My Deepest Darkest Secret

I am built like an athlete. I'm 5'5" and 160 lbs, heavier than almost all of my friends, but not really fat. I have always played both soccer and softball, as far back as I can remember, until the end of last summer.

I was at practice, and I got kicked in the head by my own teammate, a complete accident. For six months I was out of sports, for the first time in my life, as well as having terrible headaches, and having trouble seeing straight. Emotionally, I was also a mess, partly from the chemicals in my brain in a different balance, partly from missing my previous life, because that's what it seemed like it was. I had always been happy, from the endorphins from the exercise as well as being able to take out my typical teenage frustration through forcing my body onward.

All of that was gone.

Within three weeks, I was a mess. I got into some things that I never would have gotten into if I had been playing on those teams. Not drugs, not alcohol. No, it had been hammered into my apparently not thick enough skull that to do those things was worse than death itself.

I always ate a cereal bar on my way to class. This morning in early September was no different. I was about halfway done with it when one of my friends asked if he could have the rest. I shook my head and smiled.

"Aw, come on! You're too fat to be eating that anyways."

It was a joke, and I knew it. He laughed. I choked out something as close to a chuckle as I could manage. As soon as he was out of sight, I jogged the rest of the way to my locker, jiggling my head in the process, a huge mistake.

By the time I got to the thankfully secluded area, I was out of breath, my head hurt, and I couldn't walk straight. I threw the bar in the trash can, and cried. At lunch, I ate nothing but a tangerine. For dinner, I ate only enough so as to avert suspicion.

For the next few weeks, my life went on like this; trying to find ways to avoid eating anything. After dinner one night, I discovered that I could force the contents of my stomach out. Now I didn't have to worry about dinner as much.

During the same week I discovered another sick pleasure: an old razor blade. I pushed it against my hip, somewhere my parents would never see. They never knew.

These were things I hadn't even known about a few months before.

I had been reading too many fanfics for my own good, you know, the kind where the heroine is saved from her self-inflicted pain by a worthy hero. I had somehow grown to associate self-harm with love.

I wanted to be loved.

Where was my hero? Wasn't he going to save me?

No hero showed up.

During this time, I discovered writing. I started keeping a journal, which has enough in it to condemn me to a mental institution. I first found Mibba at this point in time. I started my own stories, and let my imagination take me away so that I was the one living the stories along with my characters. I had my own imaginary hero.

I started to spend less and less time with my friends. I would rather stay with my imagination.

I continued starving myself, checking my weight every week. The lowest I got was 130lbs. I was disappointed. Even without eating, my body still retained much of its mass. There were days when it became a struggle to walk up stairs, and I don't think it was entirely the headaches. The cutting continued as well. No one knew. No one knows, except for you reading this.

I spent four and a half months in this fragile existence. Then I was allowed to run again. I started eating, at least before I ran, so that I wouldn't collapse.

It's been almost a year now. Since softball started in February, I've been pretty good about eating, though I have become a vegetarian.

It's a disease.

Two weeks ago, I found myself back in that place again, with my hand down my throat, choking, and spluttering, but somehow perversely happy.

It's not a relapse; it's a reoccurence. I'm not cured. Technically, no one ever knew I was sick.

Just last week, I happened upon a shiny silver razor. I opened up the old scars for the first time in six months as I dug the razor into my skin. It hurt. And I [/]liked it.

It's scary how easy it would be to get back there.

Today I still get headaches and dizziness. I am back to softball, but the doctors have told me that I will never play soccer again.

And I'm still waiting for my hero.

I'm not asking for help, I'm not asking for sympathy; I'm not exactly sure what it is that I'm asking for, but I think I am asking for something.

I don't need rescuing as much as I did last Fall, but I realize now more than ever how alone I feel. What I need is someone to love me. He who can do that is My Hero. And I'm hoping that whoever he is, he'll read this, and maybe he'll understand. That's all I have now: hope, futile, hopeless hope. And I'm very weary from waiting.