It’s quite interesting actually. To feel the same exact way over and over again, knowing exactly what is going to happen and when, well aware of what damage you’re doing, but all of this doesn’t matter; you’re still not capable of stopping. When it has got its grip on you it’s not going to let go by its own, you have to make it let go. I’m just not strong enough to do that.


I decided on some Danish pastries, just to remind myself of my former work at the gas station in Denmark and that way making me feel even worse about myself than I was already feeling. Three cinnamon rolls, some chocolate cakes, a few funky looking cream cakes or something, two sausage rolls and a packet of butter to make it all more vomiting and easier to get up again, this way I would have enough for two binges.



It’s funny the way it all gets systematically planned. Counting how much time I had in total before the girls would get home and then taking time to make sure that you don’t eat for more than ten minutes so that you can get it up before the fifteen minute mark, cause then your body would start absorbing all the calories.

And all this time you feel like all your sense and rational thinking mind is leaving your body. During the whole act I always look at myself from outside thinking how ridiculous this is and desperately trying to stop myself from keep doing it, but it’s all a waste of time, cause the body does what it wants to, it’s only left with all the bad and negative thoughts that are forcing it to punish itself over and over again.


You’d think that after all this time, when I’d been doing quite all right without binging and being with a guy like Niall, who constantly made me feel amazing and respected and having all these truly great friends would’ve made me feel appreciated enough to not go back and be the bulimic that I hated so much. I’d even lost a lot of weight, I thought that that would make me feel a bit better about the way I looked, but no. Not even that was enough to stop this horrible habit of mine.


Cause here’s how it goes:

It feels like you are two persons at once. The person that you let other people meet and see – this one is mostly a happy, strong and funny girl that knows exactly what to do and say and when.
And then there’s the other side that you’d be damned to show to anyone but yourself – this one is negative, self-harming, evil, insecure and sad all the time. And it’s also the one that takes over whenever nobody is looking.
This is probably something that most people know about and experience themselves, the only difference between bulimics and the rest is that we haven’t got the same strength to keep that bad side away as much. Our bad side has become too strong.




I was just finishing my second binge sitting on my sore knees at the toilet when I was interrupted by the door opening.


What the fuck?! Aida and Em weren’t supposed to be home already! Oh God no, I couldn’t let them see this, that I was doing this terrible thing in our own home. Shit, shit shit!


I quickly dried off my mouth catching myself thinking that luckily I’d gotten it all up before I had to stop. I brushed my teeth and hurried outside to clean up, hoping that no one would have seen anything.

But I was immediately stopped by a chest on the way out of the toilet.


“What the…” I said and looked up to see Harry standing right in front of me. “Harry! Oh God, you scared me! What are you doing here?!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I just…” he began while looking at me a bit funny since I’d probably closed the door to the toilet a bit too fast behind me, “I came to pick up some clothes for Aida, I’m taking her out tonight and she couldn’t get off from work early enough to get home at first and get ready and I had the time left anyway.”

“How did you get in?” I asked still feeling my heart beating hard and my palms sweat heavily.

“She borrowed me her key,” he explained. “Were you busy?”

“No, I just… just got home, you know. You can just go inside her room and get the clothes then,” I said cursing myself from speaking so quickly.

“Oh. Okay, I’ll do that. Is everything all right?” he asked concerned probably noticing my uncomfortable face expression.

“Yeah, everything’s great!” I squealed while walking in to the kitchen to clean up by throwing everything in to the dustbin and seal it. I then decided to make Harry less suspicious by going in to Aida’s room and chat with him.



“So what clothes did she want you to get?” I asked him as he was going through some of it in her wardrobe.

“I don’t know, she said that I could pick anything she would look good in. I don’t know what she was thinking when she trusted me with this,” he mumbled looking incredibly concentrated.

“What? You have great sense of style, Harry, I’m sure that she will like anything you pick,” I tried to charm him. “Where are you going out?”

“My favorite Chinese place, so it’s just a bit relaxed, but a bit stylish at the same time. Don’t tell her though, it’s supposed to be a surprise,” he told me.

“So this is the official date that all you guys take your girlfriends when it has gotten serious?” I winked.

“Yeah, you could say so. It kind of… calms down the rumors a bit,” he smiled.



We were quiet for a bit as he put some kind of black tight top with closed neck, a pair of very tight high waisted denim jeans and some pointy red stilettos in to a plastic bag that he’d brought.


“Wow, she's gonna look damn fine, gurl!” I said in my best impression of Aida’s famous ghetto accent, which made him laugh but not for very long, cause suddenly he looked at me with a serious glance in his emerald green eyes.

“Maja, I understand if you want to keep this for yourself, I’m not exactly the one closest to you. But you should definitely know that I’m here for you. You’re my friend. And I care about you,” he said as I felt the sweat returning, this time not only to my palms but also underneath my hair and arms.

“Harry, I…” I stumbled as I struggled with all my force to keep the tears away. “It’s not the way you think it is…”

“I don’t think it is a certain way,” he just said. “I’m actually not even surprised.”

“Is it that obvious?” I mumbled making my hands go white from squeezing them together tightly.

“It’s obvious that you are a strong and intelligent person that at first might come off like everything’s easy for you. But it’s also very bigoted to think that that’s the only way you are,” he said.


His words made my eyes overflow, no one had ever spoken to me about this in the way that he did. He’d instantly read my mind better than I had ever done it myself and so I let out a huge sob as I turned away hiding my face in my sweaty hands.

Harry put down the bag with clothes and pulled me in to his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I didn’t mean for you to see this, I didn’t think anybody would be here, I feel so embarrassed.”

“Don’t. Even though that’s easy for me to say.”

“It’s horrible and disgusting to do what I do. But I just can’t stop, I’m so terrible.”

“Please stop saying that.” He rubbed my back and breathed deep in to my hair, which all actually made me feel a bit calmer even though I was still fighting with the thought of what shocked and disappointed things Harry might think about me now. “Let’s go make us some tea,” he suddenly said and pulled me towards the kitchen.

“Harry, you don’t have to…” I began but he didn’t take my hesitation for an answer.

“I have plenty of time, before I have to leave,” he said looking straight in to my eyes trying to convince me about his honesty.


And so we sat down in the kitchen.

“Do the girls know?” he asked handing me a warm cup as he sat down in front of me.

I nodded. “Yeah, they know. I told them not very long after it started.”

“And when was that?” he then asked but hurried to add: “You don’t have to tell me all this if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “Some people come off more reliable than others, you seem all right.”

“Well thank you,” he smiled still waiting for my answer. I took a deep breath and decided to tell him.

“It started about… two and a half years ago. Uhm… It was right before prom for us graduation students. And I… had wanted to lose weight to look pretty on that special day. But it hadn’t exactly worked out for me and so I became kind of desperate. I was working at a gas station where there were always loads of different things tempting me all the time, I could kill myself every time I took a bite of something wrong. And so… I found a way to regret what I did. And once you’ve done it the first time you then know that you are capable of doing it again. So it became more and more often, sometimes up to five or ten times a day, I would spend entire days during my summer holiday doing just that when nobody would see it.

After about six months my mum had me go see a psychologist once a week and she helped me finding out why I might be doing this. I just… haven’t found the strength to stop it yet. And I absolutely hate myself for that.”


Harry’s face expression didn’t change at all through my sad story, he just looked in to my eyes and brushed my hand on the table calmingly.

“What might be the reason?” he just asked.


I hesitated knowing that the answer to that was actually a whole different conversation, I didn’t know whether I would want to tell him that one as well. I hadn’t even told Aida or Em properly yet.

“Uhm… It’s… I was really stressed out during my entire last year at high school, because of you know… school, grades, my music, the lack of weight loss and so on. And that stress along with… a sort of… depression… just made it all too much for me.”

He waited a few seconds before asking his next question: “What kind of depression?”

“Uhm… Not like… the usual one that you always picture where people are not at all capable of doing anything and stuff, just… A very incarnate hate and disgusted feeling about the way I look. And the way I am. Even though I’ve always been one of those people with loads of friends around me a very busy schedule, I just… hate myself. And that mostly reflects when I’m alone where there’s no one to convince me about the opposite. I can’t do anything about it, I just feel like punishing myself for simply being the person that I am.”

“Wauw. It’s kind of interesting to listen to…” he said.

“That’s funny. That’s exactly what Aida always use to say when I tell her about this,” I smiled and so did he.

“Then what do you think when like… Niall tells you that you are beautiful or something like that?” he asked.

“I think he must be crazy,” I immediately answered. “Like truly crazy. And then I just make a joke out of what he says. Poor boy actually.”

I was really grateful that Harry laughed brightening up the entire mood of the room that my sad story had brought to it.

“So…” he then began, “Do you have any idea why you might think this way about yourself?”


This was the things I didn’t know whether I would tell him about or not.

“I… I would like to… keep that to myself. At least for now,” I said.

He nodded smiling back to me. “I understand.”


We sat across from each other for a few minutes just sipping at our hot tea and without saying anything.


“I’m sorry you had to find out about all this. This way,” I mumbled at some time.

“That’s all right,” he replied. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. You will probably tell the people you want to tell whenever you feel safe enough around them, it can’t be easy to expose yourself this way.”

“You’re… a really good friend, Harry.” I looked in to his eyes, they made me feel calm and accepted, I knew he wouldn’t judge me, ever. He would never cut me off in any way or get scared of what I might had to reveal.

“Can I… help you in any way? Are you talking to a psychologist here in London or something?” he asked but I shook my head.

“I’ve called one a few times though, she didn’t pick up and haven’t called me back,” I answered.

“Call her again now,” he instantly said pulling out his phone. “Psychologists in England can be quite difficult to get an appointment with, there aren’t much of them.”

“I can tell.”


I took his phone and dialed the number to Lena Henderson, which was the name that I’d gotten. And for some reason a secretary finally picked up this time.



Ten minutes later I had an appointment Wednesday afternoon at four o’clock.

“I’ll drive you,” Harry said.

“No, you don’t have to do that…” I objected but he just said:

“That’s the least I can do! I want to help, this way I might be able to make it just a bit easier for you.”


There was no way that he would change his mind, I could tell that by the determination in his voice.


“Now, you better go and pick up ma nigga for that date then!” I smiled and stood up. “You don’t want to be late.”

“I guess you’re right,” he said and went in to Aida’s room to get her clothes and then meeting me at the door.

“I’m glad you told me all this,” he breathed while hugging me tightly. “It means a lot to me.”

“Yeah, me too,” I replied. “Have a nice evening.”

He walked down the stairs while smiling back at me.


Maybe being me wasn’t so bad after all, I thought at that moment.

Notes

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