The Self Harmed by Chalen D. (electric book reader TXT) 📕

I snapped a picture of a humming bird before it flew away. Clara was right, I had already more than fifty pictures.

"You take pictures."

I turned, dropping my camera, but it caught on the strap. It was Ryder in jeans and a shirt.

"You're really skinny." I blurted out.

"I'm Anorexic."

"You don't eat?" Shut up! Shut up!

"I do. Under seven hunder calories a day. I'm suposed to be eating more, they say."

"They?"

"The Doctors, my parents, society."

"But your fine."

"Better than ever." He raised his camera and took a picture.

"Please delete that."

"Can't." He walked to a bench.

"Why?" I followed him.

"I have to have a picture of everyone I meet. It helps me remember them."

"You can't just ask for their name?" I asked sitting next to him.

"Not a chance. People change." He held up his camera. "Pictures don't."

"Can't you at least take a good picture of me?" I asked looking at my camera in my hands. 

He snapped another one.

"Ryder!"

"What? You wanted me to have a good one."

"I want you to have none."

"Here."

He actually took my camera and took two photos of himself. 

"There." He set it back in my lap. "We're even."

"Ryder!" A nurse called. "It's time for you're weighing."

"For chirst." He muttered standing up.

"Weighing?"

"Yeah." He helped me up. "It's this thing. I can't get below a certain wieght, or they take me to a hospital and give me a feeding tube."

"Why do you do it?"

"Ready?" The nurse asked.

"Yeah, any news on the salad?"

"Yep." She said, as they walked down the hall. "The Doctor said if you get your wieght to eighty-two pounds you can have a small one."

"It's a start." He said before he turned the courner.

Clara's alarm went off at 4:20 in the morning.
    "Turn it off." I waved a hand.

"Mornin' Sunshine!" She anounced.

I sat up.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting to the showers before all the girls with long hair do. The drain gets cloged, and then you have to stand in their ankel deep Shaved hair, and sweat."

"Let me grab my towle." I tossed the blanket off.

We walked to showers only talking about classes.

"Do you know Ryder?" I asked, turning on the water, and setting my towel on the door.

"I know of him." She said, from the next shower stall.

"So what do you know?"

"I know he has no friends, he's Anorexic, and he takes pictures."

"That's it?"

"I don't even know His last name."

"Does anyone know Him?"

"Nope." She scrubbed her hair. "He likes to be left alone and so everyone leaves him alone."

"Does he have anger issues?"

"Yep. Which reminds me. What's your eating disorder?"

"What? I don't have an eating disorder."

"Then I wonder why you were put in the eating disorder wing."

"The what?"

"Your in the eating disorder wing. If you don't have an eating disorder, you should be in the cutting wing."
     "What?"

"You cut." She pointed at my arm. "You don't have to hide it or be ashmed of it. No one here is going to judge you. You're home Charlie."

I gave a half smile. Once back in the room I quickly got dressed and grabbed all my books. I wanted to get to my locker and put my books away before the school halls where flooded.

"Hey Charlie."

I looked up, "Oh hey Ryder."

"I tought I'd walk you to breakfast."

"No thanks I don't eat breakfast."

"Uh-huh." He rocked back and forth on his feet.

"What?" I asked him. "I do not have an eating disorder."

"Okay, so can I walk you to lunch?"
     "Nope I don't eat lunch." I sighed. "Don't look at me like that. I do not have an eating disorder."

"When you eat dinner, you eat dinner?"

"Right."

"Do you eat more than seven hundered calories?"

"No."

He raised his eye brows.

"Only because I'm a vegitarian, and my parents don't suport me, so I'm on my own for dinner. I'm just not hungry during the day."

"Because you sleep?"

"Yes, but how do you know?"

"Your a Scret Anorexic."

"No I'm not."

"You don't know you are."

"I'm on the fatter side of life. I don't have an eating disorder. I just don't feel like eating when I'm despressed. I eat snacks. See?"

"You just have to come to terms with the fact you have an eating disorder, Charlotte. You do not eat three meals a day."

"The average american doesn't eat damn three meals a day."

"But the average american isn't in a recovery unit."

"I might have to take this from my parents, but I don't have to take it from you. You don't even fucking know me."

"Just calm down, Charlie."

"You calm the fuck down." I slammed my locker, and walked down the hall. 

I ploppped down in a chair next to Clara, who was taking breaths looking over her food.

"Just give me your plate."

I took her plate, shoved the food to one side, and smashed down. I handed her the plate back.

"There. Now you ate half of it. I used to do that back home."

"So you do have an eating disorder."

"I don't have a fucking eating disorder."

"What crawled up your ass and died?"

"Sorry." I muttered.
     "What happened?"

"Everyone says I have an eating disorder when I don't, I'm fat."

"If you cut out your junk food, and continue to eat the way you do, you'll drop wieght Charlie. You have the means to havean eating disorder, your just not doing it right."

"So If I stop eating junk food, I'll be thinner?"

"Yep." She nodded.

"Huh. Who would of thought."

"That's the bell. Do you need me to show you your first class?"

"No I know were everything is."

"Okay, see you after school."

"See you." 
I tossed her tray away and left the dinning hall.

"Hello everyone!" Our group leader said. "You are in this group because everyone in this room self harms. There is different types of self harms. Cutting, burning, bruising and starving are some examples. This is a no judgement area. We are here to talk about why you do the things you do."

I was slouched in my chair sandwiched between Ryder and Clara, the two people who wanted me to admit to myself I had an eating disorder.

"We'll get to everyone, but who wants to start? Ryder perfect."

"I'm Anorexic."

"And you do it because?"

"I hate myself. I was the cubby kid everyone made fun of. Even my family poked fun at me. So first I began to starve myself, but my body wasn't used to it so when I did end up eating I would binge. I would eat everything in sight. I felt so fat and useless, that the toilet became my only friend. I'd eat then trow up.

It helped but what really helped is when I started only eating seven hundered calories a day, and throwing up three times a week. That's when I began to really drop the wieght. First everyone was proud of me. And then people began to worry about me. I droped from two hunder pounds to seventy-three pounds in less than treee months. Then I was put into this place."

"Why did you do it?" Group leader asked. "After everyone was worried."
    "If I may?" Clara looked over at Ryder, who nodded and tossed out a hand.
     "We do it to feel empty. To feel perfect. If we can't control the things in our lifes we can control bodies."

"Even if it will kill you?" Group leader asked.

"That's the down fall of self harm. Such a bad thing can make you feel so wonderful." She looked down at her hands.

"Charlie, your a cutter corect?"

"Yes."

"What made you start?" Group leader asked.

"I had this friend, His name was Owen. He reminded me of Ryder. Anyways He had a really bad home life and welll life in general. It just sucked for him. His parents were always fighting, His sister killed herself, because the dad was raping her, and beating her and she had a really bad case of depression. She had Alone carved on her arm, and when she killed herself, Owen carved it into his arm, and when He killed himself I carved the word into my arm. It was the first time I had ever cut, and for the first time in my life I found a way to get the pain from the indside to the outside.

Relief was instant but only lasted for a little while. I promised that I'd never cut myself, I had to help Owen get better, But when he was gone what was the point?"

"What made you give up on yourslef?"

Everyone looked at Ryder excpet for me.

"I don't know."

"I understand you have an eating disorder also?" Group leader asked.

"I don't." I sighed.

"Your mother beat Anorexia and she noticed the beginign signs in you. That's what made her call us. She went here when she was young. She was sixty-eight pounds by the time we got her."

"She never told me."

"She looked at it as a weakness. Self harm to her was a weakness. She had to hurt herself to make herself feel better about herself."

Everyone was quiet.

"Does anyone else want to say anything?"

A buzzer went off. 

"See you wedsenday."

"When do you start seeing your Therapist?" Clara asked, skiping to my side.

"Next week on tuesdays. Can you help me with soemthing?"

"Sure?"

"Help me get rid of all my junk food. I need to know If I'll drop wieght."

"No. Your supposed to be getting better."

"How can I get better if I don't know I'm sick?"

"Charlie-"

"I'll do it myslef." 

"Charlie!"
     "Where's she going?" Ryder asked before I turned the corner.

I gathered everything into my junk food box and left my room. 

"Throughing all of your junk food away?" Ryder asked, as