Mikey's ED

The Start of it All

"Hey, Mikey? Aren't you going to eat?" Raph questioned. I looked up from my full bowl of spaghetti that sat in front of me and made eye contact with Raph for a split second to hide my panic.

"What? Dude, what do you mean? I'm eating..." I smiled at him, gesturing to my bowl and fork in my hand. Raph only frowned at that.

"It's been five minutes bro. And normally you're on your second bowl by now... What, are you sick, or something?" This got our other brother's attention as they finished their separate conversation.

"Mikey's sick?" Donnie asked, putting his fork down. Before I can think of how to respond, Donnie is already standing next to me with a hand placed on my forehead. I shrugged him off, earning a concerned and frustrated look from the purple banded brother.

"I'm completely fine dudes! Really! I just..." I looked down at my food once again and grimaced. "I just ate earlier.."

"What do you mean you ate earlier?" Leo then questioned, before stuffing his mouth full of spaghetti, keeping his eyes on me.

"Um, it means I ate earlier, Leo. Geez, and you thought I was dumb..." I said playfully. Leo rolled his eyes.

"No, I mean. When and what did you eat?"

At this point Donnie went and sat back down, clearly bored of this conversation as he continued to eat his food. Raph was completely done and was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, watching me. Leo is a couple of bites away from being done himself.

"When I was making the food, duh! We were so busy fighting the foot earlier, that we didn't eat breakfast or lunch! And I forgot to bring any snacks! You know that's too long for me dudes! I couldn't wait any longer, I thought I was going to die!"

Raph chuckled and shook his head, getting up from his seat and grabbing his bowl. He gave me a quick head rub before he placed the bowl in the sink and walked off toward the living room.

"Okay, well. You don't have to eat if you already have then. If you're full you can just put it in the fridge for later." I smiled at him and quickly got up from my seat, and to the counter to grab some Saran wrap. I wrapped the bowl and put it in the fridge and headed off towards my room. Leo said he'd take care of the dishes for today, and I don't feel like watching Raph's tv show with him today. Not that I hate wrestling or anything, but watching it constantly gets kind of boring.

I walked into my room and closed the door behind me before leaning against it with a loud thump. My eyes shut tightly as I tried to ignore the headache forming and the way my stomach was begging for food. Maybe I should go back and eat. Even just a little bit. I'm sure that would be fine, right?

Slowly, I opened my eyes and hesitantly look over at the mirror on the other side of the room. I took a couple steps closer and frowned. I brought my hands up to my checks and eventually worked down my body, touching my neck, plastron, arms, and legs. I hated the way my cheeks squished under my fingers. The way my arms and legs flapped around when I touched them. The way my plastron wasn't as pronounced as I wished...

My brothers don't have this problem. They are pretty much pure muscle. So why am I the only one that still has all this baby fat? Or at least, that's what my bros called it. I think that's just their way of telling me I'm bigger than them without trying to be mean... Raph makes fun of the portions I eat sometimes, saying how I'm 'training to become a hippo rather than a ninja', or that I'm going to 'turn into that violet girl off of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after she eats that gum' if I keep eating as much as I do. Except I'll be green instead of purple. The other two and even Splinter would make fun of it as well.

At first, I thought it was kind of funny! Just brotherly bonding stuff, you know? I would even call Raph a bloated buffalo, knowing he knew it was a joke. But then our enemies started commenting on my weight as well. Saying how I was the 'chubby' one of the turtles. But they never mentioned anyone else's weight. And I guess after a while it started getting to my head.

A few weeks ago during one of our fights, Tiger Claw asked me if I would still be able to fit in my shell being so big, and it made me feel sick. Especially since I'm not even that big. Or, I thought so anyway...

But when I got home I stared at the mirror for hours, inspecting everything about my body, and began to think that maybe they were right.. Maybe I have let myself go a little too much...

So then I started looking up 'how to get skinny fast' on the internet and after some research I found some diet thing called fasting. It's where you stop eating for a certain amount of time, normally for religious reasons. There are many ways to do it so I decided to try it. At first, I chose to cut out only lunch, and only eat breakfast and dinner. But I realized quickly that lunch wasn't a problem since we are normally busy around that time and have to miss it anyways. And so, I cut out breakfast as well.

It was pretty much torture at first. But I got used to it quickly enough. Eventually, I just stopped feeling hungry at all until dinner. But it wasn't enough. After a whole four weeks, I barely lost anything. So today, I've decided I'm not going to eat anything at all. Breakfast and lunch were easy of course, already being a part of my routine, but skipping dinner is turning out to be really painful.

I'll get used to it. I did before, I will again. It will just take a couple of days to get used to, but I can do this. Prying my eyes off the mirror I quickly took my gear and mask off, dropping them carelessly on the floor, and layed in bed in a fetal position. I figured if I went to sleep now, I wouldn't feel hungry anymore. It's a lot earlier than when I normally go to bed so it did feel a little weird going to bed right after dinner.

I grabbed my T-phone from my nightstand and sent a quick text to the 'bros' group chat, telling them I'm going to bed early due to a headache. Before I got a response, I quickly put my T-phone on silent and plugged it in to charge overnight. I then went to Spotify and hit shuffle on my 'liked' playlist and turned the volume on its lowest setting before setting it down and wrapping myself up in the blankets. I found that I can sleep better with a little bit of background noise as it gives me a little bit of comfort for some reason. I bet Donnie might have an answer to that. Maybe I should ask him?

And slowly, I fall asleep.