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Wool Blind

Summary:

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he sobs out, hands automatically coming to to clench at his hair. Like if he pulls hard enough he’ll break open his scalp and see his brain, be able to dig around for an answer inside. “What- what’s wrong with me?” He’s begging even without saying please.

He used to stay silent in his bedroom, refusing to even listen to music through his headphones in case it was too loud. But now he knows that neither Aizawa or Yamada hear him, not unless they’re right outside his door. He can cry and he can talk to himself and go can go absolutely fucking insane and they’ll be none the wiser.

Sometimes he yearns to call out, hopes one of the heroes will hear and come save him. He opens his mouth, words tingling on his tongue, just to sob so hard he shuts himself up.

How can they comfort him from something he can’t explain?

He doesn’t have an eating disorder. He has no reason to feel like this. There’s nothing they can do for him if there’s nothing wrong.

Notes:

Major trigger warning for graphic description of eating disorder, disordered eating, graphic descriptions of vomiting, panic attacks, very not recovery oriented thoughts, swearing, self-harm, self-hatred, invalidation of diagnoses, not the happiest of endings

This is a fic I wrote entirely as a way to vent and so it’s pretty dark. Please take care of yourself before, during, and after reading.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Hitoshi doesn’t have an eating disorder.

 

He just has days, sometimes weeks, that eating just… isn’t it. It’s not working out for him. That even the thought of food makes his stomach curdle like old milk.  The very thought of eating anything, even drinking more than his rainbow of electrolyte filled juices sounds vomit inducing. (This week, he can only stomach the white ones, not the red or blue) He can already feel his mouth salivate in the worst way.

 

Not that he makes himself throw up. No, Hitoshi doesn’t shove fingers down his throat until he’s gagging out his breakfast. He doesn’t have to try that hard to vomit, by the time he’s sitting in front of the toilet, hair back, shirt off, he’s able to just let go. The weight in his stomach now floating around his toilet bowl like an exhale on the wind. 

 

He can wipe the spatter off his chest, brown and rancid, with a wet paper towel. He can clean the edge of the toilet, all droplets of his… whatever it is, gone. Flushed down the toilet, out of sight out of mind.

 

Hitoshi doesn’t have an eating disorder. It’s just that throwing up is the only way to feel better. 

 

It’s like a do over. A retry he so desperately needs. 

 

He doesn’t throw up every day, not even every week. Because he’s so careful. He has his morning planned down to the minute. At 5am his first alarm goes off. One he can purposely turn off and then doze until his second alarm at 5:10. Now this one he gets to choose, read for ten minutes or doze again. Lately he’s been dozing. Then at 5:20 he absolutely must get out of bed if he wants to beat Yamada to the kitchen. He puts a shirt on and goes downstairs. He typically begins preheating the oven at precisely 5:22am. 

 

He does his hair next, making sure he looks as presentable as possible. Then he pees, if he didn’t already wake up at 3:00am to go to the bathroom and promptly pass out. By the time it’s 5:30am the oven is preheated and he looks as alive as he can for how early it is. He puts his food in and sets a timer, has it down to the second. He has ten minutes to get his lunch packed. All food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. He can’t let it go bad if he doesn’t eat it, needs to save it for the next day. And the next.

 

It’s all food that he picked out with Yamada, approved and safe enough that he won’t vomit at the mere smell. 

 

By 5:40 he is eating and by 5:50 he’s given up. It’s fine, he has the option to eat lunch later. It’ll be fine. By 5:55 his dishes are washed, dried, and put away. He goes upstairs and scrubs all the evidence of his failed breakfast from his teeth. He dozes until 6:25. Goes to the bathroom again. Puts on his uniform. Dozes until 6:50. Gets his pre-packed backpack, and goes to find his jacket and shoes. He waits until Yamada is ready, exits the apartment at 6:55.

 

Why would he need to throw up when everything is so carefully executed? 

 

/

 

He knows how to cook a lot of things. But the only things he knows how to eat are miso, ramen-

 

/

 

Hitoshi doesn’t remember the last time he had a full meal. Maybe last week, that sounds about right. 

 

It’s not like he’s starving, he’s not even dizzy most of the time. Everyone gets a little out of it if they sit up too fast, he’s fine. He eats part of his breakfast, nibbles at his lunch, and cuts up dinner so small maybe he can eat a few bites without it feeling like too much

 

Hitoshi started drinking water again. 

 

(Maybe if he drinks enough, his stomach will feel better than this. Maybe it won’t hurt anymore-)

 

/

 

Don’t you remember being hungry? How dare you forget. Don’t you remember clenching the fat of your stomach and wishing the fuel it was burning was ceasing the emptiness? Maybe pain is the wrong word, it’s not even an ache. It’s unsettling, the uncomfortability. Like when you know you’re forgetting something, you feel the absence like a melon scooper hollowed you out. And you’re gutted and you don’t even know why. Because you drank water, an abundance of it, so much your perpetually dehydrated body needs to pee every ten minutes because it doesn't know how to handle more than one water bottle every couple days. 

 

Don’t you feel bad? Heating up your safe food while knowing you’ll just take a bite and spit it out? Covering it with a napkin and throwing it out? Don’t you feel guilty?

 

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes-

 

/

 

Hitoshi doesn’t have an eating disorder.

 

Sometimes he just cries in the dark because if he sees himself in the mirror like this then he knows he’ll never let his therapist see him cry again, because he’ll know how ugly it really is.

 

He doesn’t remember what session it was, but he remembers the conversation, or lack there of. “I don’t wanna talk about it ‘cause then I’ll cry and I can’t cry.“ His therapist politely ignored the tears clinging to his waterline. 

 

Why can’t you cry?” She asked once, gently. 

 

“‘Cause crying is ugly.” His tongue tingled like it was coming back from being asleep. 

 

She smiled, “Crying is emotion.” 

 

He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t need to. “Emotion is ugly.”

 

She had laughed, like it was a joke. Maybe it was, in another life. “That was so quick.”

 

He laughed too then, because what else would he do? Cry?

 

/

 

Sometimes Hitoshi still does those stupid online quizzes. The Am I Depressed? ones that always copy and paste the questions schools preach about in health class. Those are more for fun, watching Moderate turn to Severe to Moderate to Severe. He doesn’t need to take them anymore. Not when his health insurance now lists Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder under his “ Problems .” Under that, lists his death sentence. Borderline Personality Disorder.

 

He laughed the first time he saw it. “Problems.’ It’s cruel in the accurate kind of way. Someone he met once, at an inpatient unit, adviced him to never tell anyone he has the infamous BPD. Especially not a professional, a doctor or therapist or psychiatrist or anything of the sort, that no one will ever help him if they know. It’s still listed on the website, but he doesn’t flaunt the title around like he does with his other diagnoses. 

 

“I’m too depressed to get out of bed.” Or “can you order for me, I have anxiety.” Or “if I tell you I have anxiety can I not do this.”

 

Sometimes he does other quizzes too. Do I Have Anxiety? Do I Have PTSD? Do I Have C-PTSD? Do I Have OCD?

 

In his private browser are endless tabs of Do I Have An Eating Disorder?

 

Eating Disorder Evaluation

 

Anorexia Test

 

Eating Disorder Self-Assessment

 

Tabs trailing on and on of the same quiz in different words. Endless reassurances of there’s help out there and this is not an official diagnosis and find the helpline below . So many that he has to delete old tabs to be allowed to open a new one, another quiz. The same answer. He plays again, like it’s one of the mindless games he downloads from the top one hundred. 

 

/

 

Hitoshi’s pantry is full. It stays full. His water bottle empties again and again. 

 

/

 

“How do you know?” He asked once, to a friend in and out of treatment. Hospitals and day programs and online portals giving them the credentials.

 

They have that sad sort of smile, the one his therapist gives, the one Aizawa does too. “I check the scale as often as I can, even when I know it will make me upset.”

 

“Thank you for telling me,” he doesn’t ask anymore. Hates the way they look down. It doesn’t apply to him anyway, he threw out his scale. 

 

/

 

“If I pass out, don’t call an ambulance.”

 

“What if you’re hurt?”

 

“Then just let me die.”

 

They laugh, like it’s a joke. It’s all one big joke.

 

/

 

He holds the railing so tight his knuckles turn even ashier. He’s sure if he looked in the mirror he’d be ghostly. Maybe he’d be prettier. He heard that the dead inside look is trending. 

 

He wobbles as he climbs the stairs, forces himself to continue even as he aches to just sit awhile. He has to get to the bathroom, he has to make this better. He’s full to bursting, seams too loose and stuffing overflowing. He’s heavy in the way he knows only a toilet can fix, down on his knees gagging until there’s nothing left but bile. He spits that out too, it’s weight far too much on his fragile stomach. He just has to get there, and it’ll all be okay. He doesn’t even have to take his shirt off this time, when it gets contaminated he’ll just change it. He’ll clean up his mess and he’ll have to live with the fact it’s a recurring sort of thing. 

 

(It reminds him of-)

 

He knows something is seriously wrong when he can’t hold it in, the vomit. Normally he can swallow it down like a sob, it still urges to be released but he’s resigned to choke. But when he stumbles into the bathroom, flipping up the toilet seat with a smack, he can’t even collapse to his knees before he’s spewing everything out. It splashes against the toilet water, splattering from the bowl to the surrounding wall. He can feel speckles scatter over his face and neck as he drops to his knees, another wave pouring out his mouth. He clenches his eyes shut as more puke splatters back at him, dirtying him even more.

 

He’d sob if he didn’t already have his dinner filling his mouth, overflowing. Tears stream down his cheeks, he can’t ever help but cry when he throws up. It’s terribly inconvenient, looking even more like he’s having a full on breakdown than having whatever bug he’ll claim to have caught.

 

They always look at him so disbelieving, so pitying.

 

He keeps one hand on the rim, to keep himself upright, the other over the handle, ready to flush down every bout of sick as soon as it comes. The less the smell lingers in the room the better. Just the thought of cleaning up his mess makes more tears spring to his eyes. He doesn’t have the energy to blink them back, not when he’s already choking on his own spit. He coughs it out, far too loud in the silence of the house.

 

He always forgets himself, when he has one of these fits. It always happens like it’s the first time. The vomiting, the crying, the cleanup, his body always reacts like he hasn’t gotten this down to a routine. Down to the minute.

 

He lets himself cry a bit longer, even after he’s certain there’s no more in him to throw up. It’s not like he ate much to begin with. He’d rest his head against the toilet if it wasn’t covered in the evidence of his sick. He settles for leaning against his arms, breathing through his mouth to keep from smelling the worst of it.

 

The putrid scent clings to his tongue, forces him to taste his own illness. He knows even when he brushes his teeth the taste won’t fade for days yet. Even if he scraped out his whole mouth with a knife he wouldn’t be rid of it, it would just add blood to the palette. It will only be revived again, brushed away, and brought back in an endless cycle he can’t cut his way out of.

 

He startles so hard at the knock on the door that he falls back on his ass from where he was kneeling. “Hitoshi? Are you okay, you’ve been in there awhile.” Of course it’s Aizawa. 

 

He clears his throat, hates that he knows his voice will crack regardless. “I’m okay, was just gonna take a shower.” It’s not a lie, with the amount of splash back he will need to shower to get any semblance of clean. Though his shirt caught the worst of it, he knows he won’t be able to sleep unless he scrubs himself raw. He’s only clean when there’s no more skin left to be contaminated. 

 

“Is something wrong?” Yes .

 

“No.” 

 

He doesn’t believe it. “Both Hizashi and I are here for you if you need anything.”

 

They never believe him. 

 

/

 

He knows he should have stopped. He should have said he was done, but the plate wasn’t empty. No clean plate club means no plate next time. He can’t let that happen, so he kept going, until his stomach was so full he thought he wouldn’t be able to leave his chair without crumpling. He thought if he went to the bathroom he’d feel better but he knows nothing feels better except getting rid of it. Gagging himself until it just comes slithering out and his chest isn’t in a vice grip anymore. 

 

He doesn’t want to but he’s heavy and he’s slow and he needs it to stop because he can’t think about anything except his stomach and he needs to focus. He doesn’t have to put his fingers down his throat every time, sometimes just the thought is enough to get him sputtering and coughing out. Just sometimes he needs a finger or three, just a little push.

 

He hates throwing up. Hates the action, hates the tastes, hates the emptiness because even bile is too much, needs to be extracted. He hates his stomach for filling so quick, hates his throat for burning even when he hasn’t puked all day, hates that his tongue even let's food be ingested. He hates his hands for picking food up when they’ll just have to help rid of it later. He hates his eyes for lingering, and his nose for traitorously thinking something may smell enticing. He hates himself for being so fucking weak every goddamn chance he gets.

 

He shouldn’t have done that. Tears stream down his face no matter how many times he does this and he doesn’t bother cover his mouth to stifle the sobs, doesn’t want to touch. Contamination, he calls it, when spatter dots along his skin and shirt in a disgusting display. Paint on a canvas he wishes he could burn away. 

 

He has three granola bars left, in the baggie at the bottom of his drawer. Away from where ants may crawl. But he can’t eat it. He just ate he can’t eat again, even if the emptiness hurts more than the uncomfortability of fullness. Because if he eats one he won’t have enough left and that means he’ll just be even more hungry later on. He’s hungry now but it’s just a feeling, and feelings go away. But if this continues he’ll be hungry as a stasis and he can’t have less food hidden, he can’t have less because then he’ll have nothing and if he has nothing he’ll just shrivel up. He’ll eat himself from the inside out in what he thinks is called auto-cannibalism. Before, he thought it was just called starvation mode.

 

/

 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he sobs out, hands automatically coming to to clench at his hair. Like if he pulls hard enough he’ll break open his scalp and see his brain, be able to dig around for an answer inside. “What- what’s wrong with me?” He’s begging even without saying please

 

He used to stay silent in his bedroom, refusing to even listen to music through his headphones in case it was too loud. But now he knows that neither Aizawa or Yamada hear him, not unless they’re right outside his door. He can cry and he can talk to himself and go can go absolutely fucking insane and they’ll be none the wiser. 

 

Sometimes he yearns to call out, hopes one of the heroes will hear and come save him. He opens his mouth, words tingling on his tongue, just to sob so hard he shuts himself up.

 

How can they comfort him from something he can’t explain?

 

He doesn’t have an eating disorder. He has no reason to feel like this. There’s nothing they can do for him if there’s nothing wrong. 

 

He cries into his arms, hopes he’ll settle soon enough that he’ll be able to shower before bed.

 

/

 

Hitoshi doesn’t have an eating disorder. But he lays in bed and thinks of the food he didn’t eat, and wanted to. Hates himself for wanting to. He thinks of the Pinterest board he has of desserts he’ll never eat and meals he’ll never make and everything that he hates to want and wants to hate. 

 

He thinks of the food he wanted to eat until it was in his body. He lays in bed and wonders if it’s too late to throw up, if anything more than blood and bile will fill his toilet. If the emptiness will feel nice this time.

 

Sometimes it feels good, being empty. Like when you put ointment on a cut, it hurts but you know you’re doing what you need to do to feel better, so it’s a relief. Placing a bandage over the now smothered wound and pressing down, it aches, and it’s the only thing that feels right. 

 

Sometimes he’s too aware of the pain, it’s all he thinks about. He lies in bed and all he can do is think of what he can eat for breakfast the next morning. Categorizes what is least likely to make him want to throw up. He counts the hours until his first alarm, know even if he wakes up early he won’t get up until the allotted time. 

 

Hitoshi knows something is wrong with him. This isn’t normal. But he doesn’t have an eating disorder. He doesn’t have a word for what this is. He doesn’t have a label to blame. 

 

He’s not like the people he sees in movies. His skin isn’t stretched so taught over his bones they jut out painfully. He can feel the squish of his fat when he squeezes at his stomach and his thighs. His arms have a bit of a jiggle when he moves them. His neck gets a roll when he looks down. He doesn’t look like someone sick. He doesn’t have an eating disorder.

 

/

 

His therapist calls it Disordered Eating . He didn’t know that was different from an Eating Disorder. Order of words is vital, he supposes. 

 

He has all the problems of an eating disorder, is what she must be saying, but she won’t give him the diagnosis. He can’t have that validity, that reason for being so fucked up. He’s just a person with Disordered Eating, like anyone else will know what that even means. And the people that do know, will just know he’s only fucked up enough to get a title and not enough to get the diagnosis. The proof he needs help.

 

Hitoshi does not have an eating disorder.

 

/

 

He cries sometimes. When he finally gets the nerve to go to the kitchen and find something to eat. And someone is already there. It doesn’t matter if both Aizawa and Yamada are safe people, it doesn’t make it easy to eat around them.

 

Or if there’s crumbs on the counter. Or the only spoon that doesn’t feel wrong in his mouth is dirty. Or if there’s an ant. He’ll cry no matter what, is what he’s saying. Any reason is enough to not eat, anything to snap him out of his hunger.

 

He leaves the kitchen and lays in bed and looks at pictures of food he’ll never be able to stomach. He cries, if the emptiness gets too much and he can’t bring himself to go to the kitchen again. And he hopes it’ll be a safe enough place to eat next time. 

 

He hopes he won’t be too fucked up, next time. 

 

/

 

Hitoshi didn’t know there was a symbol for Eating Disorders. Or coordinated colors. He doesn’t even know what he would be, if he had one. Anorexic or Bulimic or something he has no name for. 

 

He can’t have an eating disorder, he doesn’t even know anything about it.

 

/

 

Hitoshi doesn’t have an eating disorder.

 

But he knows his body well enough to know if he ever wants to eat a full meal he needs to be able to lie down after, to help stave off the nausea. And he needs to be near a lockable bathroom. One that he can throw up in if he needs to. Or if the stomach ache hits him wrong and he needs to sit on the toilet awhile, a bathroom he’s safe enough to stay. 

 

Every time he eats, his body acts like it’s a virus it needs to rid itself of. Whether it be through vomiting or shitting out his guts. It can’t stay in him, any sort of sustenance. Sometimes he wonders if he even needs it at all, if his body is so determined to purge itself of all evidence. 

 

Sometimes it reminds him of the time he overdosed. Before then, he had these ideas in his head of people throwing up all over themselves when they downed too many pills. Or stomachs being pumped and violated to be rid of the drugs.

 

It wasn’t until he was stumbling up the stairs delirious but needing so badly to go to the bathroom that he realized that that’s how his body decided to help itself. By making him sit on a toilet until there’s no more medicine inside left to kill him.

 

Sometimes, when he’s dizzy with hunger or when he’s so full he can’t hold it all in, it reminds him of dying. 

 

/

 

He doesn’t shove fingers down his throat. Even if he washes his hands he knows they’re too dirty. Contaminated. He’s contaminated. 

 

He scrubs his skin red and angry in the shower. Again and again and again.

 

/

 

Some days, he places a piece of chocolate in his mouth and lets it melt. It’s nice sometimes, to have something in his mouth and know it’ll help keep the ache away. He keeps mints in his backpack, in case he needs the taste of anything other than his own saliva to occupy him. He has gum too, but that’s only for when it’s dire. Sugar free loses its taste far too quickly to be anything other than irritating. 

 

He brushes his teeth right after. Not worth cavities, not worth more holes and hollowness.

 

/

 

He knows how to cook a lot of things. But the only things he knows how to eat are-

 

/

 

“I think you need more care than what therapy can provide,” his therapist told him, plainly. Like this isn’t a recurrent conversation.

 

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I don’t want to,” he refuses, just as he has every other time in the last few months.

 

She’s patient as ever, “why don’t you tell me all the reasons you don’t want to get treatment.”

 

He doesn’t have to think about it much, “I can’t miss school. I have a routine that works for me and if I change it then I won’t be able to cope.” She nods, he continues, “I’ll miss my friends, if I’m not at school I won’t see them anymore and if I’m not there for them-” he shakes his head, physically tries to jostle the thought out of his head. “I need to be there for them. I need to stick to my schedule.”

 

She nods, waiting for more before she finally speaks up, “all the reasons you listed for not wanting to go, are exactly why you need to.”

 

He usually tries his very best not to cry during therapy, but that struck him where it hurts, and he can’t help the tears springing to his eyes. “I- I don’t know how.” He sputters. She could write a book with all the one-liners she can just spew off the top of her head. 

 

She’s not phased, never really is. “Don’t know how to do what?”

 

“How to go to treatment, or even what program can help me. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits, voice wet. He doesn’t wipe at his eyes, hopes if he ignores it then she will too. 

 

She smiles, kindly, “that's what I’m for. I can give you a referral to a behavioral health hospital and then you should be able to do a screening.” She explains, “They’re the ones who will help you figure out what program can benefit you the most.” She says it like it’s easy. Like if he does decide to do this it won’t completely change his life, change his routine and how people think of him and change him .

 

Voice small, “how do I do that?” He still doesn’t want to. But all he can think is this is why you need to this is why you need to this is why you need to- and he knows it’s right. 

 

They spend the rest of the session filling out a release of information allowing his therapist to fill out the referral to the hospital. From there it’s a waiting game. He pretends his ribs aren’t trying to cave in on his lungs, suffocating from the inside out. He doesn’t have an eating disorder. But maybe he needs help. Maybe this is why he needs to.

 

/

 

He ends up having to do the screening at school. It’s definitely not ideal, but he already missed one call from the hospital when they rang during class. He answers, “hello?” He walks outside, down the perimeter of the building in the hopes he’ll escape any prying ears. 

 

“Hello,” a toneless voice replies, “is this Shinsou Hitoshi?”

 

He finally finds an empty spot to pace, “yes, it is.”

 

“I’m calling about your referral to the Eating Disorder Partial Hospitalization Program.”

 

He knows he hesistates a second too long, trying to process what the fuck she said. He never applied to the eating disorder program. His therapist is the one who fucking told him he has disordered eating not an eating disorder. But she’s the one who had to have put the referral into this program.

 

“Yes, that’s right,” he finally answers, knowing it was off kilter.

 

“Okay, good. Where are you right now?” She continues like nothing is amiss, so Hitoshi pretends to also.

 

He’s lost his customer service voice, as he calls it. He’s just bare and they haven’t even started yet. “I’m at school.”

 

“Are you alone?”

 

“Yeah, I walked away from all the people.” He flits his eyes around, double checking he’s by himself. 

 

“Okay. We may get into some triggering questions, so if you need a break or feel unsafe at any point, please let me know,” while her words are somewhat comforting, her tone is ever so professional. No sort of soothing cadence to her voice. Ridiculously, it makes him want to cry.

 

Hitoshi agrees easily, knowing he won’t say anything. And he doesn’t, not when he really does start to cry or when his breathing picks up the more he rambles on about traumatic events and nightmares and eating habits. The only time he pauses is when she asks his weight, and he walks further away from the school, even if he knows there’s no one to hear. She wants to know his current weight and his lowest weight. He doesn't own a scale anymore but he just knows, he always does. 

 

In its entirety, the screening takes about an hour. He ends the phone call trembling as she tells him he’ll receive another call in the next twenty four to forty eight fours informing him if he is accepted into the program, with whatever additional information he may need. Another waiting game. 

 

He texts Aizawa the second he hangs up with a lame, “have a good day, bye.” Tells him he finished the screening. Both his foster parents were proud of all things, when he said he was going to pursue treatment. The cost would be covered by the state or whatever it is, so it wouldn’t be a financial burden to them. But that wasn’t even their focus, it was on him. Specifically him trying to help himself and take steps towards healing. 

 

/

 

He gets into the eating disorder program. He feels like a fraud. He doesn’t have an eating disorder but he’s gotten into the program.

 

Or maybe there’s more to his disordered eating .

 

He doesn’t let himself linger on the thought.

 

/

 

He has over a month to wait. Three weeks until he has to get medically cleared by a doctor, and another two weeks after that until he actually starts what they call a Partial Hospitalization Program. He tells Aizawa and Yamada, his therapist, and his school counselor. He doesn’t tell his friends, or anyone else really that it isn’t necessary to. He acts as if everything’s normal. Like his life isn’t about to be drastically altered. 

 

If he doesn’t think about it then he’s not anxious and if he’s not anxious then he won’t have nightmares about it.

 

He doesn’t eat breakfast the mornings he has nightmares.

 

/

 

He knows how to cook a lot of things. But the only things he knows how to eat are ramen, udon noodles, onigiri-

 

/

 

He wants to ask sometimes, to his friends, to Aizawa, to Yamada: 

 

Do I look like I have an eating disorder? Do I look like a fraud? Do you think I’m a lair? Do you think I won’t fit in? Me, who has fat on my thighs and a belly that squishes and a soft jaw, will I belong among those with actual diagnosed eating disorders? Will they look at me and know I only have Disordered Eating? Or think I shouldn’t be there at all, someone who eats on good days and has some safe foods? Someone who has never been on an IV and has never needed a feedingtube? Someone who’s lowest weight is higher than other people's heaviest weight? Will they hate me for making a mockery of eating disorders? Do you hate me for this? Do you hate me yet?

 

He bites his cheek until it feels burnt, like he ate too quickly into steaming food. 

 

/

 

“It’s not like I had food insecurity or anything, I was just hungry. And I couldn’t handle it.”

 

“But it was,” his therapist says, gently always so gently, “that’s food insecurity.”

 

“It wasn’t, I was hungry and I couldn’t do it, the other kids, they could. I should have been okay.” She nods, listening. “They’d stay up late and even when I would too, I’d always wake up first. Sometimes even before her.”

 

“Your foster parent at the time?”

 

He nods, stares at the floor, the wall, his hands. “I could only sneak into the kitchen if she was asleep.”

 

“What would you do?”

 

“I’d steal,” he smiles, if only so he doesn’t cry. “I’d open the peanut butter jar and try to mimic the shape of the last scoop, so it doesn’t look so obvious, and I’d spread it on a tortilla. It was one of the only foods she’d buy plenty of, and it didn’t get eaten up as quick as bread.” She doesn’t say anything, so he keeps going, keeps confessing, “and it’s stupid because I ate dinner with the kids, and they’re still sleeping and even if they’re hungry it doesn’t wake them up. They can handle it. But I was selfish and I’d steal and eat. Just to go back to bed.”

 

He laughs, a cruel sound, “and when the other kids woke up, I’d eat breakfast with them too. Two breakfasts for me while they all stayed hungry. I never told them, never will.”

 

He refuses to rub at his eyes, “it’s so stupid because I was so hungry before I would lay in bed and it would hurt and now I have access to all the food I could ever want and I can’t even fucking eat it. I hide it and I keep it until it expires and I still can’t eat it.”

 

“Why can’t you?”

 

“Because then I’ll have less and if I have less then I’ll run out and then I’ll be hungry.”

 

“But you’re hungry now.”

 

“That’s what makes it stupid,” he laughs.

 

/

 

He doesn’t rip the tags out of his clothes but he wants to. He doesn’t black out the calorie count on his foods but he wants to. He doesn’t check his weight but he wants to. He doesn’t take laxatives but he wants to. He doesn’t chug water like an alcoholic to wine but he wants to. He doesn’t exercise until he’s blacking out with the dizziness but he wants to. He doesn’t have an eating disorder but he wants to know what’s wrong with him.

 

/

 

He wishes he had some beautiful metaphor for this, whatever he’s feeling. He wishes he had a name for it, his problems, something that tastes better on the tongue than disordered eating. He wishes there was a way to make this pretty, uneaten food and undigested mush and everything in between. He wishes there was more to it, than what it is. But it’s ugly, he’s ugly like this.

 

/

 

On days when Hitoshi just can’t handle everything he handles nothing. He calls off school, blames it on a stomach bug, and lies in bed the whole day. He faces the wall because he can’t bare to see anything more than it’s blank face staring back at him. 

 

His legs shake and his hands tremble and he’s sure everyone knows he’s a filthy liar. But he’d rather be a liar at home in bed than be hyperventilating in the school bathroom. It’s not safe to throw up there, with stalls someone can crawl under and shoddy locks that can easily be broken into. 

 

He called out of school again. Aizawa gave him some medicine in a cup, the way they do at hospitals. He stares at the wall.

 

/

 

Hitoshi stayed with a woman once who was all about dieting, wanted to put him on one too. She’d spoil him really, take him to her favorite health bar and tell him he can have a protein shake for breakfast, a collagen drink for his beverage. He drank it all, hated the grittiness but pretended it tasted like chocolate. He thought of the snacks he hid behind his clothes rack. This house was walking distance from the gas station, it’s where all his food comes from. His safe foods are those cheap pastries that dries his mouth out and candy that makes his teeth feel thinner. 

 

“I can’t eat meals like yours anymore,” she eyes his bowl. “Once you get used to just having protein shakes, it’s all you can stomach.” She takes a sip of her freshly blended drink. “I tried to have pizza once and I couldn’t even get through one piece,” she laughs, “I don’t know how you do it.” He doesn’t finish his meal.

 

There was another kid at one point, feisty and if he was afraid he didn’t let it show. He’s yelling at their foster mother about dinner, “it was only two servings!” He’s screaming, Hitoshi can hear them from the bedroom, “two boxes is only two servings!” Hitoshi clutches his stomach, his body rejecting the meal she scolded them for. Pissed at them for eating two whole boxes of food, one box each. They were hungry. “We only had one serving each, you can look at the label, it’s only meant for one person.”

 

They ate too much, she’s yelling and swearing and it’s all his fault. He used his meager money to buy them dinner, made it in the kitchen like he actually belongs there. He’s shaking, tells himself he’s cold because he knows there’s no insulation. The bare ceiling is unsightly, honestly. He’s unsightly, honestly.

 

He cries, hides behind the bed. He still has all the plastic bags from shopping, all the bags the stupid food he bought was in. He doesn’t want it, can’t throw it out, wants to give it away but he knows no one will take it. Unhealthy , they’ll say, fattening

 

He cries so hard he gags, makes himself continue until he’s spewing up the one serving he ate, vomits into the grocery bag. The food is back where it was only hours ago, he supposes. 

 

When the boy comes back he panics, goes to their foster mother because what else is a child supposed to do, when another kid is puking in the bedroom. She comes and takes away the bag, hands him a mug of water and smacks him on the back, “just breathe, we weren’t arguing about you.” She’s lying, and it’s not helping. He wishes she would go away but all he can do is hope his cup covers his face when he drinks, as unsettling as the sudden emptiness is the water only makes him feel more disjointed with his body. The emptiness is good though, he tells himself, proof he can fix one thing.

 

/

 

He hates being empty, but hates being full more. He’s never been good at the in between. It’s easier to not eat than to know when to stop. When he finds something he actually likes, something that tastes well enough to make the indulgence worth it, it’s all he wants to eat. He gorges himself until he’s so full his body rejects the food he liked too much. One way or another he ends up in the bathroom, hating the food for tasting good, hating himself for eating too much.

 

The clean plate club , a past caretaker called it. Said he wouldn’t leave the table until he was in the club, with the rest of the family. It didn’t mean shit if he was full or god forbid he didn’t like it. He remembers once, a man shoving a spoon in his mouth of some glob of something he refused, knowing just by the smell he wouldn’t like it. He threw up right there, over himself like a baby spitting up formula. The man didn’t care, the foster father making him finish the plate anyway. He didn’t throw up again until he was locked behind the bathroom door. 

 

He looks at plates and refuses to touch them, knowing if he starts he’ll have to finish.

 

He used to watch the little kids scream and cry because they didn’t want to finish their plate, couldn’t join the super exclusive club, and Hitoshi would stare at his plate and hate how bloated he was. He’d wait until everyone finished, wishing he could still cry like that.

 

 

He’s supposed to start treatment soon, he didn’t tell anyone. Not his friends, not his teachers, just pretended like he’d be coming back the next day same as everyone else. It’ll be easier to deal with their questions after the fact, he tells himself, than to swallow their pity. Than to feel them staring at his lunch, see the gears turning in their heads when he eats, and when he doesn’t. He tells himself it’ll be easier if they never know. His mouth tastes sour and he brushes his teeth over and over again but it won’t stop clinging to his tongue. 

 

/

 

He looks in the mirror and knows he’ll never fit in. They’ll look at him and know he’s a fraud, see the shape of his body and know there’s no way he doesn’t over indulge. That even days of non eating will never make up for the way he goes through a whole box of snacks and doesn’t even throw it up after. He knows he’ll look at them and wonder if they made it, if they feel pretty. He wonders if he didn’t go to treatment, if he kept going at this pace, if eventually he’d feel pretty. 

 

He has a nice face, he thinks he does at least. There’s just too much fat clinging to his cheek bones to have a nice definition, too much along his neck to get a sharp line. He wonders if he stayed sick if eventually he’d have a pretty body, or at least one that people look at and go oh, makes sense he has an eating disorder. Maybe that would feel better, than people going, oh, I had no idea. Because he knows he doesn’t look like someone with an eating disorder, he doesn’t even have one technically. He’s not anorexic, never got the diagnosis. He only has disordered eating , whatever bullshit that is. There’s nothing for him to convince anyone of because is he even sick?

 

He may have gotten into eating disorder treatment but does that in itself mean he has an eating disorder? Or because it was an over the phone interview he tricked them all and they’ll look at his body and they’ll put him on a scale and know just how much space he takes up in the room and realize they made a mistake.

 

And he’ll go home not having an eating disorder, stomach empty and hurting, and fat clinging to his bones like a wet coat.

 

/

 

He had a friend once, when he was a kid too young to know what an eating disorder really was, who tried to teach him how to have one. She went to the mental hospital once, was gone for a whole weak. And told him she had Anorexia and Depression with a capital D. She was so pretty. He wanted to be pretty like that, someone who looked good in cropped shirts and tight pants. 

 

She sat with him at lunch every day and showed him how to cut up his food as tiny as he wants to be, and to separate every piece into different sections. That way it’s harder to tell how much he has eaten, and he doesn’t have to eat anything at all and he won’t get in trouble. Oh, won’t that be nice. 

 

They did that every day, until they didn’t. They still sat together, but she stopped commenting on how he eats his food. She got so excited one day, said she finally made it to one hundred pounds. His smile must not have looked real, and he thinks she knew. He just couldn’t understand what she was so excited about, he was trying to be smaller and he still weighed so much more than her. How could she be happy to be closer his his weight?

 

He still congratulated her and she smiled and never told him her weight again. She moved at the end of that year, he never saw her again. They tried to stay friends, would call sometimes, but it’s hard to know what to say when they can’t see each other. Can’t see how big and small they are, can’t see what to do about it. They drifted apart, as he likes to say. He misses her sometimes. Wonders if she’s still one hundred pounds. 

 

/

 

He drinks tea and juice like some people drink coffee or alcohol. It makes him feel less empty, makes it more bearable.

 

He doesn’t look like someone who has an eating disorder. 

 

/

 

He’s hungry.

 

But he only ate a few hours ago, a full meal for the first time in days. This should be the most full he’s been this week, there’s no need for more. He shouldn’t have eaten that much to begin with, but he finished his plate. He doesn’t need more, he shouldn’t go back to the kitchen. If he eats now he won’t be able to make supper later, and then he’ll go to bed empty and he’ll lie awake thinking about breakfast and it’ll all be for nothing. 

 

He’s hungry.

 

But food is all he can think about. He thinks of the food he can eat now, just a snack he lies to himself. If he starts he won’t stop until he’s ill with it. 

 

He’s hungry.

 

He lies in bed and thinks of the food he won’t eat. 

 

/

 

The treatment center told him to wait two weeks. Said there was a delay, that that’s the soonest they could get him in. He only waited one (of protein drinks dumped down the drain and food thrown out) before they called again. They said they wanted him to start the very next day. They said he had to let them know by that afternoon if he wanted the spot, otherwise he’d have to wait again.

 

He yearned to say no, to ask for more time, to just pull his name off the waiting list and pretend none of this happened. But it’s too late, everyone already knows something is going on. He already went through all the trouble. If he backs out now he might not be able to get treatment again in the future. This could be his only way in. This could be his last chance out.

 

He calls back and says yes, I will start tomorrow please.

 

He fills out the paperwork, listens to the same song on loop the entire time, and he reads the whole guidebook they email him. He even reads all the protocols and schedules. He does everything he thinks he can. He knows it’s not enough. His stomach squirms like live slugs are crawling around his organs when he even thinks of eating dinner. His belly aches when he lays in bed.

 

/

 

When Hitoshi dies he hopes there’s a way that they can extract the meat from his body. Drain his blood and rip out all the muscle and fat, cut out all those unnecessary organs. Sever a lung, a kidney, get rid of his appendix, rip out his tonsils and wisdom teeth. He hopes there’s a way to weigh just his bones and his stomach, maybe his heart too if there’s room. He hopes there’s a way to know how much he would have weighed if he was pretty, if he succeeded in his goals. 

 

He hopes whatever number that it would be would be low enough he could have counted to it when he was small, when this all started. Back when he and his friends argued over who was fatter and who didn’t understand why some kids always went to the bathroom right after lunch. Back when he couldn’t understand counting calories, when it just felt like extra math without the grade to make it count. He hopes it would be enough.

 

/

 

They tell him to eat breakfast before treatment. He eats just enough so that his stomach won’t grumble his lies to everyone he meets.

 

/

 

He wakes up two hours early and still has to scramble at the end to get all his shit together because he wasted the entire time changing outfit to outfit because nothing made him feel not-ugly while also following the surprisingly (to him at least) dress code. 

 

/

 

They asked if he has ever been diagnosed with an eating disorder, as the bolded letters Eating Disorder Recovery Partial Hospitalization Care stares at him from the three inch binder they handed him. Cheeks burning, he whispers, “no.”

 

He’s a fraud. And they all know it. 

 

He doesn’t mean to stare, doesn’t want to make anyone as uncomfortable as he is, but they’re all smaller than him. Pretty and dainty and everything he could have been if he didn’t just give in and start treatment. All they have to do is look at him and know he’s a fraud. 

 

/

 

Hitoshi wants to never eat again.

 

He can’t stop thinking about food.

 

He has cookies in the pantry and he wants them so fucking bad his stomach aches.

 

He aches all over.

 

He shouldn’t have eaten them he’s ruining himself.

 

He needs to get rid of them but he wants more.

 

He’s so hungry.

 

He already fucked up what’s a few more.

 

He’s going to be sick whether he wants to be or not.

 

He hates throwing up.

 

Vomiting is the only way to feel better.

 

He hates this. Hates himself. Hates the stupid fucking cookies and hates his stomach for not handling them, hates himself for not telling his belly to shut the fuck up.

 

He’s so hungry.

 

He looks at pictures online of foods he knows he’d never be able to eat.

 

He never wants to eat again.

 

He wants to eat out the entire fridge.

 

He aches.

 

/

 

For the first time, it hit Hitoshi that he might genuinely have an eating disorder. Because all this time he could tell himself that he’s a fraud, he’s fooling everyone. But he had to sit at breakfast with his peers and stare down at his oatmeal like it wasn’t scary. But it was. And when he refused to eat more than his stupid banana the therapist decided that everyone had to take five ‘recovery bites’ instead of ‘ED bites’ and he couldn’t do it. He could hardly even try the oatmeal let alone eat five heaping spoonfuls.

 

He knows he definitely benefited from being so new because while he had never heard the term before, he certainly knew his dainty little spoonfuls were not Recovery Bites. But he did five and he threw out the rest and pretended like that’s close enough to 50%. 

 

It was hard and it was scary and he was in the same boat as the rest of the people in treatment with him.

 

His staff aren’t stupid. He thinks they should know what an eating disorder looks like. He thinks they should know if he’s lying or not, they already caught him lying about self-harm. 

 

“Do you self-harm,” some staff member he can’t recall the name of asked.

 

“I don’t cut anymore,” he replied. 

 

“You worded that carefully,” she almost smiled, “is there another form of self-harm you do.

 

He shrugged, knowing the answer. “Kinda.” She waited. “Scratching.”

 

“How often?”

 

Now it’s his time to smile, huff out air like it’s amusing, “like every day.” 

 

They move onto the next question.

 

They already know if he’s lying or not, couldn’t they tell if he didn’t have an eating disorder? Wouldn’t they know he’s not worthy of treatment? Surely he couldn’t have fooled everyone. 

 

But his dietitian asked, she asked if he’s ever been diagnosed and he said no. He admitted he’s never been diagnosed so who’s to say it’s even real. 

 

/

 

“Are you sick?” A classmate asks, stopping him from continuing his window shopping. 

 

His brow furrows, already regretting ever stepping foot into the store, “no. Why?” He doesn’t want to know, but he knows if he doesn’t ask he’ll only hate himself more for it.

 

She smiles, an awkward thing, “well, you haven’t been at school. I thought maybe you have cancer.”

 

He sputters, “why would you think that?” He knows he doesn’t look well but he’s not dying.

 

Her smile slips like it’s melting, “well I don’t know why else you would miss so much class.” There’s a hidden question in there, one he won’t answer.

 

“Well I don’t have cancer.”

 

She laughs, “oh I’m so glad,” the smile is back, “I thought maybe you weren’t telling me you’re sick.”

 

He is sick he wants to say. “Okay,” is what he says. “See ya,” and with that he walks away, ignores her indignant spews. He’s not sick the way she thinks he is, the way she can gossip about. But he’s not well. She doesn’t need to know but some cruel part of him wanted to see her face, if she knew the truth. No one will ever know, if he can help it, but part of him just wants to see. 

 

He wants to know their honest opinion, their raw reaction. Whether they could look at him and be like hmm, yeah, I can see it. Or if they’ll say, are you sure? You have too much meat on your bones for that. Or I don’t understand, I’ve seen you eat! I thought you were fine! He just wants to know so badly and yet he desperately hopes he never finds out.

 

/

 

“Am I meeting with you today?” He asks his dietitian as she puts away the group’s eating logs. 100% , 60% , 80% , 40%. He pretends he doesn’t know she will be upset at his score. Not upset in that she will be angry but in the way she knows he can do better. 

 

She pauses, “no, but we can if you want to?” 

 

He nods, forces his eyes away from everyone else’s sheets. “Yeah, I think that’d be good.”

 

She smiles, as big as ever, so much kinder than any other nutrition based person he’s met. “Sounds good!” He thinks she might sound a bit proud, but he’s probably just hallucinating. “Let me just put this binder away and then I’ll come back for you, okay?” He nods his agreement, stewing in the reality of what he just agreed to. The others in his group, three girls, go about their business as he lays his head on his binder and breathes. 

 

His dietitian comes back within a couple minutes, “you ready?” She asks. To his nod she leads him to his favorite room by far. The sensory room aptly named for the wall of marbles you can glide your hands over and the tall lava lamp-eque cylinders bubbling with colorful light. She lets him take the wobbly chair, so he has an outlet for all his restless energy. She takes the regular seat, smiling at him like he’s not a disappointment. “How are you doing?” She asks it like she cares, and he really wants to think she does.

 

“I’m okay,” he answers automatically, “how are you?” 

 

“I’m good,” she indulges. “What did you want to talk about?”

 

Maybe he should have sat in the other seat, he can’t stare at the lights like this. “I dunno.” They both know it's a lie, it’d taste sour if he hadn’t just eaten. 

 

She always says she’s not a therapist, but she could have fooled him with how she takes everything in stride. “Okay, why don’t we talk about breakfast then. How was that for you?”

 

He takes the distraction as the gift it is, allowing himself a few more moments to simmer before he inevitably boils over, “it was okay. I didn’t have a dietary fat.”

 

She nods, “that’s alright. It’s hard to have a fat when you have cereal, but we can just add a fat to your lunch and that can count for breakfast.” She says it like it’s so easy, like he didn’t fail. He nods, thanks her. “What’s on your mind?”

 

He takes a deep breath and wonders if his new therapist would be proud he’s using a coping skill, “you asked me before, if I have an eating disorder. But I’ve never been diagnosed.” They’ve talked about this before, he knows she knows but he still has to say it. She’s the warmest staff member, if he can say it to anyone it’ll be her. “I’m scared it's not real, that I don’t belong here.”

 

“Why wouldn’t you belong here?”

 

He wants to laugh, but that’s too cruel of a sound when she’s looking at him so sweetly. “I don’t look like them.” I don’t look sick. I don’t look like the people on tv. I don’t look like anyone else in the goddamn program. 

 

She gives him that knowing look, “that’s body comparison.” That’s on his collection of body positively cards she gave him, that he will not compare his body to anyone else’s. “And you don’t have to look like them, you’re here just like they are.”

 

“But how do I know it’s real? How do I know if I have an eating disorder if I’ve never been diagnosed?” His voice is ragged and he knows he’s tearing at the seams. “Every time someone wants to meet with me I’m terrified they’re going to tell me that I’m gonna be kicked out of the program for not having an eating disorder.” He didn’t mean to say so much. But he doesn’t regret it when the way she looks at him doesn’t change. No less kindness, no less care.

 

“Oh Hitoshi,” it’s not pitying the way she says it. He doesn’t know the word to describe it. “I’m not a doctor, I can’t diagnose you. But in my opinion, as someone who has been working with you for two weeks and has observed your behavior, I think you have one.” He only gets the relief for a second before she says, “but I can’t give you a diagnosis. Do you think that’s what you need?” He says yes without a second thought. “I can talk to the doctor and see about giving you a proper diagnosis, okay?”

 

“Yes, thank you,” he smiles, weightless. “It’s just been so hard, being scared that I’m a fraud.”

 

She nods, “I think you’ve been so caught up on whether or not you have an eating disorder that you’ve been struggling to have a recovery mindset.” He hadn’t thought of it like that, but once she put words to it it made sense. 

 

“I’ve been in denial for so long that I need help, that I think knowing definitely would help me.” 

 

“I’ll talk to the doctor today and we’ll figure this out. But I want you to know that even if you do not have an eating disorder then you have disordered eating and that does not make you any less valid.” He wants to argue, wants to yell and scream and cry out that he wants more than that. He wants more than just Disordered Eating. He wants to be valid, wants to be real, wants to belong. He wants a word to blame when he’s sick and crying over his toilet. “Whether or not you have an Eating Disorder, your disordered eating still meets the criteria for this program. You still belong in this program and you’re still just as valid.” He doesn’t believe it, but he thinks maybe one day he could. If he doesn’t get a diagnosis that is.

 

/

 

He walks into the doctor's office squeezing the pop-it in his hand like it’s a stress ball. Dr. A is what she liked to be called, as if he can’t make full use of his tongue and say her given name. He’s barely sat down when she is saying, “so I was told you had questions about your diagnoses.” He’s hardly agreed before she asks, “why would you not have an eating disorder?”

 

He sputters, “I- I dunno…”

 

She doesn’t look away even when he does, “the reason no one saw Eating Disorder in your patient portal is because I forgot to put it in there. I’m human.” What. She looks at her computer screen, “your current diagnoses are post traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, borderline personality disorder, and eating disorder . Do you agree?”

 

“Yes,” he mumbles. 

 

“You have an eating disorder, but we already discussed that your primary diagnosis is PTSD. Your trauma is the root of everything, and from there comes the rest of your diagnoses, including your eating disorder.” She explains, “you are in this program to get your nutrition under control so that you can move forward into a trauma program and get into the root of this all. Because as you face your trauma your eating disorder will worsen, so right now you need to get coping skills under your belt so you can combat that. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes,” he whispers, knowing he must sound like an idiot. Knowing she must think he’s a total moron.

 

“Okay good. I just want to be clear, you do have an Eating Disorder. I just can’t classify you as just having Bulimia or Anorexia because insurance lists extremely specific criteria for them and since you have symptoms for both, you are just classified as having an Eating Disorder. That is only because insurance is very picky, but that doesn’t mean you do not have an Eating Disorder. Understand?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

And though he wishes she worded it differently, made it feel less like a confrontation, he thinks he needed it. For someone to spell it out so plainly.

 

/

 

Eating disorders are very sneaky, his dietitian says.

 

He didn’t understand that until he started to come to terms with his PTSD. He started this program, only with three diagnoses, but now he’s added PTSD, ED, BDD, and OCD. And while some part of him always thought he might have them, it soothes something inside him to have the outward validation. And he thinks the doctor is right, that the PTSD is the core of it all. But he thinks it’s also a blanket. That all along he’s thought his trauma was the reason for his eating habits. And there’s definitely days that having food insecurity fucks him up, but he thinks he uses it as a cover. As an excuse to disguise from his body issues. That if all people see is his trauma they won’t realize how much he yearns to be smaller, to be pocket sized and small enough to never be a burden. To never weigh anyone down. That he would trim his fat like a steak if it wouldn’t make him bleed out. 

 

His eating disorder is so sneaky it flew under his own radar. 

 

/

 

He walks into the doctor's office, already knowing he’s in for an ear full. 

 

“How’s your meal plan going?” He knows she knows. But she always has to see if he’s lying. When he first started at the program he didn’t see why the other participants dreaded seeing the doctor. He sees now.

 

He shrugs, staring at the fidget cube in his hand. “Not great.” It’s not a lie.

 

“How has it been today?” The nurse only just pulled him from lunch, she can’t know yet that he failed his exposure. That he refused the entree and the side and the fruit and the milk. But she will, and if he lies it’ll only be worse next time.

 

“I ate breakfast.” That’s true, she’ll know it’s true. “But breakfast didn’t go great.”

 

“Why is that?” She stares.

 

He shrugs again, “I dunno.” He mumbles. He knows the answer.

 

It was an exposure, as they call it, it’s supposed to make him uncomfortable. So that he can habituate, get through the anxiety so that eventually it will get easier. Then why didn’t he habituate to feeling empty? To feeling full? He agreed to it with his dietitian, to try to get just 50%. He only got two bites before he spit it out, getting a big fat 0% for everyone to see. He barely could down his supplement without spitting it up. He’s supposed to have two of the protein drinks to accommodate for refusing an entire meal, but he couldn’t do that either. He’s a failure and he’s just waiting for her to spell it out for him.

 

“Do you want to get better?” Is not what he expected her to say.

 

He chokes on his words, “yeah, that’s why I’m here.” 

 

“ED is not your friend, I know it wants you to think it is, but it is not a very good friend.” That’s why he’s sick, after all. “If you keep up this heavy restrictive behavior you are going to need a higher level of care.” No no no no no- “I still think we can help you, but only if you want to get better.”

 

“I want to.” He does, he does. 

 

“Good,” and with that. She dismisses him. 

 

He flees back to the cafeteria, the known hang out spot for all the ED kids.

 

“How’d it go?” A girl he wants to call his friend asks.

 

“She thinks I could need a higher level of care. She can’t give up on me that quick, I’ve barely been here two weeks,” he’s desperate. He surely looks deranged. Sick.

 

“She can.” And he wishes he never said anything, not to her. She’s the one who only just got off an eating tube. “She can when it’s the eating disorder program.” She knows better than anyone after two months of inpatient and one of residential, now a month of this.

 

And yet some monstrous part of him is happy in a petty way that the doctor wants to send him somewhere more intensive, it’s proof that he needs help. That his eating disorder is real, that he’s real.

 

/

 

Hitoshi is in eating disorder treatment. His doctor told him he has an eating disorder. When he described his experience to another doctor she also said it sounds like he has an eating disorder. His patient portal for all the staff to see says he has an eating disorder. Two different therapist both say he has an eating disorder. His peers in treatment all refer to him having an eating disorder. His dietitian says she thinks in her professional opinion that he has an eating disorder. So why does he still feel like a fraud?

 

Why, after everything he wanted finally happened, does he still feel like a faker? After the diagnosis and the validation from several professionals, does it all feel like a lie? He’s been very intentional about being as honest as he can bare with his staff and treatment team and yet he still feels like a filthy liar. What the fuck is wrong with him?

 

/

 

He didn’t mean to eat so much. He didn’t mean to get so sick. It was habit, he didn’t mean to. He didn’t even think. He didn’t mean to eat until he got sick. He didn’t mean to throw it all up. He didn’t even try to, he promises. He didn’t. He didn’t mean to relapse. He didn’t mean to take five steps backwards. He’s sorry, he didn’t mean to. He’s sorry. He’s sorry.

 

He’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’s sorry he’s sorry he’s sorry he’s sorry he’s sorry he’s sorry he’s sorry-

 

he’s sorry-

 

he’s-

sorry-

he’s-

sorry

sorry-

he’s-

sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry-

 

(i’m sorry)

 

/

 

He hates this. He hates his therapist. He hates treatment. He hates being sick. He hates not feeling sick enough to be in treatment. He hates his therapist always being late. He hates never knowing the schedule. He hates it all.

 

/

 

Hitoshi’s peers were talking about some of their worsts of their eating disorder. One girl was on a feeding tube for months. One was going into literal kidney failure. Another had sodium levels so low that they were at risk for seizures. And then there’s Hitoshi. 

 

/

 

Hitoshi is being sent to the next level up of care. Residential. He failed treatment.

 

/

 

One night Hitoshi went on a doom scrolling tirade watching video after video of sheep being sheared. He couldn’t figure out until the morning why he was so fascinated. Why he even went so far to save the videos of the sheep’s faces being shaved clean.

 

He thinks it’s because of the wool blind sheep. The ones whose body betrayed them, their wool growing so long and thick they no longer are able to see through the mass. He wonders if they know what’s happening, that it can all be fixed with a shearing. Or if they think they are destined to be forever blind. He wonders if they know it’s their body doing this to them, forcing them to grow wool so long they become blind again and again. He wonders if they learn how to cope. If they expect it to happen.

 

He hopes their coats stay short awhile longer. 

 

/

 

Overall, he lasted longer in his partial program than he thought he would. He wasn’t necessarily kicked out, but he also didn’t have a choice even if they said residential has to be consensual. Unlike inpatient, which he isn’t sick enough to go to. He should feel lucky that he didn’t get sent straight to the top of the food pyramid. He wonders if his blood tastes as bitter as he feels, if his flesh is rotten just underneath the paleness. 

 

He doesn’t cry. Not when neither of his foster parents can go with him. He doesn’t cry when the heroes have to go save people more deserving than he. If his therapist could hear him now, she would ask him if feelings are always fact? If feeling so goddamn alone and betrayed really means he’s being given up on by the first caregivers to ever fucking care about him? He pretends he doesn’t know about schemas and thought challenging and pretends that all his feelings are his truth and that his reality is as fucking pathetic as he feels. He doesn’t cry, even when he doesn’t understand what the medical transportation person assigned to drive him the three hours to the facility is saying to him. He doesn’t cry when they have to take him to the nearest emergency room to get his medical clearance. He doesn’t cry even after he is prodded at like a cow and poked like a pin cushion. He doesn’t cry when he has to curl up on the stiff hospital bed for hours while they analyze his blood work. He doesn’t cry when he’s finally released and has to go immediately to meet with the admissions lady. He doesn’t cry, even when he has to sit alone next to his pile of shit and fill out paperwork. He doesn’t cry when people look at him and his suitcase and pillow and backpack and he brought too much stuff- it’s too much- he’s too much-

 

The lady is nice. She has the same name as his now third therapist in the last year and that’s far more confusing than she should be. He wishes he could say he processed any of the words she said. He nodded when seemingly appropriate, smiled back at her, even forced a laugh when she said something supposedly amusing. He got all checked in. Eating Disorder Residential Center. He made it to the higher level of care.

 

Some sick part of him is relieved at the validation, that he’s finally sick enough. So long as he’s not kicked out of here, maybe he really does have an eating disorder. He does not cry, not the first night. Or the first week. It takes until the first discharge of one of the other fifteen residents for him to finally break. He cries until he throws up and he cries some more. He’s never felt sicker.

Notes:

This fic is years in the making. I started writing it before I was sent to ED treatment, and way before I even knew I have an eating disorder. It’s been the closest I’ve gotten to a diary through my recovery process. While I think I would really benefit about writing my own residential experience and showing more of the recovery side of things for Hitoshi, I’m not ready yet. I hope to make this into a series and be able to log it as I continue to recover.

Thank you for reading