Short story “Mental Health Awareness Month”

The school bells echoed through the old, musty school walls as Jessica pushed open the classroom door and stared down the corridor. The building had been on the verge of being demolished several times and yet someone had always decided against it. "What a shame..." she thought to herself silently and stepped out into the corridor. No sooner had she lifted her foot than she was pushed aside and stared into the face of her classmate. He looked at her with glinting, almost devilish eyes and hissed at her: "If you didn't eat so much all the time, you wouldn't sweat so much!". Even though Jessica was already used to other people's comments, they always hit her like little darts straight in her heart and kept her awake for nights on end.

Jessica forced herself to look away and walked along the endless corridor so that she could at least have a drink before the break was over.

The common room was just as cool as the rest of the old brick building and there was always a smell in it that reminded Jessica of her grandmother's old living room. She pulled up one of the beechwood chairs and sat down on it. Shortly after she sat down, she jumped up again - someone had placed a doughnut on her chair, which was now stuck to her trousers. Jessica forced herself to hold back the tears and wiped the sticky, brown pieces off her trousers. She stood up, went over to the tap and soaked one of the cheap disposable wipes that the school seemed to love for some reason or other in water, cleaning up the last remnants of the accident. As Jessica sat down again, she stared at the clock - breaktime was almost over. "Look, Jessica hasn't eaten anything again, she's trying to go on a diet again!" roared the boy who had hissed in her face upstairs. "As if that would do any good!" replied a female voice. The common room burst into laughter. Jessica heaved herself out of her chair and pushed down the handle of the door that would take her away from the evil tongues of the other students. She almost breathed a sigh of relief as the old, musty odour finally left her nose and was replaced by various cheap perfumes from the other teenagers trying to study with her in these gloomy halls.

The last two lessons of the day had begun - German. When Jessica scribbled letters on white sheets of paper and ballads left the German teacher's lips, she was able to forget the cruelty of the other pupils for a brief second.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small piece of paper being passed around amongst the rows of desks, only to end up where she sat. Even though she was already plagued by a bad feeling, she took the piece of paper between her fingers and unfolded it. The laughter from the back rows confirmed what she saw: a picture of Jabba from Star Wars with an arrow over his head and her name - "Jesica" - they hadn't even bothered to spell her name right.

The final bell of the day snapped Jessica out of her thoughts. She had just been busy writing a poem about the injustice that had been done to her and needed a second to get back to reality. She looked at her teacher, who was stuffing his documents into his brown leather bag a little too hastily. He forgot half of his things and seemed to literally run out of the classroom. Jessica smirked, looking back at the words adorning the blank sheet of paper in front of her.

white roses in my chest
yellow tulips in my blood
pink violets adorn my veins
red roses warm my sinews

grey clouds adorn stars
water encounters delicate blossoms

She hadn't got any further, as the heavy bells of the cold halls had interrupted her thoughts. Jessica sighed and closed her notebook. "Weighing that much, you need twice as long to put everything away, don't you?" grunted the boy who had been giving her a hard time all day. Ashamed, she looked down at the floor again and made her way home.

"Jessica, how was your day?" her mum whispered to her and took her in her arms. "You're all sweaty, are you all right, love?" Jessica forced herself to lift the corners of her mouth into a smile and an "Everything's fine, Mum!" left her lips. Her mum hugged her for a second before letting her daughter go and telling her that she was going to a friend's house for a while. Jessica's mum was newly separated and now had to look after the house and her daughter on her own. Jessica didn't want to burden her further with her own troubles, so she sadly went to her room.

The room was relatively large and very tidy. Her bed was in one of the corners of the room, opposite her old television. The old set sometimes broke down, as its best days were already behind it. But Jessica was more than understanding of this and was glad to even own one. At the other end of the room was a bay window through which she looked out at the rain on cold nights and wrote the most beautiful series of letters. But today she didn't feel like sitting in front of the window, so she flopped onto the large bed, exhausted and drained. Jessica looked up at the ceiling, which, unlike the rest of her room, was not painted a warm burgundy but a light lilac beige. With all the coldness that surrounded her, she had tried to at least give her room a little colour. Everyone had advised her against this colour combination, but she had insisted.

Tears slowly filled her eyes. "Why don't they understand that I don't want all this?" she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. The tears flowed down her cheeks and the rain behind the bay window did the same. She felt a pain in her chest like a fire, spreading through her body more and more. The blazing in her veins was accompanied by an ever-increasing feeling of unease that seemed to haunt every single corner of her body and did not spare a single place in her body. She knew this feeling - "No, not again..." she mumbled through her tears and tried to concentrate on other feelings in her body. But there weren't any others and so the tempest of feelings overcame her and put her in a kind of trance where she lost control unconditionally and completely. Barely herself, slightly panicked, she crept into the kitchen and gathered as much up as she could physically carry. She carried the food to her bed and ate and ate and ate more and more until everything was gone and her stomach was so full she felt like she was going to throw up.

Jessica glanced at the clock. It must have been hours since she had started eating. Her stomach felt like it was about to burst and the pain stopped her from looking for more food because, as always, she hadn't felt full.

Still slightly dazed, half in a trance, she fell asleep.

The next morning embraced her with disgust at herself and her own body. "Why did you let it happen again? Why did you lose control of your eating behaviour again?" she screamed at herself, hatred filling her veins. Jessica cried again and brushed the wet, tear-streaked hair from her face. Anger overcame her body like a storm and swept away the tiny remnants of positive feelings in her body, leaving nothing but despair and an overwhelming hatred for herself. "You loser!" she screamed at her reflection, staring into her huge, wide eyes, which showed the pain of the past months. "That's enough now." she whispered, relaxing her facial muscles. "Yesterday was the last time anyone treated me like this!" she added and dug her notebook out of her bag. She placed it on the table, turned to the page she had filled yesterday and completed it:

graceful necks bent over
if only they hadn't nodded off

Like Jessica, many other people around the world suffer from discrimination because of their body weight every day. Prejudices gain the upper hand and the real person is lost. Examples of reasons for significant weight gain can also include

• the contraceptive pill
• genetic predispositions
• thyroid problems
• medication such as antidepressants
• quitting smoking

In the case of our fictional example, the main character is suffering from a mental illness called "binge eating". The symptoms may look like this:

• people suffering from binge eating are often in a "trance" and lose control of their own eating behaviour
• they are only able to stop eating when they experience physical reactions such as stomach pain or vomiting
• this loss of control often manifests itself as a feeling of huge and growing anxiety, which is almost unbearable after a certain point
• a feeling of fullness does not usually set in
• afterwards, those affected are plagued by self-hatred and disgust with themselves
• although they don't want to, binge eating occurs again and again and remains uncontrollable

The next time we catch ourselves letting such common prejudices pop up in our heads, we should all spare a thought for this story. We should think about the feelings of the person concerned and the fact that external factors such as quitting smoking or taking antidepressants are often the reason for weight gain. And perhaps we should all ask ourselves why we channel so much of our energy and attention into other people's problems and lives. Are we perhaps also unhappy with ourselves at times?