Jennifer Jareau Imagines

What If It Gets Really Bad? ⚠️

⚠️ EATING DISORDER ⚠️

I huffed as I finished my piece of pizza. "I feel like I'm going to throw up." I groaned.

"Don't." JJ told me.

"Damn." I said, leaning back on the couch. I tried to focus on the movie we were watching but the more I thought about the food I had eaten and what was in it and all the calories I actually felt like I was about to throw up. "JJ, I'm actually going to throw up." I said in a shaky voice before rushing to the bathroom. She ran behind me and pulled my hair back before a vomited twice. "That was fun." I said after burping.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah." I rinsed my mouth out and then grabbed my toothbrush.

"Did you eat too much?"

"No, I only ate two pieces." She leaned against the counter on her back, crossing her arms. "What?"

"You can talk to me." She said softly.

"It's not that." I told her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." She nodded and looked down at the ground. Once I spit out my toothpaste and wiped my mouth off I pulled her in for a hug. It looked like she needed it and I needed it too.

The next day the whole team was meeting up in the break room to have lunch together. I really tried to pick something to eat, but nothing sounded good and the thought of eating was making me anxious and I didn't need any more anxiety that this job was already giving me. So I sat down next to JJ with nothing but my water. Once I felt her staring at me I looked over at her. "What?"

"Why aren't you eating?"

"It's not a big deal, it's just one meal." I whispered.

"Honey." Her voice dropped and her face looked so sad. "You know-"

"Can we not do this right now? I know you're worried but just...just give me two weeks and if I'm feeling worse, I'll tell you and I'll get some help, ok?" She nodded, blinking back the tears that were in her eyes. I wanted to pull her in for a tight hug and promise that I'd be ok and that it wasn't coming back but that wasn't something that I could promise.

A little over a week had passed and I brought my water to lunch again. I sat down next to JJ and right as I sat down my leg started bouncing. She put her hand on my leg and caressed it. After a couple minutes I put my hand over hers and squeezed it, making eye contact with her before walking to her office.

She came in a few seconds after me. "What's wrong?" She walked over to me and studied my face.

"It's back." I told her. She opened her mouth to say something to comfort me but I started to ramble. "It's like I can't even look at food. If I look at it, my brain starts to calculate all these percentages and how long it's gonna take me to gain a certain amount of weight and I know this is going to sound really dumb but now I regret majoring in math because then I wouldn't be so good at math and I wouldn't be able to calculate all of this and I wouldn't be so scared about it." I paused to take a breath.

"It's going to be ok-"

"But it's not. Because I don't know why I hate my body so much. It's not even like actively hate it. My brain hates it but I don't, I feel like I'm supposed to be skinnier, healthier but I know that's bad but that's also what I need to be-"

"It's going to be ok." She cut me off with a kiss. "You're gonna be ok."

"But what if I'm not." She shook her head.

"You will be."

"What if it gets really bad?"

"Hey, look at me." Her voice was soft but serious and our faces were inches apart. "If it gets really bad we will get you the help you need. It's all going to end up ok. You have me right here next to you, I'm a shoulder to lean on, always. You have so many friends that just want you to be happy and healthy-"

"But they don't know about this."

"That doesn't matter. Because if they did you know what they'd want." She kissed my forehead. "You're going to be ok." I gave her a small nod and stared down at the floor. "Do you need anything right now? Do you need to talk? A hug? Something to get your mind off of it?"

"I don't know. I just don't understand why it's back." I walked back to her couch and sighed as my back flopped against it. I chuckled softly as a tear fell down my cheek. I wiped it away. "And now I'm crying."

"It's ok to cry." She sat down next to me. Her presence was comforting but I could tell she was struggling too. This was hard for her as well. She hated seeing me like this. She grabbed my hand and we sat in silence for ten minutes.

"Should I take time off work?"

"If you think you need to."

"I don't want it to get really bad again, and I don't think that's going to happen if working on my mental health and doing this job." She nodded. "So I think I should."

"I'll work from home." I turned to look at her.

"Thank you." A tear slid down my cheek and she wiped it away.

"Of course." She pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. "It's going to be ok."