Word Count: 716
Challenge/Competition: Psychological Disorders Challenge
Prompts: Anorexia
Warnings: Depictions of anorexia, may be triggering.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.
Notes: I'll just state as I have always when writing anorexia stories, I know that it is a sensitive issue, it is a sensitive issue for me too & this is a subject very close to my heart, so please remember there is many different mind sets and experiences with each different person that has this problem. I tried to write it as delicately as possible.
Pansy positions her arm over her head and takes a deep breath in. Her ribs are prominent, but not prominent enough. She wants her skin to look like paper, to look ready to break. Most of all though, she wants to disappear.
Desperately, it's all she wants. Turning to her front, she tenses her stomach slightly and breathes in in a specific way... her hip bones are just average, really. There's nothing about her that screams ill, and there's nothing about her that feels ill but she knows this is a dangerous path. She's a smart girl, she knows the damage she's doing to herself, but yet she can't stop.
It's not that she wants to be thin - well she does, but that's never been the motive in what she does. Everything in her life has completely spun out of control; Daphne hates her, for one stupidstupidstupid mistake... Blaise hates her too, for the same stupid mistake (she didn't mean her words like that, honestly, it's just her sharp bloody tongue and her quick bloody mind). And then there's Draco... well, he doesn't give a crap about her, he doesn't love her, and all she does is fawn hopelessly over him. Her parents are divorcing, she's doing awfully in school, and it feels like there's no foundations for her to stand on. The ground underneath her is so uneven, she could topple any second.
Food is just such an easy thing to control, she can put as much or as little as she likes into her body and maybe, just maybe, people might notice. They'd get jealous, or worried, or have some sort - any sort, of feelings towards her. She feels so proud when she goes a day without eating. It's completely messed up, utterly twisted, but it helps her. She'd have thrown herself out her window without this, yet at the same time this is such a dark hole that she isn't quite sure if she would've just been better off throwing herself out of the window in the first place.
Because once you start, you can't stop. It's addicting. It's worse than any drug, any alcohol, any feeling. And no one would understand. Someone could tell her a thousand times, "You're not fat, you're beautiful" but she's not, she knows she's not, and she doesn't even care anymore. She's sure that even if all her ribs were completely visible, the light shining through the gap in her thighs, her hip bones poking through her clothes, cheek bones jutting out of her face, then she still wouldn't stop, because she isn't anything without this. Food is all she thinks about, and in the strangest way it's keeping her from completely losing her sanity.
Not a soul in the world knows. It's just her secret with herself, because it makes her feel strong, but others might see her as weak. They might think her a freak, they might try and make her stop. She feels sick at the mere thought of telling anybody. Even so, it isn't like she has anyone to tell... there's not anyone left to care. Mummy and Daddy are too busy fighting over her with each other but not asking her, Daphne and Blaise are too busy using their hate for her to bring themselves together but not asking her why, and Draco never cared anyway, but he never told her why.
Some days, she gets overwhelmed with hunger and eats and eats and eats and eats until she feels like she has to throw up except she doesn't, because throwing up is for the weak. Do it properly, or don't do it at all. Some days, she tells herself that she could and should sort herself out. That maybe she does have a problem, that maybe she should get help. So she tries to help herself, but it never works, because it just ends up in binging and then starving even worse before.
It's a cycle, the most comforting but most evil cycle. It's God and the devil at the same time, it's a mother and a psycho at the same time. It seems to hold all the answers, but it holds none. Because she can't disappear, not really, and she can't control her life, not at all.
AN- Hope you all liked this! I like vulnerable Pansy way too much... I think I just like to convince myself that there is a sad person underneath the horrible-ness. Please leave a review, it would be lovely :)