InsaneJournal

Matilda Hammond screams 'chaos'. From the hair on her head, which almost always looks like a dozen of birds have recently taken residence, to her unkempt clothing, tatty jeans, baggy band t-shirts, faded boots and the messiest apartment in the entire world, her life is a tornado. This is likely something Matilda has learned from her siblings. There are five Hammond children, Matilda being the youngest, and despite the fact that their parents were a Nice Couple, their kids... well, their kids were hectic, to phrase it nicely. Since she was old enough to walk, Matilda begged to join in with their crazy adventures and games. Being the youngest, she was often slung on one of her brother's shoulders as they set off for a day of mischief-making, and Matilda was never happiest than when she was covered in dirt and surrounded by her brothers and sisters. She positively idolised them. They were popular and fun and clever, and Matilda never quite lived up to the expectations she set of herself. She desperately wanted to be like her siblings, but she never achieved quite as good grades, never had quite as many friends, her jokes were never quite as funny.

Matilda quickly decided that she needed to do something else that would earn her as much attention. At twelve years old, Matilda didn't care whether the attention was positive or negative - anything that would cause her siblings and parents to fuss over her was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. Pyromaniac was a word she'd stumbled across on the internet, and it only took Matilda a week to build her own bomb out of aerosol cans. Unfortunately for her, the plan to gain her parent's attention completely backfired - Matilda was a fairly transparent twelve year old, and they correctly guessed the intentions behind her actions. They theorised that if they ignored her, her bids for attention would cease as soon as she realised they were unsuccessful - which they did, but not before she managed to cause a semi-serious fire in her bedroom, resulting in her pocket money being docked for a year to pay for the damage.

Matilda's best friend growing up was Kaitlyn Ricketts. Kaitlyn was one of the popular girls and a cheerleader, all curly, bouncy blonde hair and blue eyes, and Matilda felt utterly inadequate and plain in comparison. She couldn't even do the splits, let alone become a cheerleader. Matilda settled with hanging around on the outskirts of the popular crowd, never quite fitting in, never able to find her place. An already impressionable teenager, surrounded by girls constantly on diets certainly had an effect on Matilda, and it wasn't long before she was engaging on a 'diet' of her own. At first, her reduced portion sizes and declarations that she had to lose two pounds by the weekend were yet another plea for attention, but Tilly quickly started to become obsessed with what she ate and what she weighed - her aim to loose weight was working, but it was working too well.

Tilly was seventeen when she first collapsed in school, and the doctor who examined her immediately referred her to an eating disorder clinic. Declared anorexic and signed up to therapy classes which she refused to attend, Tilly tried to assure her parents that everything was fine, that the doctors were overreacting, and that she was just feeling under the weather. Her bid for attention had swung a complete 360. Whereas before Tilly flaunted the fact that she was dieting, as soon as the anorexia began to control her she was hiding the fact that anything was wrong. She became an expert liar, telling her parents she'd eaten at friend's houses and telling her friends she'd eaten at home, downing pints and pints of water prior to the compulsory weigh-ins her parents coordinated, and hiding food in her socks, pockets and sleeves during the occasions where she had no choice but to eat in front of other people.

Tilly managed to hide the extent of her illness from her family until things came to a head over the Christmas of 2009. She'd been accepted into Suffolk University, but her grades began to suffer due to the fact that she was constantly too hungry to concentrate. Her parents gave her an ultimatum: get therapy, or they'd stop financially supporting her, which would inevitably mean she had to drop out of university. Refusing to believe her problem was as bad as everyone else seemed to think, Tilly took the second option - and hasn't spoken to her parents since. She found an apartment in Graves Road and took on an additional job at Starbucks, which she worked along with her position at Barnes and Noble which she'd had since high school. Tilly isn't exactly content, given her current communication bar with her parents, but she also feels that giving in to their pleas for her to attend therapy would be admitting to a problem more severe than the one she believes she has.

Personality-wise, Tilly doesn't give the impression of someone who is 'broken'. She's fairly headstrong, although remains impressionable and constantly compares herself to other people. She's loyal and generous, has a dry, sarcastic sense of humour and is outspoken about her beliefs and viewpoints - which are often outlandish and wacky (she's a huge fan of theories about corrupt government, for example). When you first meet Tilly she can come off as a 'freak' - she tends to say inappropriate things, half because it's simply her personality and half because she's trying to push people away - Tilly has trust issues: she doesn't find it easy to get close to other people. She is simply a misguided teenager, trying to make sense of her place in the world - and, to be frank, not having a lot of luck so far.