My Reason To Live

4

Warnings:
-Mentions death family member
-Eating disorder behaviour
-Mentions of murder
-Body dysmorphia

George's POV

I was looking on the site for hours on end. I read all the tips, read through the past chat conversations and looked at all the diets I could follow.

I had been trying to lose weight before, but it never seemed to work out. I always lost a bit, but then ended up gaining it again. I tried to exercise, skip meals, but I had to eat at dinner and ate as long as I was full.

Eventually I tried throwing up too, but I didn't manage to do so. I gave up after ten tries and lost motivation to lose weight. I felt like a disappointment and failure and ended up trying again a few weeks later. I tried to be stricter, but when I noticed I barely lost weight, I gave up again.

Now I really wanted to start. I saw multiple coaches on that site and I was planning on texting one. I also typed a message where I included my number and asked people to text me if they wanted to help me.

I sighed as I put my phone down while waiting for some of the responses. It was late already, it was dark in my room and only the small lamp next to my bed lit up the room.

Would I finally get help? I was going to do everything to be thin, I was so hopeless after all these attempts. I hated my body, I hated myself. I needed to do everything to lose weight as fast as possible and I was going to listen to whatever the coaches told me to do.

I was down to skip classes to exercise, I was down to throw up or to starve myself for days. I really felt hopeless and I needed to lose weight to feel better about myself.

I kept thinking while I looked at the wall in front of me. The wall was light blue, my favourite and the only colour I could see. Though, I never liked the colour much anymore after my mum passed away. She painted my walls and it always brought up her face.

I had never recovered from her death. My mother was a woman who lived her life to the max. She was sweet to everyone, there was not a chance of her ever hurting someone. On the other hand, she was always honest, but brought it in such a way that everyone accepted her feedback.

When someone wore a dress which was a bit too small, she politely told them with a big smile, saying something like: "you look great in that dress, but maybe this one will make you feel a bit more comfortable."

Then the client smiled and nodded as an agreement. Since my mother worked in a store, she was always really helpful and most people used to ask for her help once they were trying to buy something.

But then suddenly everything changed when my mother went to an event with her best friend. She had been looking forward to the day of her going there to party and be with friends, but it didn't seem to be as funny as they thought.

TW mentions murder/death

When they were there for only thirty minutes, the whole event got ruined. A psychopathic idiot brought a gun and shot fifty of the two hundred people. Twenty died, ten never fully recovered and the other twenty had to recover for years. Everyone else was traumatised for the rest of their lives, but I wished my mother was just traumatised, but no. My mother got shot and died instantly.

I regretted every single thing I had done that day. She asked me to come with her to the event and I wished I did. I wished I could have been shot instead of my mother. I had never loved my life much anyway, I had always been insecure and anxious and my mother was happy and spontaneous.

TW over

The pain was crushing my body and I grabbed my phone to see if anyone replied as I noticed I had been thinking and stressing for an hour at least. I needed some sort of distraction since I knew I would just be crying for the rest of the night otherwise. It wouldn't be the first time that that happened.

Apparently the site I visited was very well known and I had a reply back from four coaches who were down to help me. They told me something about themselves, but also said that they weren't as strict because they didn't want to hurt people.

The fourth message I opened seemed better. He introduced himself as an eighteen year old boy who was really serious and strict. He told me he would have to punish me if I didn't listen so it made me more motivated to listen to everything he told me.

He said that he had years of experience and helped hundreds of people, showing me some of the weight loss progress. I got really jealous of those people and sent him a message back.

You
Hi! I'm George, thank you for texting back. I'm sixteen, but almost seventeen and I'm trying to lose weight since I'm actually really fat. I've tried before, but I always end up losing motivation.

I named him "coach" in my contacts and saw he started typing again.

Coach
Okay good, I won't be nice with you. What's your height and weight? Also measure your waist, arms, legs, hips and neck.

You
I usually use centimetres and kilos so I will look up how tall I am and how much I weigh.

Coach
Ok

I quickly looked it up and texted him back.

You
I'm around 172 which is 5,8 feet and I weigh 59 kilos which is 130 pounds.

Coach
You're absolutely disgusting, it's making me sick. Are you promising me to do everything I say so I can make you thin? If you promise me to listen to every single thing I say, I promise I will make you beautiful and thin.

You
I promise, I really want to be thin so I will listen to everything you tell me to.

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