tw: ED; poor coping mdchansims; body shaming
[name_u]Arden[/name_u] [name_u]Yarrow[/name_u] [name_m]Whitaker[/name_m] (22) is Will’s patient, the biological child of the Whitakers’ and Shelby’s adopted sister, who has more complexities to her than many recognise. On the surface, Arden’s a relentless perfectionist and rigid organiser who has to do everything her way. She’s not good at compromising but excellent at planning; never backs down from voicing her opinion while having a multitude of secrets, and seemingly thrives under her parents teaching while being deathly afraid of failure. Although they call her their ‘golden child’, Arden’s parents set her up for dysfunction at a young age: namely their enrolling of her in ballet and gymnastics classes to ‘stop her getting fat’ - their exact words.
What started as ‘being careful’ with her diet didn’t stay this way for long. [name_u]Arden[/name_u] was skipping meals, running track and making herself sick to keep weight away, but it didn’t help - not really. The fear of weight had been instilled in her, and with methods identified, she took to them quickly. When her parents reacted with praise and encouragement at her remaining slim, it just drilled in to Arden’s brain that she was doing the right thing, and if it meant lying, so what? She could remain in favour and she already had the method figured out.
[name_u]An[/name_u] anthropology student, with plans on majoring in archeology once she graduates to unite her passion of sociological history with understanding the wider world, [name_u]Arden[/name_u] has an openly negative relationship with her sister [name_u]Shelby[/name_u], something Will’s focused on during their sessions: namely how weight seems to dominate conflict, and is indicative of what she keeps to herself.
Food symbolises a lot of things for [name_u]Arden[/name_u], none of which are positive. It’s an obsession that she regulates in dramatic swings: cutting out entire food groups to avoid gaining weight, exercising frequently, hypercritical thinking of everything she does, and of course, projecting. [name_u]Shelby[/name_u] finding comfort in food distresses [name_u]Arden[/name_u] in ways she knows their parents would never understand, and it became an effective distraction to mock her sister at the dinner table, as it stopped people from noticing how she barely ate anything in comparison. She regulates her meals and plans them meticulously, with any threat to Arden’s schedule being something she greatly struggles with: any surprise dinner arrangements or luncheons terrify her, but she’s mastered presenting some flexibility to keep her eating disorder under the radar.
[name_u]Will[/name_u] has been trying to convince [name_u]Arden[/name_u] to seek a formal diagnosis, as well as treating her sister better and not lashing out whenever she feels backed into a corner. What he isn’t trying to do is get her to speak to her parents, as truthfully he couldn’t imagine a worse pair of people to learn of their daughters’ illness, given their endorsement of her drastic weight loss and how they frequently belittle, insult and demean their younger child for not picking up these dangerous habbits too.