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Dying to be Thin

The stale smell of death filled the room. The pot plant stood decaying in the cracked terracotta pot, despite its weekly watering. I glanced across the room at the skeletal form of my sister in bed. Her soulless eyes sunken into her face, her cheekbones protruding from her greyish skin, her body unmoving. Only yesterday she was vigorously doing sit ups under the cover as I'd walked in.

"You shouldn't have called her fat. You shouldn't have said she looked like Miss Piggy!" I chastised myself. "It's your fault for being a size six. You shouldn't be so skinny and eat chocolate and icecream without putting any weight on."

All our lives had changed so dramatically in what seemed just minutes. My parents took turns watching over her, forcing food into her miniature frame, keeping her millimetres from death. This was now necessary after finding she'd forced food down the kitchen sink, blocking the drain, in an attempt to avoid eating. Her constant battle with food became our daily vigil of spying and round the clock monitoring.

"Hi," I tried to sound cheery, "Do you want something to read?" I wanted to shout, "Why have you ruined my life? Why does everything have to revolve around you now? You are so selfish!" "I'm fine thanks," she replied. Fine, as if it was quite normal to weigh 35kg. Fine to visit psychiatrists every week. Fine to be stuffing food down the sink. Fine to go for two hour runs every day. I swallowed back the tears, words caught in my throat. It was as if she had absolutely no concept of reality. The world revolved around her now and that's what she liked. I left the room.

Later that day I returned, when she was out. I had refused to go to the weekly psychiatrist sessions after they'd accused me of being anorexic too, which had directed my parent's attention away from her, to me, for a split second. How good were these so called health professionals? It was if they were clutching at straws, "Well if you're her older sister and you're skinny then you must be starving yourself and making her do the same." They sat behind their one-way mirror scrutinising our every move. If you looked away from the psychiatrist in the room questioning you then you must be guilty. Guilty of what? I was only eighteen years old. What could I possibly have done to make this happen? Now I wasn't attending these ridiculous charades I was obviously hiding something and my parents, after prompting from those in white coats, would bombard me with endless questions

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