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Jun 5, 2017 18:59:11 GMT -5
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Post by ☾ Cʀᴇsᴄᴇɴᴛ ☽ on Jun 5, 2017 18:59:11 GMT -5
*TRIGGER WARNING*
Jocasta wanted to be perfect.
She would never be enough, and that fact killed her. She could not see that no one else could achieve perfection either. In her dreams, she watched as her clan laughed at her failures, and she was afraid.
She could not see that she was enough, and that was her demise.
She pushed her prayers to the spirits constantly, day and night. She often offered herself to them, baring herself to them like a lamb to the slaughter. She received no reply.
I’m not good enough for them, she thought bitterly.
When the voice came, it was a kind, lilting melody floating through Jocasta’s very veins, awakening to revival. She felt doused in peace, in serenity, in purpose. The voice whispered sweet promises in her ear. It gave her a simple goal.
To love yourself, you must first love your body, it admonished calmly. Your body is your temple, your life.
Jocasta clung onto the stability of her newfound mindset, like a raft set adrift in her sea of blood and fiery doom and self-loathing. Before she had been drowning in herself. Now she felt alive.
My body is my temple, my life. The calming mantra floated through her consciousness day after day, for it was all she could think about. My body. Life. She cherished it, believed it. It made her happy.
A rabbit for her morning meal became a vole and then a small mouse. She found her hunger trickling away into nothingness. Soon, the mouse became nothing and her evening meal started to shrink as well.
Jocasta didn’t see anything wrong with what she was doing.
Her mother noticed.
“Jocasta, don’t you want something?” Ada coaxed.
“I’m fine.”
Good job. You’re not hungry, see? You don’t need anything.
When the Goddess, as she began to think of it, spoke she felt an irresistible sense of calm sweep over her, washing away her fears in a soul-numbing feeling of emptiness. She was hungry, but the serene void inside grew as she ate less, devouring everything else.
Extra fat sitting around her midsection melted away easily, and she found she had more energy. Her family noticed her newfound sense of purpose and encouraged her.
“You’re so happy nowadays! I’m so glad you’re okay now.” Her father Minos purred, and he was both right and wrong. Jocasta was happy, but she was not okay.
Some part of her pushed back. Eat something, you’re hungry, it begged. A plump, juicy rabbit sat perched on the top of the pile, savory scarlet dribbling down its neck and Jocasta couldn’t help but stare at the rich, fatty skin.
She gave in, devouring it in several bites, and the burst of nourishment dancing deliciously in her mouth soothed her for a moment. See, wasn’t that delicious?
Jocasta did not get a chance to consider it.
You lazy, fat cow! How could you? The Goddess’ once-sweet voice curled around her, constricting her with shame. You have no self-control. Perhaps I should just give up on you.
No, please, I’m sorry. Please, she begged. Guilt swamped her, crawling slowly into her and twining with panic to destroy her conscience.
If you want me to help you be happy, you need to make up for it.
So make up for it she did. Jocasta ran. She ran until her world was white with light and her heart could have beat in time with a hummingbird’s wings. She ran until her legs burned with fierce shame and she wanted to stop but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, though she wanted to.
Please, let me stop.
No, further.
Please!
She ran until she had to stop, she simply couldn’t go on. The world spun around her in a whirlwind, and she vomited, the half-digested meal slithering up her throat and forcing itself out of her opened maw. With the bitter taste in her mouth, she listened at the Goddess spoke again, a loyal subject to the end.
From now on, you must be better. Always listen to me.
I will.
Do you promise?
I promise.
She spent the rest of the day hunting, staring down at prey as it died beneath her paws. Her stomach no longer begged at the sight of food but merely sat silent, shrinking as it was ignored.
Jocasta returned to camp, carrying her prey with difficulty. She threw it onto the fresh-kill pile and turned away, her stomach churning.
You can skip dinner tonight, can’t you?
I guess.
Good.
She saw the looks she got as she stumbled back to her nest, head still pounding and her mouth as dry as leaves blanketing the ground in the fall. She felt embarrassment flooding through her as they turned to whisper to one another about where she had been.
Don’t look at them. Only I understand.
The Goddess demanded more of Jocasta every day. Her dinner from that day onwards was nothing but a few bites — any more and Jocasta would hear that furious whisper grating on her, building until it was a scream echoing throughout her body.
Every morning she headed out on her runs, paws pounding the well-worn earth in a monotonous cycle. When her lungs flickered with fire and it felt as if stones had crushed her skull, the Goddess allowed Jocasta to slow to a walk, and then it was time to hunt.
Every day Jocasta spent her waking hours fantasizing about food, about feeding others. As she felt the lifeblood trickle out of prey and watched as their hearts slowed to a stop beneath her paws she dreamed of tasting it all, but she knew she could not.
She hunted for hours upon hours, trekking laboriously through the territory, her legs as weak as willow branches but her resolve as strong as stone. She doled it out generously, watching other eat with greedy, hungry eyes.
After all, if she could not eat, she could watch others do the very thing she could not.
They are weak, the Goddess whispered.
Weight dripped off her like icicles underneath the sun, taking fat and muscle and her joy. Her smile all but disappeared. It was replaced by a thin replica meant to fool others into thinking she was fine.
Her shoulder bones jutted like jagged wings, seconds away from ripping free of her skin. Every morning she counted her ribs. She became little more than a walking skeleton, a stick capable of being blown away from the wind.
She felt as if ice was frosting the blood in her veins, chilling her to the very core.
Her mind began to slow.
“Hey, Jocasta, do you remember if anyone has brought prey to the Nursery today?”
Jocasta’s head was fuzzy, her thoughts slow like molasses. Only the Goddess’ voice was clear anymore; a thick fog obscured the rest. She shrugged, not even glancing up to see who had asked as she sat counting the pieces of prey for the umpteenth time that day. “I-I can’t remember,” she muttered.
It was too much effort to think. Others watched as she withered away, concerned but unsure how to help.
“Darling, eat something,” Ada begged, her eyes roving over her daughter’s skinny form.
I want to.
You cannot, the Goddess ordered, her voice hard.
What she wanted to say: "I’m starving, mother. I want to eat this prey so badly but I can’t. I’m afraid. I don’t know what will happen if I do and this voice is telling me no. I can’t. Help. Please. I don’t know what to do.
"
What she said: “I ate earlier.”
The Goddess was no longer so much of a friend as a jailer, trapping her inside her body with a sort of insidious addiction. Those around her watched, and they saw that she was choosing her own demise. She wasn’t though; no one realized that she was no longer controlling herself, but an unbreakable habit binding her in chains of metal and leaving her to sink in an ocean of hunger.
Jocasta was no longer hungry; her body had given up on being fed. However, she was starving, her body crying out for fuel it never received, for often she went days without eating. When she did, the little voice would dig its claws into her mind and demand retribution for the terrible sin.
Eating is weakness. You must make it up to me.
So Jocasta ate nothing and she dwindled, dwindled away into a shell of herself, for it was an addiction and yet she thought it wasn’t, for she reasoned, How can one be addicted to nothing at all?
She was dying and her parents had to watch.
“You’re killing yourself!” her father cried one day. “Don’t you see Jocasta? You’re a skeleton.”
“What are you talking about?” Jocasta asked, confused. She looked slightly troubled, for the Goddess had told her lies for so long that she was no longer aware of the truth. “I’m fine.”
“You have to eat something!” he mother wailed, shoving a deer haunch towards her. “Jocasta!”
Jocasta turned away, her frail body almost swaying as she went. Her face hardened into an impenetrable wall, an expression that was not hers but someone she was not. “I don’t want any.”
She glanced down at her twig-like limbs, watching as the layer of thinning fur stretched over her bones with every movement.
For a second, she saw clarity.
But I do want some. I’m killing myself, aren’t I? Haven’t I done enough to please you? she wondered.
You can’t change now, look how far you’ve come!
But I-
You’re fat.
One day, she was out hunting, her steps slow and sluggish like she was wading through snow, the ice seeping into her fur and bones to weigh her down.
I don’t want to keep going, she despaired.
Lazy pig. Keep going.
When Jocasta reached a small pond, he Goddess finally deigned to allow her a rest. She peered down tiredly into the rippling mirror and saw her gaunt, tired face gazing back, tabby fur pulled taut against her skull. A wave of revulsion trailed through her, though it wasn’t the bones that scared her.
It was the eyes.
The once-bright sunny spheres were nothing but soulless gaping holes. No joy could be found there, no hope. They were the desperate, starving.
They were the putrid yellow of a cat who had lost herself long ago in an impossible quest.
Dear spirits, help me!
She stumbled back, unable to look anymore. Suddenly, the world began to slide to one side and Jocasta could no longer stand. She felt herself tumbling into a beautiful, terrifying whirlwind.
Is this what death feels like? She was tired, so tired, and so she welcomed the chaotic serenity and let herself fall.
Jocasta woke with a gasp. She sat up, the world spinning around her. “Hello?” she croaked.
Minos pushed down on her, forcing her gently into the nest. She was so weak that the barest touch caused her to shy away. “Stay down. You’re weak,” he ordered, fatherly concern woven into his gruff tone.
“Where am I?” she muttered.
“Your den.” Ada peered at her, worry filling the yellow eyes Jocasta had once inherited, bright and alive like Jocasta’s had once been. “We found you by the pond; I think you fainted. Jocasta, we’re worried about you. Your heart is beating so slowly now. Please, you have to start eating.”
Jocasta closed her eyes, too exhausted to lift her head. “I know,” she said, weariness etched into the very core of her words.
Ada pushed a small mouse forward with her paw. “Here, I brought this. Try to eat something,” she pleaded.
Don’t give in. She’s trying to trick you. She wants to make you weak and fat, like her.
The voice pounded through her head, echoing repeatedly in an eerie chant. Don’t, don’t, trick, trick, trick, weak, weak, fat. Fat.
The tantalizing scent drifted towards her and she cracked her eyes open to stare at it longing.
She wanted to so badly.
Fat.
“I- I can’t,” Jocasta whispered, her voice cracking into a million shards.
Minos turned away, his dark fur rippling. “I told you, Ada. She’s not going to stop. She won’t stop until she’s gone. I- I can’t do this.”
“Minos, don’t leave, please. We have to help her. Don’t just leave me here alone!” Ada cried.
Jocasta felt as if she was listening to her parents speak from far away. Their voices had a thin, airy quality to them, as if she was removed from reality.
“I don’t know what to do,” Jocasta murmured.
Your parents are liars. You can’t listen. I won’t let you listen, the Goddess snarled into her ear.
I want to listen to them. It looks so good. I’m so empty.
I will never allow you to. If you do, you are dead to to yourself. Don’t you remember? You asked me to help you.
Minos glanced at her with wild eyes, alight with frenzied grief. “Eat! Eat! You have to eat!”
“I can’t do that! Anything but that,” Jocasta muttered, the voice in her head growing louder.
Ada sat, her legs giving out underneath her. “You’re going to die, Jocasta. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” Her anguished gaze rested on her daughter’s frail skeleton jutting awkwardly in angles that should never have been there.
I want to eat it. You’re trapping me. I won’t listen to you anymore.
NO. I am your Goddess. I am your life.
“We can’t do this any longer, Jocasta. You’re torturing us slowly, and you’re torturing yourself while we have to watch. Something has to change,” Minos said.
I’m torturing them, Jocasta realized. I’m murdering myself. For the first time in moons she looked down at her body and saw just how terrible she truly looked, as ill-looking as the dead. What have I been doing?
They’re exploiting you. Your parents are dumb. They will never understand. I will not let you eat. You can’t eat. YOU CAN’T.
Her eyes snapped open. “The voice won’t let me.”
“What?” Ada asked.
“The Goddess. She won’t let me eat. I can’t-I can’t eat. She won’t let me. Help me,” Jocasta begged.
Minos met her eyes and bent down to tear a bite from the mouse with his teeth. He pushed it towards her. She moved away reflexively, but he pushed it forward. “I’m not leaving until you eat.”
“I-”
“Eat, my love,” Ada whispered tenderly.
With a strangled cry, Jocasta ate, choking the bite down, her body shaking with a million roiling emotions trapped in her tiny frame.
Fat, lazy cow.
I have to eat. I want to be free. Don’t I?
Her parents offered her another bite.
Sobs ripped through her body as guilt and shame and relief rushed through her in a rushing torrent. It began to wash away the voice that had grown to be a part of her, bite by bite.
But despite it all, she ate.
This was written for a TC prompt. The prompt was to write a story about an illness, preferably not a contagious one. I chose to write about Anorexia Nervosa. It has occurred in cats, though it is usually appear for slightly different reasons than in humans. I decided to take a little liberty with the fact and write about this devastating mental illness. I have personally struggled with an eating disorder, so if this seems raw and unedited, that's because it is. A lot of this is taken directly from my struggles and thoughts. My parents, just like Ada and Minos, were the ones to help me recover. This story is very meaningful to me and if it seems overly dramatic, I'm sorry. But anorexia is no joke and I know firsthand how terrible it can be.
Please do not read if you struggle with mental health issues, especially pertaining to eating and body image.
Jocasta wanted to be perfect.
She would never be enough, and that fact killed her. She could not see that no one else could achieve perfection either. In her dreams, she watched as her clan laughed at her failures, and she was afraid.
She could not see that she was enough, and that was her demise.
She pushed her prayers to the spirits constantly, day and night. She often offered herself to them, baring herself to them like a lamb to the slaughter. She received no reply.
I’m not good enough for them, she thought bitterly.
When the voice came, it was a kind, lilting melody floating through Jocasta’s very veins, awakening to revival. She felt doused in peace, in serenity, in purpose. The voice whispered sweet promises in her ear. It gave her a simple goal.
To love yourself, you must first love your body, it admonished calmly. Your body is your temple, your life.
Jocasta clung onto the stability of her newfound mindset, like a raft set adrift in her sea of blood and fiery doom and self-loathing. Before she had been drowning in herself. Now she felt alive.
My body is my temple, my life. The calming mantra floated through her consciousness day after day, for it was all she could think about. My body. Life. She cherished it, believed it. It made her happy.
A rabbit for her morning meal became a vole and then a small mouse. She found her hunger trickling away into nothingness. Soon, the mouse became nothing and her evening meal started to shrink as well.
Jocasta didn’t see anything wrong with what she was doing.
Her mother noticed.
“Jocasta, don’t you want something?” Ada coaxed.
“I’m fine.”
Good job. You’re not hungry, see? You don’t need anything.
When the Goddess, as she began to think of it, spoke she felt an irresistible sense of calm sweep over her, washing away her fears in a soul-numbing feeling of emptiness. She was hungry, but the serene void inside grew as she ate less, devouring everything else.
Extra fat sitting around her midsection melted away easily, and she found she had more energy. Her family noticed her newfound sense of purpose and encouraged her.
“You’re so happy nowadays! I’m so glad you’re okay now.” Her father Minos purred, and he was both right and wrong. Jocasta was happy, but she was not okay.
Some part of her pushed back. Eat something, you’re hungry, it begged. A plump, juicy rabbit sat perched on the top of the pile, savory scarlet dribbling down its neck and Jocasta couldn’t help but stare at the rich, fatty skin.
She gave in, devouring it in several bites, and the burst of nourishment dancing deliciously in her mouth soothed her for a moment. See, wasn’t that delicious?
Jocasta did not get a chance to consider it.
You lazy, fat cow! How could you? The Goddess’ once-sweet voice curled around her, constricting her with shame. You have no self-control. Perhaps I should just give up on you.
No, please, I’m sorry. Please, she begged. Guilt swamped her, crawling slowly into her and twining with panic to destroy her conscience.
If you want me to help you be happy, you need to make up for it.
So make up for it she did. Jocasta ran. She ran until her world was white with light and her heart could have beat in time with a hummingbird’s wings. She ran until her legs burned with fierce shame and she wanted to stop but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, though she wanted to.
Please, let me stop.
No, further.
Please!
She ran until she had to stop, she simply couldn’t go on. The world spun around her in a whirlwind, and she vomited, the half-digested meal slithering up her throat and forcing itself out of her opened maw. With the bitter taste in her mouth, she listened at the Goddess spoke again, a loyal subject to the end.
From now on, you must be better. Always listen to me.
I will.
Do you promise?
I promise.
She spent the rest of the day hunting, staring down at prey as it died beneath her paws. Her stomach no longer begged at the sight of food but merely sat silent, shrinking as it was ignored.
Jocasta returned to camp, carrying her prey with difficulty. She threw it onto the fresh-kill pile and turned away, her stomach churning.
You can skip dinner tonight, can’t you?
I guess.
Good.
She saw the looks she got as she stumbled back to her nest, head still pounding and her mouth as dry as leaves blanketing the ground in the fall. She felt embarrassment flooding through her as they turned to whisper to one another about where she had been.
Don’t look at them. Only I understand.
The Goddess demanded more of Jocasta every day. Her dinner from that day onwards was nothing but a few bites — any more and Jocasta would hear that furious whisper grating on her, building until it was a scream echoing throughout her body.
Every morning she headed out on her runs, paws pounding the well-worn earth in a monotonous cycle. When her lungs flickered with fire and it felt as if stones had crushed her skull, the Goddess allowed Jocasta to slow to a walk, and then it was time to hunt.
Every day Jocasta spent her waking hours fantasizing about food, about feeding others. As she felt the lifeblood trickle out of prey and watched as their hearts slowed to a stop beneath her paws she dreamed of tasting it all, but she knew she could not.
She hunted for hours upon hours, trekking laboriously through the territory, her legs as weak as willow branches but her resolve as strong as stone. She doled it out generously, watching other eat with greedy, hungry eyes.
After all, if she could not eat, she could watch others do the very thing she could not.
They are weak, the Goddess whispered.
Weight dripped off her like icicles underneath the sun, taking fat and muscle and her joy. Her smile all but disappeared. It was replaced by a thin replica meant to fool others into thinking she was fine.
Her shoulder bones jutted like jagged wings, seconds away from ripping free of her skin. Every morning she counted her ribs. She became little more than a walking skeleton, a stick capable of being blown away from the wind.
She felt as if ice was frosting the blood in her veins, chilling her to the very core.
Her mind began to slow.
“Hey, Jocasta, do you remember if anyone has brought prey to the Nursery today?”
Jocasta’s head was fuzzy, her thoughts slow like molasses. Only the Goddess’ voice was clear anymore; a thick fog obscured the rest. She shrugged, not even glancing up to see who had asked as she sat counting the pieces of prey for the umpteenth time that day. “I-I can’t remember,” she muttered.
It was too much effort to think. Others watched as she withered away, concerned but unsure how to help.
“Darling, eat something,” Ada begged, her eyes roving over her daughter’s skinny form.
I want to.
You cannot, the Goddess ordered, her voice hard.
What she wanted to say: "I’m starving, mother. I want to eat this prey so badly but I can’t. I’m afraid. I don’t know what will happen if I do and this voice is telling me no. I can’t. Help. Please. I don’t know what to do.
"
What she said: “I ate earlier.”
The Goddess was no longer so much of a friend as a jailer, trapping her inside her body with a sort of insidious addiction. Those around her watched, and they saw that she was choosing her own demise. She wasn’t though; no one realized that she was no longer controlling herself, but an unbreakable habit binding her in chains of metal and leaving her to sink in an ocean of hunger.
Jocasta was no longer hungry; her body had given up on being fed. However, she was starving, her body crying out for fuel it never received, for often she went days without eating. When she did, the little voice would dig its claws into her mind and demand retribution for the terrible sin.
Eating is weakness. You must make it up to me.
So Jocasta ate nothing and she dwindled, dwindled away into a shell of herself, for it was an addiction and yet she thought it wasn’t, for she reasoned, How can one be addicted to nothing at all?
She was dying and her parents had to watch.
“You’re killing yourself!” her father cried one day. “Don’t you see Jocasta? You’re a skeleton.”
“What are you talking about?” Jocasta asked, confused. She looked slightly troubled, for the Goddess had told her lies for so long that she was no longer aware of the truth. “I’m fine.”
“You have to eat something!” he mother wailed, shoving a deer haunch towards her. “Jocasta!”
Jocasta turned away, her frail body almost swaying as she went. Her face hardened into an impenetrable wall, an expression that was not hers but someone she was not. “I don’t want any.”
She glanced down at her twig-like limbs, watching as the layer of thinning fur stretched over her bones with every movement.
For a second, she saw clarity.
But I do want some. I’m killing myself, aren’t I? Haven’t I done enough to please you? she wondered.
You can’t change now, look how far you’ve come!
But I-
You’re fat.
One day, she was out hunting, her steps slow and sluggish like she was wading through snow, the ice seeping into her fur and bones to weigh her down.
I don’t want to keep going, she despaired.
Lazy pig. Keep going.
When Jocasta reached a small pond, he Goddess finally deigned to allow her a rest. She peered down tiredly into the rippling mirror and saw her gaunt, tired face gazing back, tabby fur pulled taut against her skull. A wave of revulsion trailed through her, though it wasn’t the bones that scared her.
It was the eyes.
The once-bright sunny spheres were nothing but soulless gaping holes. No joy could be found there, no hope. They were the desperate, starving.
They were the putrid yellow of a cat who had lost herself long ago in an impossible quest.
Dear spirits, help me!
She stumbled back, unable to look anymore. Suddenly, the world began to slide to one side and Jocasta could no longer stand. She felt herself tumbling into a beautiful, terrifying whirlwind.
Is this what death feels like? She was tired, so tired, and so she welcomed the chaotic serenity and let herself fall.
Jocasta woke with a gasp. She sat up, the world spinning around her. “Hello?” she croaked.
Minos pushed down on her, forcing her gently into the nest. She was so weak that the barest touch caused her to shy away. “Stay down. You’re weak,” he ordered, fatherly concern woven into his gruff tone.
“Where am I?” she muttered.
“Your den.” Ada peered at her, worry filling the yellow eyes Jocasta had once inherited, bright and alive like Jocasta’s had once been. “We found you by the pond; I think you fainted. Jocasta, we’re worried about you. Your heart is beating so slowly now. Please, you have to start eating.”
Jocasta closed her eyes, too exhausted to lift her head. “I know,” she said, weariness etched into the very core of her words.
Ada pushed a small mouse forward with her paw. “Here, I brought this. Try to eat something,” she pleaded.
Don’t give in. She’s trying to trick you. She wants to make you weak and fat, like her.
The voice pounded through her head, echoing repeatedly in an eerie chant. Don’t, don’t, trick, trick, trick, weak, weak, fat. Fat.
The tantalizing scent drifted towards her and she cracked her eyes open to stare at it longing.
She wanted to so badly.
Fat.
“I- I can’t,” Jocasta whispered, her voice cracking into a million shards.
Minos turned away, his dark fur rippling. “I told you, Ada. She’s not going to stop. She won’t stop until she’s gone. I- I can’t do this.”
“Minos, don’t leave, please. We have to help her. Don’t just leave me here alone!” Ada cried.
Jocasta felt as if she was listening to her parents speak from far away. Their voices had a thin, airy quality to them, as if she was removed from reality.
“I don’t know what to do,” Jocasta murmured.
Your parents are liars. You can’t listen. I won’t let you listen, the Goddess snarled into her ear.
I want to listen to them. It looks so good. I’m so empty.
I will never allow you to. If you do, you are dead to to yourself. Don’t you remember? You asked me to help you.
Minos glanced at her with wild eyes, alight with frenzied grief. “Eat! Eat! You have to eat!”
“I can’t do that! Anything but that,” Jocasta muttered, the voice in her head growing louder.
Ada sat, her legs giving out underneath her. “You’re going to die, Jocasta. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” Her anguished gaze rested on her daughter’s frail skeleton jutting awkwardly in angles that should never have been there.
I want to eat it. You’re trapping me. I won’t listen to you anymore.
NO. I am your Goddess. I am your life.
“We can’t do this any longer, Jocasta. You’re torturing us slowly, and you’re torturing yourself while we have to watch. Something has to change,” Minos said.
I’m torturing them, Jocasta realized. I’m murdering myself. For the first time in moons she looked down at her body and saw just how terrible she truly looked, as ill-looking as the dead. What have I been doing?
They’re exploiting you. Your parents are dumb. They will never understand. I will not let you eat. You can’t eat. YOU CAN’T.
Her eyes snapped open. “The voice won’t let me.”
“What?” Ada asked.
“The Goddess. She won’t let me eat. I can’t-I can’t eat. She won’t let me. Help me,” Jocasta begged.
Minos met her eyes and bent down to tear a bite from the mouse with his teeth. He pushed it towards her. She moved away reflexively, but he pushed it forward. “I’m not leaving until you eat.”
“I-”
“Eat, my love,” Ada whispered tenderly.
With a strangled cry, Jocasta ate, choking the bite down, her body shaking with a million roiling emotions trapped in her tiny frame.
Fat, lazy cow.
I have to eat. I want to be free. Don’t I?
Her parents offered her another bite.
Sobs ripped through her body as guilt and shame and relief rushed through her in a rushing torrent. It began to wash away the voice that had grown to be a part of her, bite by bite.
But despite it all, she ate.
This was written for a TC prompt. The prompt was to write a story about an illness, preferably not a contagious one. I chose to write about Anorexia Nervosa. It has occurred in cats, though it is usually appear for slightly different reasons than in humans. I decided to take a little liberty with the fact and write about this devastating mental illness. I have personally struggled with an eating disorder, so if this seems raw and unedited, that's because it is. A lot of this is taken directly from my struggles and thoughts. My parents, just like Ada and Minos, were the ones to help me recover. This story is very meaningful to me and if it seems overly dramatic, I'm sorry. But anorexia is no joke and I know firsthand how terrible it can be.