Metamorphosis

Trigger warning: eating disorder

No-one had seen her for months. Just over a full year. It had been spring when she’d suffered, and then she’d gone away.

Disappearing was easy. The global pandemic had forced everyone inside. When the world had come back out, she hadn’t. She’d remained behind closed doors, living silently, quietly, like a shadow. She’d worked on herself, on her surroundings, on her body, her mind, her soul. She’d healed herself, her trauma, her wounds. She was a better person for it… but no-one knew about it.

Rosie had been fat, and bullied for it. She’d been the fat friend, the one out of breath as her friends walked quickly up the hill, the friend who loved her food. The friend who had the eating disorder that everyone laughed at, because she was ‘too fat to be anorexic’ and she ate like a horse. None of them saw the monster in the mirror staring back at her every day. None of them felt the listless despair that came with eating every meal. None of them felt the panic, the struggle, that came with repeated attempts to lose the weight.

Rosie had been spotty. Her skin had been bad, viciously bad, hormonal spots which she picked at because it was soothing. They’d bullied her for being spotty, too. None of them knew why she picked so ferociously at her skin. No-one knew why she dug at spots and scabs for hours on end. No-one understood the trauma that required her to hurt herself whenever anything good happened to her.

Rosie had obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her friends didn’t know how cutting their words could be. What they considered to be tough love, on any subject, served only as a trigger to Rosie’s past trauma. Her friends didn’t understand why she grew quiet whenever there was a minor disagreement, why she didn’t speak up when she was being beaten down verbally. None of them understood that every word they said was like a knife into multiple old wounds. None of them cared for what those words and that treatment made her go through. None of them were there for that side of it. None of them cared that she would spend hours obsessing over what she could do differently to stop them hurting her. None of them gave a shit about the cuts in her skin to soothe the emotional pain.

As the spring turned to summer, Rosie was thrust into her own company. The world shut down around her, and she had an excuse to hibernate, to cocoon herself away. Shops closed, work was from home, the gym closed. But Rosie didn’t suffer like a lot of other people. Rosie did her work, and then she did her research. She found fitness coaches online, and they gave her the education she needed to tackle her first life issue. Weight loss. She grew stronger, her muscles more defined beneath her skin. She lost her layers of fat which had been a source of contempt for so long. Running was easy. She was lean, fast, strong. Jeans which she’d only dreamed of fitting into now fit snugly. She could button them up. They’d always told her that her choice of diet was wrong, was inconsistent, was bad… but this had worked. The fog of their dissent had been removed, and suddenly everything fell into place.

As the world started to die, and the ground grew crispy with the first frosts, Rosie began her work on her mind. Rosie found herself a therapist. Old thoughts died away, died off, fell to the ground. Old patterns of behaviour which no longer serviced her crumbled away, sluiced away by icy-cold waters of reality, soothed with warm and kind words from a therapist who seemed to be able to get right to the heart of her problems. Rosie felt like she was being pulled apart at the seams, ripped apart, broken down into every single component that made her, her.

Snow began to fall, and Christmastime came. Rosie went home to her family. Her therapy sessions were over the phone, thanks to the need to socially-distance. Surrounded by unconditional love, Rosie’s skin healed. Scars formed where her wounds were deep, but no new ones appeared. Her face was clear, her body free from the wounds inflicted to distract herself from the emotional pain. She understood her pain now. She understood where it came from. Her father’s absence and choice of another family had wounded her soul, and she needed to reconcile that and grieve for what she had lost. Christmas was taken from her by family unable to give. She and her mother and her siblings did what they could, but at the end, they were drained. Rosie didn’t hurt herself because of it this time. Rosie went for a run, and she left her feelings on the tarmac.

The new year didn’t feel so much like a fresh start for Rosie. Ghosts of her past still haunted her. Every week, in therapy, she worked through the pieces of herself which her therapist had pulled apart, and she started sewing them back together. Better, leaner, stronger… more stable.

As the first buds of spring appeared for the first time, Rosie still remained indoors. She focused on herself, on her writing, on her art. She created a blog, and stuck with it. She hit her goals, she created new ones and hit those. Her home was organised, her life following suit. She had interest for her books, for her screenplays, even though they didn’t get much further than the shortlists from publishers. Still, she spent her time writing not to make millions, but to soothe her soul. To give her emotional side an outlet, a way to express herself. Her art improved, and she found her own style. She felt grounded to who she was. She saw her friends for what they truly were. They hadn’t been friends. They’d been toxic, but only because they had their own issues which they needed to work on themselves.

Rosie learned that she was not the reason people were mean to her. She learned that sometimes, people lash out because they have their own pain and don’t know how to handle that. She understood her own pain so well now that she felt like an entirely new person. She saw her reflection with new eyes. She was beautiful. She was perfect. She was brilliant.

When the daffodils popped up, Rosie questioned whether she was ready to go out into the world. She was ready. She stepped out, thinner, leaner, stronger, with an abundance of mental resilience.

Returning to her old haunts, no-one recognised her. They saw a new person, and started to introduce themselves, until Rosie turned around. Her eyes gave her away, the only part of her that hadn’t changed. Nothing could clear her eyes of her emotions. Rosie was a threat now. A silent threat, a quiet, humble threat, one which others could no longer understand. She was stronger. She was better.

Her metamorphosis was complete.