Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

family therapy

** thursday October 7th 2032**

-ellies pov- 

I've gotten out of bed and is getting ready for the day. Mom had to go with me in the bathroom but now I can get dressed alone while she gets dressed too. It sucks that I can't be in my bathroom on my own, but I guess I need to earn their trust back. But I am going to ask the therapist today to get to do be in there on my own. I don't have much privacy at all anymore so I just want to have one place where I can close the door and do my business on my own. It's not like there is anything left in there that I can hurt myself with anyway, mom took everything away from me. 

I am wearing a pair of high waist jeans and a burgundy knit sweater my mom got me, but I feel like I'm a stranger in my own body. Looking in the mirror I pinch my stomach and see how much fat there is, and it makes me disgusted to see that there is something to grab onto. 

Turning to the side I pull up my shirt and look at how much my stomach sticks out. They say it's because I'm bloated but I don't believe them, they are forcing me to get fat and I hate them for it. No one gets what it's like to be me. No one gets what it's like to be a 12-year-old in 2032 with all the beauty standards the world throws at us. 

The fact that my mom had an eating disorder too but looks so pretty now gives me slight hope that I won't look like a whale when I reach the weight they want me to be. I find it stupid that they have even gotten a weight I need to reach because I'm perfectly fine the way I am. They are forcing me to reach BMI 20 which is aperently normal. According to my research I should at least be able to stop at 17,5 but that's not okay according to the doctors because that's the start of the lower range of normal, not the normal range. 

People don't get that when you see the number on the scale go down and the inches around your waist get smaller it's like a drug you get addicted too. I'm sure it's the same feeling anyone that is addicted to anything get. When I started, I just couldn't make myself stop and before I knew it, I was so deep in it that there was no way out and no way to tell anyone. There were several times I wanted to tell my mom what I was feeling, but I just couldn't get the words out. 

How do you tell your mom that you hate what you see in the mirror when you are ten years old? That was when it really started and its only gotten worse, so I decided to do something about it and reduce my calories. It seemed like the rational solution at that point in time. To me it just made sense to take back the control of what I looked like. 

"Ellie you're beautiful. What you're seeing in the mirror is playing tricks on your brain. You're so beautiful and you have been that since the day you were born" my mom comes into my room, and I pull my shirt back down. 

"i'm not. I've got fat rolls and it's disgusting" I say and scrunch my nose in disgust. I can't believe they are making me look like this and I need to gain even more weight. 

"i wouldn't lie to you, ever. There is nothing about you I don't like. You're beautiful on the outside and the inside. The mirror won't give you confirmation on that because your mind is going to find any way to tear yourself down" she tells me and pull me into a hug. 

I love the hugs my mom gives me; she gives the best hugs ever. They are so warm and cozy, and she smells like strawberries from her bodywash. There is nothing about the way my mom looks that I don't like. "Do you like what you see in the mirror?" I ask her and she sighs. 

"Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Being a girl or a woman is hard when it comes to stuff like that. But when I don't like a certain part of how I look I try to make myself say one thing about myself that I like. Sometimes it's my hair or my eyes or how I like the color because of the way it looks with the color of my skin"