Like Some Cat from Japan

Two Weeks Prior (long post)

Through the clouded window of her second period English class, Karina Pinzon bore her eyes up at the misty sky. The clouds that hovered above her classroom were swollen with the rainfall their weatherman had promised, about to burst their contents over the city’s expanse.

A downhearted pour of rain was the last thing the town of Spring, Texas needed. Not to say it was an ugly place, that would be an overstatement, but it was without a doubt a dismal and humdrum little town. Lying on the outskirts of Houston, Texas, the dreary and monotonous hamlet of Spring was the quintessence of stereotypical suburbia, the lowest and dingiest excrement of society.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robrrt/4549504

The blaring sound of the school bell screeched throughout the campus, releasing the boisterous packs of students to their next class. Karina, who typically seemed to sprint from class to class, decided to take it slow that morning and observe the crowd of raucous vermin surrounding her.

She watched the open view of bitter teachers, loudmouthed boys and horny, lovesick girls scuttling about the hallways. She observed the sight of flamboyant thespians, juice-up jocks, and babbling cheerleaders teetering across the lawn. Taking in the melting pot of diverse humans surrounding her, Karina saw that the little town she once deemed as “lacking in character” was actually a mecca of colorful people, each as contrasting as night and day.

Each person, she observed, had their own unique niche whether it be as the school’s unofficial philanthropist, the class clown, the girl-next-door, the overachiever, the school slut, the village idiot… it didn’t matter. Everyone possessed their own fancies, their own interests, their own lives, their own shots. They were all their own heroes, waiting to save the world (or simply live out their dreams).

It was this niche of her own that Karina felt she lacked.

If two weeks prior she had been asked what her interests were, she would have replied with a bitter: ”All I do is eat, sleep, exercise, think about it, and then do it all over again” and with that response she would have been telling the whole crusty truth. Her Eating Disorder had recreated her to be about as interesting as a frozen pizza box and she loathed it for that.

Ducking into the nearest restroom, Karina locked herself into one of its cramped up stalls. She needed a moment of silence to reflect back on her life’s latest happenings.

Despite how fabulous she had duped herself into thinking her life was going, the reality was that she felt anything but fabulous.

Two weeks prior she was lost inside a labyrinth of obsessive calorie counting, only to be assured she did not “overdo it” with her food consumption. Two weeks prior she was living off of soups and fruit, feeling like the self-righteous Goddess of “clean eating” and self-control. Two weeks prior she was sick to her stomach, simply disgusted at her body for her lack of exercise. Her coccyx and sacrum fractures had spoiled her “perfect” exercise regimen, which although held as humanly impossible by her therapist, was never enough to allay her exercise compulsions. The girl was sentenced to a life in prison. Oh yes, once again.

After confessing her incarceration and misery to both her therapist and dietitian, she was deemed a robot by them. A robot with cardiac issues.

Not only did she have no interests other than her strict system of calorie restriction and exhausting exercise routines, but she also had poor blood pressure and a shallow pulse to accompany her platter of severe control issues.

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=disorder#/d1p84wt

Karina needed to become a person again, not just any person, however, but a Karina. THE Karina. She wanted to develop interests again, contribute something to a conversation, and judge her day not based on what a good workout she had or how “pure” she ate, but based on how much fun she had. She wanted to be healthy enough to jump for joy, ambitious enough to desire great things, passionate enough to follow her dreams, and love herself enough to maybe even love another. None of these hopes were possible with her Eating Disorder and exercise addiction in her life. She had known this all along but finally, she was ready to face this truth and that is why both “clean eating” and exercise had been annihilated from her life.

The two-minute warning bell echoed through the vacant restroom, sending Karina back into her usual scurry. As she scuttled down the hall, however, she continued to think and spoke words of encouragement to herself. If she had no one else to do it for her, she figured she could channel the Karina huddled deep within her to help inspire the helpless side of herself back into the halcyon of health.

“Come on, Karina. Do this for your family, do this for your recovery team, do this for all the girls and boys around the world struggling to do the same, and most importantly do this for yourself. Shut out the voice in the back of your head telling you that you are going to grow flabby (lies!), shut out the voice that’s screaming dreadful falsehoods in your ear, and shut out the evil voice that’s telling you to let it win. Don’t you want to fight, Karina? Huh? Don’t you want to LIVE!?”

With that motivation she took in a deep breath and whispered to herself: “Yes. Yes I do.”

http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=free&order=9&offset=48#/db5sex

As a smile of relief slowly painted itself across her face, Karina walked into her Algebra 2 class, took a seat in the front row, and simply focused. Focused on what she was doing and didn’t think about food or burning calories once. Not even once. It was time to start a new life and a new recovery.

The End. (for now)

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Well, I’m back! In my video, The Grievances of a Young Woman, I opened up about how well I was doing and announced a temporary break from blogging. My break is over now and I’ve decided to return! A lot has changed since that video though and unfortunately, things have not exactly changed for the better.

You see, around Thanksgiving, I started to slip and I let my slip get out of control. I lost weight down to a very low BMI and by mid-January, I just couldn’t take the battle going on in my head anymore. I was living in denial and secrecy because I felt like I could not tell anyone I was struggling at that point since I felt like I needed to live up to this reputation of being the “perfect recovery girl”.  And as you all know, ED loves secrecy and ED loves loneliness.

Secrecy and loneliness are not the only things ED loves, however. ED also loves it when we give in to vicious habits such as compulsive over-exercising and “clean eating.” Neither of these things are okay and they are both issues that people with Eating Disorder can come to struggle with. I am one of those people.

Since I was allowed to exercise during my last recovery process (bad idea), the ED side of myself began to depend on exercise in order to feel comfortable with eating well. Exercise and eating began to go hand in hand and eventually, there was not one without the other. In simpler terms, if I did not exercise, I did not eat well. If I exercised, I ate well. It became a horrible cycle.

Eventually, the exercise I was doing ceased to be enough. I started working out to the point of exhaustion and if God forbid I missed a workout 1-2 times a week, I would restrict. This blew up into an even bigger issue when I fell during ballet class and fractured both my coccyx and sacrum, making it impossible to dance or hit the gym.

The dilemma there was that I did not know how to eat without exercise…. and exercise was out of my life at that point so instead of eating poorly 1-2 times a week, I was eating poorly every single day now… and that made a huge difference in my already fragile mental state, triggering a full-blown relapse. As I’m sure many of you know, when you first start recovering from an Eating Disorder, it is almost like you are re-teaching yourself how to eat… like a baby! Since I was allowed to exercise during my recovery, I only re-learned how to eat while exercising. I had grown so dependent on that exercise during my recovery as a way to purge myself of calories that without it, I felt uncomfortable eating…. almost like I didn’t deserve it.

And that is why it is recommended that people recovering from Eating Disorders not exercise.

So you know what? Here I am fighting again but this time, I am not going to be the exception. I am going to recover the tried and true way: no exercise, no clean eating, no compulsive nothing.

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Confession time:

In addition to my exercise addiction, I also developed Orthorexic habits from blogging and to be honest, that is one of the reasons I stopped blogging for a while. Blogging became an awful influence on me and I just couldn’t do it anymore once I realized how it was harming me. I first came to blogging as a healthy eater, yes, but when I saw the way all the other “recovery” bloggers I encountered were eating… I felt inferior. They were eating only organic sprouted grains, raw foods, elaborate oatmeal concoctions every day, etc. and I felt so strange blogging my “untrendy” and “unfashionable” foods. I began to pick up their habits and started to blend in. Well, those habits became an obsession and I am here admitting today that my habits were unhealthy and disordered (and I’m sure most other bloggers’ have this issue, along with the exercise issue, but they are simply in denial and not admitting it because they are too afraid to challenge themselves for real).

I don’t want anyone else to fall into the trap I did so I thought I should share my new journey with others and show them what recovery should look like… because there are not many healthy examples out there in the blogosphere. I apologize if it seems like I am putting others down (I am honestly not, I love so many bloggers from the bottom of my heart) but I just do not want others in recovery to lose old habits and gain new ones by reading blogs like I (and many others) did. Recovery should not look the way so many other bloggers are depicting it to be.

So feel free to join me along my ride of untrendy recovery. I am currently not a yogi, a pilates practicer, or a perfectly “pure” clean eater who still makes elaborate oatmeal concoctions every morning like I used to so if that is what you are looking for or expecting with my return, feel free to look at one of the other millions of  ”recovery” blogs like that out there. I’m not one of them anymore. I am simply a 17 year old girl trying to recover from her ED the way people are meant to recover from their Eating Disorder.

If you don’t challenge yourself and make the ED uncomfortable, how do you expect to recover from it? Here are some of the memorable moments of my past week (sorry I couldn’t photograph everything I ate… school has kept me busy!):

Memorable Moments of Nourishment
(because who said recovering the “dirty” way wasn’t delicious and balanced? )

Homemade buttermilk pancakes spread with peanut butter and topped with fruit and real maple syrup. A container of Fromage Blanc with more berries on the side (not pictured).

A Tofurky & Apricot relish sandwich on German pumpernickel bread with a side of sea salt & vinegar Kettle chips and a York Peppermint Patty.

Kinnikinnick GF donut. I had this with a grande Starbucks cappuccino on the side

Tempeh marinated in soy sauce and steak seasoning.

Grilled in olive oil.

Finishing product: olive oil grilled tempeh over buttery wild rice and green beans.

Yep, that is an Oreo cheesecake. My first slice of Cheesecake in three years!

That’s all I’ve shot for now. I will try to take more picture for my next post, I promise! For now: cheers to happiness, health, and most importantly… being true to yourself! I’m so glad to be back