table. They had said that I was just waiting. That they where a stop gap before the inevitable death that would follow. Well all of them apart from Esmee. She had always seen a future for me and in the end she had been the one to make it happen too. I was more grateful to her and to Emmet then they could ever know.

There was a clatter as Pollyanna pushed her plate away from her with force and the milk splashed down onto the table. She looked like she was about to scream along with the voice in her head or vomit onto the floor.

“Come on pork chop, you are doing really well just keep going,” Jean said reacting to the defiant gesture with her own defiance at the obvious defeat but Pollyanna would not be persuaded by the words of mere mortals like Jean. She had a power in her head that would not be matched.

“I cannot eat anymore.” Pollyanna’s words where strict they oozed a power that she still thought that she had when it came to what went inside her mouth. They wouldn’t have told her about the Ensure yet or eventually the tube they forced up your nose after you had been sectioned into the mental health act. I would not be the one to tell her though. I would not brake there silence or the lies. That pain would be to devastating to see.

“Your food is one of those non- negotiable that we mentioned to you Pollyanna. Emmet said his voice not soft like normal but firm and cold. Even I felt the want to shuffle away from him on the chair and eat alone somewhere dark. I didn’t like his compassionless form. “What is given to you, you must eat and there isn’t any room for discussion. Now you made a good start but I would like you to finish of the plate please. It is the same rule for everyone like you.” I felt the unnatural and unwelcome spotlight come and land on my head as I shovelled in another large spoonful of my own cornflakes and chewed. I wanted to hiss at Emmet like a cat would if it felt trapped. He shouldn’t have made an example from me; I was just as scared and confused as she was in different ways.

Pollyanna gave me a brief look of disgust as I chocked down my mouthful before crossing her arms and looking up at the ceiling closing off the rest of the argument. I smashed my spoon against the side of my plate and tried to control the tears that where welling up inside my eyes before continuing the horrific meal which was only about to get worse as i heard Harry and Elizabeth bashing about telling others that It was time to join us for their breakfast.

With the arrival of the others spilling into the dining room and choosing their seats Pollyanna changed again every one of her muscles coiling ready to make her spring.  I tried to work out what way she was going to dart. The normal assumption would be that she would chose the door but that was where the new people where coming from and what that staff where expecting. I wouldn’t have been that clever to choose the other way but Pollyanna seemed it.

Pollyanna’s reactions where so fast it seemed almost impossible and even though they were made out of fear there were timed to perfection. Jean was looking away and Emmet had turned his attention to Hev who had sat opposite him and was moaning about the rights of night owls with her hands leaving her escape unmonitored by all staff. I watched with envy at her escape wondering how I had not managed in the moths of occupying that chair at breakfast to make such a faultless escape before doing something that made me cringe and made Bella roll somewhere in her grave and grabbed Emmets leg pointing to her empty chair and allowing him to shout at Jean so she could get off of her chair and go after her before she made it all the way to a place where she could shove her fingers down her throat.

Bella would have gone crazy if she saw what I had done. She had watched me at breakfast so many times as I smeared dressings and jams into my hair or scattered handfuls onto the floor to avoid the calories. She had helped me not get caught in the toilets as I throw up blood into the procaine and shared tips on the best times to water load and not once had she showed me to the staff to put up with their back lash. I wanted to vomit but I went back to eating. The eyes of a disapproving dead girl fixed somewhere into my soul.

There's no weight in love

There’s no weight in love

I could hardly breathe as I reached the bathroom and threw myself inside and locked the door. I knew that it could be open from the outside by anyone but it felt one of the most secure places I the unit and one of the only places I could find some little relief. If there had been a cord at that moment I would have tied it around my neck without thinking. If there were blades I would have laughed at myself as I bled to death, but there was nothing to do harm with not even to a finely tuned in brain. There was a toilet though and my fingers could always find their way down my throat. He would love me if I was still as thin as her.

“I hate you!” I screamed as I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was huge. I had been telling myself that the mirrors lie but I was wrong, everyone else where the one’s lying to me. I was fat and disgusting and covered in lard. They filled my head with stories about being dead before I was thin enough but it was all lies. “I hate you so fucking much! I wish you would just fucking drop dead!” I yelled punching the mirror with both of my fists repeatedly not caring how much it hurt my bones.

I would not eat again. I would fight them and I would get there. I would get to thin, to perfect, to wanted and good. I would see bones under my skin and I would fall apart! I could be good all over again!” I sobbed harder knowing that losing the weight wouldn’t happen in the space of hours. It would take me moths to get back to five stone and even more because I would have to fight every member of staff along the way including them and that would break my heart.

Still crying I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and studied my middle and index finger. There was a big part of my brain that knew at that moment where they should go. Instinctually I knew that there was a place at the back of my throat where they would fit. It was not a comfortable fit. It was in fact a match made in hell but it was surprising how many things could be, yet still feel amazing to a head that had been hurt.

I wanted to scream aloud as I heard the lock rattle in the door before I had time to take my chance to induce the sickness. Whoever it was on the outside of the door would not have felt the same perverted pleasure from attacking a gag reflex like I had. They would try to stop me.

Emmet ducked his head slightly to get in through the door frame after he had won the fight with the release mechanism and looked over the situation. I turned my back on him my tears suddenly silent. It wasn’t what I had been expecting from my emotion when I had seen him again. I had braced myself for the crazy frenzy of impulse to smack walls until my bones felt like that where shattered. Something inside me normally confirmed, wrong as it was, that to win the love of someone was to prove to them that you would rather turn your bones to dust then live without them. Sophie was mad though because he had made me fat, so by extension when threatened with him I got mad to. I did not show emotion in front of people I hated.

“You’re on red observations. I need to be with you wherever you go.”

“I’m in the toilet. I am meant to have a woman in here.”

“That only really applies if you’re using the bathroom for one of its traditional purposes. Hiding doesn’t count”

I heard Emmet sigh as if he was stretching before I saw him appear in the corner of my eye and lower himself onto the floor opposite from where I was curled in the gap beside the toilet and the frosted window. I wondered fleetingly if I could manage to yank the toilet off the wall and lob it out the window before following it by myself A three story plunge into concrete seemed easier than a conversation with him at that moment.

“Talk,” Emmet demanded.

“The weather’s nice."

“It’s pissing it down Mi.” if you are going to bullshit me with small talk at least try and get the facts right.” 

“You didn’t specify what subject to talk on and why just because is it raining does it mean the weather is bad. I like the rain. If you want a deep and meaningful conversation I am the wrong girl. I have nothing to say.” I hated the defiance. I hated that there was a million of Sophie’s workers doing over time on the construction of the castle she was to hold me hostage in. What I hated the most was the fact I had grabbed a hammer and nail and was helping reinforce the walls of my prison. I spent my whole life searching for freedom at the same time as locking the door to my own cage. It was stupid; but I couldn’t stop it.

“If you don’t want or need to talk it is time for you to down in the dining room.” Emmet got to his feet in annoyance and walked over to me in the corner before holding a hand down to help me up off of the floor. I studied the details of it for a moment, trying to see if there was something worth actually holding onto. In the end I looked away a blank look on my face. “It’s non-negotiable,” Emmet dictated.

“I’m not going!” I grumbled

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“That’s not a reason. Why don’t you want to?”

“Because I’m scared OK and because I hate myself!  You played a game inside my head and I am the only victim! I knew what I was. I knew what I wanted! I wanted perfection! I wanted bones and blood! I never wanted to be perfect! I wanted perfection back! She left me! He ran away from me in blood and water before dying in her hands! I never even got to hold him! Why you want to live after that? Why would you think keeping me alive was anything other than cruel when I have lost everything! Then you came and she came and you gave me something to live for, someone to fight for, someone to stay for, now half of me is with the angels and the other half is here but then I find out that you only cared because I was skin and bones! You have a new toy now so go and play with her!” I tried to stay calm as I finished shouting at him. I tried to stare him down and try and prove that he hadn’t hurt me and wouldn’t get the satisfaction of my tears but it was impossible. The tears came so quickly the biggest dams couldn’t hold them back and I was rendered the week crying wreck that I had been all along.

“I know that you’re scared.” I felt Emmet reach out and touch my shaking arm and I tensed. I tried to find the bit in me that would have had the power to shrug him off. There was a bit that demanded it of me. To get lost to him again would have been a stupid and an unforgivable mistake but I felt comfort from it. I was stronger when he was treating me like he cared. Something with him made my whole body and soul rise up. It was the most amazing feeling and that was why it hurt so much to think that I wasn’t what he wanted anymore. I would have become thin again if it meant I cemented a place in his heart. It was a pathetic place to be. I was just another doll for another person but I didn’t mind if it was him playing, I couldn’t.

“I did not play a game inside you head Mi. I tried to make your head realize that the games it was playing with itself  where wrong and harmful to you. I know that you miss your sister and your son and I can tell you that that stabbing  you fell when you think of them, that pain that makes you think you might have to drop down to your knees and scream and never stop is not something that goes away. I will tell you some rubbish of time healing all pain because I don’t think it does but I do think that life will give you tools to help you deal with the hurt that remains.” Emmet sighed sadly and took my hands trying to lead me out of my hiding hole beside the toilet. I tried to remain where I was it seemed safe to have some physical barrier to him but he claimed every wall I put in his way and slayed dragons. “Also I want to point out to you that my relationship with Pollyanna and with you is a very different one,” Emmet continued as he tried to steady my trembling.

“Because she is thinner than me… because…” I was cut off before I could shout again.

“Weight is just a damn number! I am so fed up of the people I love thinking my feelings will change about them just because that number increases! That is the difference between you and Pollyanna Mi, Not a number on a scale but love. You I love.

For the love of bones

For the love of bones

It was anger that made my legs move and not the fact that I wanted to go to breakfast. Anger was anorexia’s biggest ally. It was anger that made it possible to move when every part of you was frozen at the thought of facing food again. It was anger that kept the people that wanted to help at bay. Without anger Anorexia would spend most of its time hiding under the bed.  I could not face a plate of pancakes again. Even the thought of cereal was flooding my shield but I could not tell him I was scared because it was more important that I proved him wrong.

“Do you eat when you’re not hungry?” I snapped waiting by the door frame for him to follow me down the stairs where the table would already be set up. Even on the second floor I could smell it, feel the calories leaching their way into my skin. I wanted to vomit. “Well come on,” I huffed stamping my foot as I waited “You where the one it such a hurry a minute ago.”

“Ok, I’m coming.” Emmet walked towards me and I took of up the corridor towards the flight of stairs trying to push the tears back under a stone inside my head. I hated the fact that we were fighting with each other and I hated the fact that in the end he would win. My legs where turning more and more to jelly from the fear as I got closer to the dining room.  I would break before he did and what was worse was he knew it…

“Emmet, catch! The voice of Jean suddenly sounded making Emmet Jerk around in the direction of her but the object she had been referring too had already hoped past Emmet like a Gazelle however had failed to negotiated me as an obstacle and smashed into my front knocking me to the floor before I could try and steady myself.

Disorientated and in pain from my impact with the floor it took me a few moments to try and get back to my feet but the person on top of me was like lightning. She was back standing erect in seconds her eyes darting between Emmet and Jean who advanced on her like hunting lions.

“Pollyanna, you need to go to with Jean to the dining room for breakfast. I am sure that Jean has told you that this is not negotiable. I also think that Mi would like an apology.” Emmet turned from the new girl who obviously went by the name of Pollyanna and crouched down next to me as he spoke.

“Are you hurt?” He asked. I shook my head and pulled myself back to my feet giving me the first opportunity to really look at the new girl. The image that stood in front of me was horrific. Anyone that had ever thought you could never be thin enough had not ever seen Pollyanna, after a glimpse of her they would be forced to retract that statement. She was a frame of bones hidden underneath baggy clothes. She was the face I would be sharing the early breakfasts with from now on. She was why the early breakfast’s where needed. The reason why tubes where placed up noses.

“She’s perfect Mia. She is what you gave away. She is the pureness that you could never be. She is strong and reliable. She doesn’t stuff herself all day. She got there. She is good enough. What are you compared to that self-control. Look at Emmet now; look at the way he is looking at her. He has someone else who is thinner then you that he could love now. He never loved you, you were just his project and this is his next but she won’t give in. She is so much better then you.”

I watched without words for a few seconds as both Emmet and Jean crowded around Pollyanna and turned their backs on me. I felt sorry for her in a way. I had remembered what it was like to be new and trapped between the nurses that all new tricks that you had to work out. There was a tiny part though that Sophie kindled that felt annoyance. It felt like the presence of someone showing their bones rendered me invisible. The red obs that had been “vital” a few hours ago meant nothing when there was a side show of hips and ribs to be goggling.

“I know that you are scared Pollyanna and we will be gentle with you but you must go down to breakfast and eat for us,” Emmet said gently, placing his hand on her arm. He hadn’t been gentle with me… he had threatened me…

“You’re nothing to him now Mia. Look at him, he just expects you to sit there like his good little lap dog and wait while he ignores you and there you are doing it. Just standing around so they can feed you more and take you away from what you really want… It’s not too late Mia, I can help you, I can make you perfect and strong. I am your only friend. I am the only one that really understands what you want Mia. I can make it so nothing hurts you anymore.”

I felt two fat tears roll out of my eyes as I continued to stare on at the girl that had once been me. When I was thin, when I was perfect… when I wasn’t a ghost that they fed now and again… when he loved me…”

He does love me.

“Don’t kid yourself Mia…”

He does love me…

“You’re stupid… he loves bones, Look at her.”

I think he loves me…

“LOOK AT HER!

Maybe he loves me…

“He doesn’t… I love you Mia, only I love you.”

I want him to love me…

“HE DOESN’T STOP MOPING ABOUT IT!

He hates me…

With my face flooded with tears I turned silently on the balls of my feet and runaway with Sophie back up the stairs towards the bathroom. 

Violent ends (Mi;s side)

I just want to remind everyone that this is a first draft of the story and not the finished thing. This doesn't flow as well as i would like but time i do a better edit it will. It's a bit shifty and jumpy but you will get the idea. I hope you like. As always let me know what your thinking. 

Violent ends.

“Come on, I think all this waiting around for the last minute really isn’t helping anyone. Let’s get you down to breakfast the more you think about it the worse it’s going to get.” It felt like a cop out, like he couldn’t understand that my reaction was based somewhere in deep set fear inside my head. Yesterday’s breakfast had been bad. Of course there had been more to it than that. The words Conner had said to me had driven a part of my head into oblivion but even without everything he put into me even without the fear of losing my mind as soon as I got “home” on my Christmas leave and using Emmet’s razors to open my veins I would not have managed pancakes. I could yell at anorexia and tell it that I didn’t need it when not faced with food, but it was set in me now. It was a part of my life like so many things that I didn’t want. There would always be a part of me, like there was a part of Esmee and Echo and every other person that had been infected with her vicious thoughts that would always feel Anorexia. I would know that once there was a voice in my head that told me that all food was evil and wasn’t something that i needed.  A part of me that I had called Sophie had tried to kill me, and I had to accept that for the rest of my life probably Sophie would always want me dead. The trick was to learn that she was so very wrong. You had to learn to shout back louder than her and one day you would find that she didn’t have that much of a convincing argument anymore. I was getting there. I was better than the 55lb child that walked through the door but in terms of my recovery everyone knew I was still just a tiny baby. She would still have days or weeks when I could not eat, when the bit of me that was Sophie was a hell of a lot bigger.

“I don’t want to go to breakfast,” I mumbled stubbornly trying to shot down the fear and the destructive thoughts that where winning. “I’m not hungry.”

“Food has never been an option Mi. I understand that lately the nursing staffs have become a lot more lax with your meals and calorie intake but that wasn’t an oversight with us. It has been deliberate to see whether you could carry on your recovery more independently without such strict guidance. Overall we are pleased but I think maybe subconsciously you are beginning to restrict again. No one here will allow you to take that very far before be shot it down and if that means delaying your discharge or cutting your leave that’s what will happen.”

“Oh piss off. Do I look anorexic to you! I’m just not hungry Emmet. I will eat lunch.” I turned my back on Emmet in defiance and curled back up on the foot of my bed still shaking my legs against the duvet cover. I fixed my eyes on a spot on the wall to stare on. It was a pretend anger but it was a key component in the game that I felt like I had no choice to play today. I had to ruffle Emmet up; I had to make him angry with me. Anorexia enjoyed isolation, it caved in with sympathy and understanding it was with isolation that it could turn a human soul to stone.

“Mi, breakfast and every other meal today Is not negotiable. You will be expected to eat everything that is put in front of you and anything that is missed will be made up with Ensure. If you refuse I will tube feed you.”

“The jokes on you Emmet. I had my PEG taken out a week ago. I though you would remember,” I sneered with a malicious grin. “I thought you would have remembered, I was at the hospital all day.” I could feel my heart beat funny as I said the words. Somehow fear had turned into sick scary determination. It wasn’t want I wanted to be saying. There was a part of me that wanted to get up go down the stairs and eat like I was meant to and I wanted to obey it. Silently I screamed at myself to do what he wanted. I pushed with everything I had to make my body rise from my bed and walk but I was just a voice in someone else’s head. My body was being used as a host to become dark and twisted.

“I am well aware that you have had your PEG tube taken out, and I can guarantee you I’m not joking. I will put a tube up your nose if I have too Mi. Don’t make me.” 

(mi's side) Violent delights.

Violent delights

Mi

The next morning was a bad morning and I had only been out of bed for half an hour. I knew that I should have been OK and I told myself that over and over again, but the brain remembered what had happened the day before. It remembered that fact the running and given me nothing. It remembered that Esmee had stitches, it remembered that Esmee was pregnant and it remembered that it was now only nine days until I left the unit to spend the first night at what they said would be my new home eventually. It mostly remembered though through all the more important things was that the morning before I had been presented with pancakes and yoghurt for breakfast. It remembered my BMI was now at least 18.5 which meant I weighed over 115lbs.My whole body screamed constantly at how unacceptable that was but I fort back everyone did but sometimes it was too much. That morning through it all the thought of food was driving me insane, the thought of feeling something inside of me was imposable because the there was a bit inside of me that new how close oblivion could be and there was a bit of me that still wanted that. Emmet and Esmee had tried to show me that there was a place for me in there world but they had only proven that in a psyc unit I could fit in, that I would be safe, even with the agreement that now hung on my wall I was still aware that the world was scary and that it would, could and had hurt me.

I bounced my legs fast up and down on the side of my bed at the same time as I rand my hands together. I didn’t like the fact that my fingers almost didn’t fit around my wrist any more. When I had first came I could almost get them around my thighs but then I had only weight 75lbs. I still remembered my first day here so well, the way Emmet had got to me so instantly and the way I had told him I was fat. I told myself over and over again so I believed it, but now I could admit it at least to myself if no one else. I wasn’t fat, I was dying from being so thin. The truth was I just didn’t care. I wanted to die… Now I just wasn’t sure. In some ways it was worse. At least then I was convinced that I had no life to live.

“So what’s all this about then Mi?” Emmet asked coming to sit down on the edge of the bed with me before placing his hand on one of my shaking legs. “Are we talking extreme anxiety or calorie burning or something else entirely?

It doesn’t matter anyway. How about I ask you one? How’s life with the baby and are you excited?”

“Life with a baby mostly tiring hence the massive amounts of yawning that will be going on today and if you are referring to the fact that Esmee is pregnant, then of course I couldn’t be more excited or happy, now your turn. To me it matters.”

I smiled and looked away from him staring at my legs wondering myself for a while why I was so content of bouncing them up and down or how it helped in the slightest. Calorie wise it would be helping to burn them off before breakfast but not it the quantities that I would be putting them back in, anxiety wise it didn’t serve a purpose. It didn’t even help. I just couldn’t stop.

“Is I don’t know an OK answer? How about I’m scared? Or how about once again I am on red observations and this morning Lee had to watch me when I used the toilet and changed my clothes. She looks barely older then I am and she seems to have her life on track. She’s not insane! She isn’t messed up inside and someone being pregnant, or a pile of pancakes doesn’t send her loop the loop crazy!”

“Mi I’m really sorry that you are still on the red observations. I tried really hard yesterday to get them down and so did the late shift. Esmee was trying as well through the night but she had an emergency admission that had to take priority.”

“It’s not just the red obs Emmet. It’s everything; sometimes it’s just too much inside my head. It just feels like there is a million different things going on and they all want the most of me. I need things to stop, or slow down. I don’t know I just woke up in a state.” I jiggled my legs harder against the side of my bed watching as the fat on the bones jiggled underneath the harshness of the denim on my jeans.  I had always seen it. It had undoubtedly gotten worse over the months but the belief was founded now. There was fat stuck to my bones and it wasn’t just me who could see it. With tubes and drips and manipulative words they had gotten their way, they had made me what the world deemed to be normal and I loved and hated them for it in equal measure.

“You do not need to think of anything right now apart from getting through breakfast in a safe manor. I understand that thoughts won’t just go away and some thoughts are very intrusive and hard to bare and I am not asking you to forget them, what I want you to do is try and store them so to speak. Like a computer anti-virus system. It finds something that is potently harmful and it puts it in a safe vault for you to deal with later. Once in a while it picks up something particularly nasty that takes a lot of battling with to get rid of and other times it’d just a mistake and it is something that was never really that threatening in the first place.   Do you understand what I mean?”

“Since when has life become that simple? If we were all computers Emmet it wouldn’t work lie this. There wouldn’t even be a need for this place, or your job. Besides a computer doesn’t feel like this,” I moaned pulling the sleeves up on my cardigan and scratching at the scars underneath that littered my arms. It had been a long time since I cut. Well it felt like a long time it was only weeks, maybe a moth. I tried not to remember but it was not a monstrous idea and until then it had felt OK because remarkably I hadn’t really needed to now I was starting to feel it again. It was impossible not to go crazy when the sight of your own arms could trigger you.

“OK, let’s roll those sleeves down for a start, now is not the time to be looking at them. You feel in distress and your mind doesn’t need a reminder of the way that it used to cope because naturally it will want to go back there again.

I didn’t want to let him do it as Emmet took my sleeves by force and pushed them down back over my arms but my head wasn’t happy. The feeling that it wanted had already set in at first glance at the carnage. I had never understood it. I never understood why I felt such longing to cut my own skin when most would have run a mile, or why one look at an old wound could make me long for the blood underneath. Most of all I didn’t understand why I wanted to make the longing worse by staring at the very thing that was triggering the thought, maybe it was simple as no matter how violent it was for some reason for me and other people it actually worked and we took delight in that.

(esmee) i sort of helped

Hi all. Just wanted to give everyone a reminder of the new blog that is from Emmet's point of view. The links to the right. Go have a looksee if you fancy it. If not enjoy the chapter bellow.

I sort of helped

I stayed by the door with Pollyanna for a whole hour and a half before I tried to talk to her again which pushed the time up to  four in the morning. Her mood had flipped briefly back to anger in the time I had been sat with her but it had mostly gone to deep sadness and stayed there. It had been thirty minutes since I heard her sob twenty since her breath had stopped becoming shaky and ten since I noticed the tears stop rolling down over her cheeks. She looked shattered and I wanted nothing more than to take her to her room and tuck her up in bed like I would my daughter. It looked like she could sleep for days and still be considered exhausted. I had already decided that the official induction to the unit could wait until the morning shift came on but I would have to sort out her cuts and grazes, do her vital signs, do an ECG and take some blood before I could let her rest. I would also have to try and talk to her a little bit more to see if I was happy to let the initial suggestion of amber observations apply after such a bumpy entry and several expressed wishes that she wanted to kill herself.

“Pollyanna, I know you have been very distressed but I would like you to come a bit further into the unit with me now and down into the clinic room so I can do your vitals an ECG and some blood test. I will also need to clean up your cuts and put on new dressings. After all that we are probably going to be hitting handover, the morning shift will take over from us and they can chose what they plan with you for the day.”

“I don’t want to,” She moaned pressing her hands up against the front door like will power alone may make the locks burst open. “I’m trying to escape. At some point this door will have to open… and I am very quick.” She was testing me. She liked my comfort and my soft lulling when she was distressed but she had changed her spots again and now she was feeling insolent with everyone. For a second something inside her convinced her that she loved me, now the hate was back and worse was she or at least the bit inside her that will ill was saw me as a soft touch. She had to know that the rules where there for a reason and a section was absolute. She also had to know that I was up holder of the rules and I would enforce them; even if it made me sound like Crystal.

“Pollyanna I understand that you don’t want to be here but you must understand that you are a formal detained patient here and you have to stay against your will. As the unit team leader and nurse it is my responsibility to make sure you stay and I will do that to the very best of my ability. Now as you are threatening to try and leave the unit I really must insist that you move away from the door. If you don’t I will have no choice but to remove you by force which will mean being transferred to intensive care and I can tell you that it isn’t very nice in there.” I made her cry. I had done it before and I was expecting it in this case but it still drove something though the very core of me which left me feeling slightly nauseated. I didn’t enjoy the “tough love” approach in the slightest. I had been on the end of people tough love and felt how devastating it could be but after all the time in the job I saw that at times it was needed. I had forgiven every nurse that had made me cry in that way because in health I saw that I was –through no fault of my own – being impossible. I could only hope that in fifteen years’ time the patients I was treating now would feel the same.

“Why does everyone always shout at me? I don’t mean to be bad all of the time.”

“I am not shouting at you, and you are not bad in the slightest. I believe that you are very poorly and in a great deal of distress and in need of care and treatment which I would really like to give to you if you will let me. Now let’s take this one step at a time. You come with me now and let me do the tests I need to and let me clean you up then we come back and sit by the door a bit longer if it helps you.” A war played out behind Pollyanna’s eyes as I gave her the suggestion. It was her logical self, the bit that refused to be clouded over by her mental illness that encouraged her to accept the offer. It was that bit that told her my demands where well within her capability’s but there was a monster in there too and it didn’t want my understanding or anyone else’s, it wanted to leave so it could cut and stab and slice. It was used to getting it’s own way as well. Over months or maybe years it had slowly consumed most of Pollyanna. There was just a spark left and that was the bit we had to kindle.

“I know that it is hard and that there are a million things going on inside your head that are telling you to do different things but I really want you to try and do what I am asking. I can promise you while you are here I will only ask you to do things that are in your best interests.” My words seemed to hit and for one the well side of her won over and got to her feet unsteadily. It was easy to see that even a simple movement like getting to her feet was obscenely hard for her struggling body. It was a simple act that we all learnt in are first two years of life but the brain quickly forgot when it wasn’t being fed, what was worse was on her current section I knew that I could not force and NG tube on her or make her stay on bed rest. It could be a week before a section 3 was approved and she was a time bomb, she may have only had hours. I would say for certain with her lack of coordination she had no more than a fortnight if her calories stayed at their current restrictions.

“This is hard,” Pollyanna moaned at me rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet as I attempted to lead her in the right direction.

“How about you hold my hand? Would that help?”  I offered holding it out to her.

“Yes, but it’s strange, the other patients will think I’m mental if they catch me.”

“They are all in bed right now as far as I know and even if they weren’t I can guarantee you that nobody here at the moment would think anything against you for holding my hand for some support, because most of them have done it as well. The thing is about this place Pollyanna is it may be full of teenagers but it really is nothing like high school. There is no fight for popularity of social groups. Everyone has their own separate reasons for being here and there own daemons to fight, but they all have a reason and they all have demons so everyone is in the same boat.”

“Thank you Esmee, it’s strange but you sort of helped.”

“It’s my absolute pleasure honey.”