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It’s not that he can’t eat. No, Harry can eat just fine, thank you. And it’s not that he doesn’t want to eat, well he doesn’t but he still kind of does. And it’s really not that he thinks it’s healthy to not eat; he knows he needs to eat to function like a normal human being. It’s not that. It’s just…Well…See, the thing is, Harry can eat when he needs to. Like when they have a busy day ahead and he knows he needs his energy, he’ll eat breakfast and maybe a small lunch and even dinner if it’s going to be a late night. Or when Niall bakes cookies and expects him to try them. Or when the boys want to all get dinner together. Or when he grabs a handful of whatever junk food someone has out to make it seem like he’s always eating without a care in the world. Or when anyone is watching him, really. He eats when he needs to. And he knows that he needs to….Sometimes…(it’s just that those sometimes are way too often for Harry’s liking)
It’s not that. It’s just that…
Really, he knows it’s stupid, and it’s not healthy, but he can’t help that he feels better when he’s in control. And it’s not like it’s out of hand (yet). Because he can eat when he needs to and he recognizes that he needs to. And it’s not like he’s delusional or anything. It’s not like he thinks other people think he’s fat. Or that he even really thinks he’s fat. He feels fat, and he looks fat, and he tells himself he’s fat, but he knows those are just his thoughts. He knows that he’s skinny (underweight), and if anyone saw how he really looked, they’d tell him he was too skinny (even though he feels like a cow). And it’s not like he thinks anorexia is healthy and other people should do it; he’s not some ProAna disease-stricken crazy or anything like that. He’d never condone ProAna and encourage others to starve themselves (he just wants to do it himself). So it’s not like he’s really sick or anything. And it’s not that he’s even that unhealthy, or putting himself in danger. It’s just that…(he wants to)
He’s not even on a strict diet or anything. He doesn’t count calories or weigh himself (because that would be suspicious). He just isn’t really hungry (he tells himself), and the idea of food when he doesn’t want it makes him a bit queasy sometimes (and he wants to lose weight). But he doesn’t do all of the things that an “Anorexic” would do (except that he must be doing something right because you can count his ribs, and his spinal chord protrudes from his back like a serrated knife, and his collar bones are like swords, and his elbows look too big for his arms, and his fingers and scars are tinted purple, and there’s a lovely gap (that’s not big enough) between his thighs when he puts his ankles together, and it hurts so incredibly badly to sit on hard surfaces, and sometimes he gets really dizzy and his vision goes black if he moves too fast, and people tell him he’s too skinny (they’re just jealous), and he thinks about food all of the time, and he can’t sleep anymore, and he’s just so tired). He doesn’t do those things because they would arouse suspicion and that would lead to people butting their big fat noses into his business and telling him what to do and trying to make him stop, or worse, trying to understand. Plus, it takes way too much effort, and Harry’s just too tired (lazy, he’s a fat-assed lazy pig) to do count calories and exercise constantly (he’s tried it in the past, but it gets scary really fast and he’s too much of a coward to keep it up). And if he did those things, then he might actually lose control (and he needs to be in control). Anyways, if someone were to notice (which they would) then they’d have proof that he was actually doing something bad versus if he doesn’t act like an Anorexic then he can always feign innocence (I’m not trying to lose weight or anything, I promise. I didn’t even realize. It must just be the stress) and they have no evidence or reason to make him stop. So he doesn’t see any problem
It’s not that.
It’s just that…well the truth of it is, it’s just that he can’t escape the thoughts. And it’s just that he can’t eat normally. Sure he can have a meal or two, or a few days of ‘normality’ when he’s visiting his mum where he doesn’t want to arouse suspicion so he eats (and he’s too tired (lazy) to bother with the strict diet). But he can’t ever stop thinking about how much weight he’s gaining, and how he’ll compensate and make up for it later. He can’t stop reminding himself that he’ll lose the weight again once no-ones watching or once he doesn’t need to be fully alert and functioning at the top (he’s never at the top) of his game.
It’s just that he can’t stop himself from wanting to lose weight, even though he knows that he doesn’t need to. And he can’t stop himself from wanting to be so sick that people know, just by looking at him that he’s sick. He wants their sympathy. He wants people to see him and think, “Oh my god, that boy is a skeleton, he must be so sick.” He wants strangers to be disgusted and appalled by him. He wants everyone to mourn for him. He wants Liam to cry over him. He wants Zayn to pray that he will be okay. He wants Louis to try to fix him (once he’s fully and irrevocably broken, past the point of no repair). And he wants Niall to hold his hand. He wants to be able to throw it in everyone’s faces: “See I really am sick. You didn’t believe me. You didn’t see it, but it’s real. I was just smarter than you. Better at hiding it. But it’s real. It’s not all in my head. And you were just too selfish to try and save me. See, you don’t really love me, you didn’t even notice, you let me do this to myself, you don’t care.” He wants all of that, but what Harry wants above all else is to starve himself to death. And that’s the truth of it.