Wrists

Punishment was closer watch. I’d never seen Dr. Reynolds so angry and serious. She told me my freedom was now greatly restricted, and that if I did it again I’d have to be in treatment for three more weeks. She expressed how disappointed she was in me, and didn’t hesitate to tell Ms. Hill about my wrong doing. That was when my anxiety grew. Ms. Hill couldn’t know about that; dear god Ms. Hill couldn’t know. I could only see that horrid, disgusted look in her eyes. I would die.

I couldn’t help myself: I started sobbing. Dr. Reynolds was shocked, but she gained her composure, tried to comfort me, and sent me straight to Ms. Hill, telling me I’d have to miss one of our group sessions that day.

Ms. Hill was a lot nicer than I expected her to be. She told me that everybody slips up, and that comes naturally when you’re trying to recover. After she managed to make me stop crying, she went into a lesson about body-accepting, and how I should go about trying to come to terms about my body image.

We talked about that for a long, long while. And after she was done, she warned me about my bad habits, and how it takes about 28 days to change a bad habit into a good one.

I had 28 days to stop purging. To stop thinking about my body in negative ways. To silence the demons in my head.

I didn’t know if I could do it.