Kat’s Musings

Category: Healing

  • Debunking College Myths: What Really Happened

    Debunking College Myths: What Really Happened

    I remember the first day of college. I thought I would rebel. I imagined I would transform and emerge into a much stronger, skinnier, and beautiful person. This was post high school downfall.

    I moved into a dorm. It smelled like old pizza and someone else’s regret. My roommate was an atheist/ anarchist.

    People talk about college like it is this crucible—late-night debates, soul-searching walks across campus, professors who become mentors. These people did not know how emotional I was/ how much I would overreact. 


    Thus, it was mostly lukewarm coffee, group projects where one guy did everything, and a syllabus I skimmed once. I did not even get the degree. I got the debt though. But formative? Nah.

    The big moments—the ones you are supposed to remember—felt scripted. The boys?  The parties?  If I wanted to drown my sorrows, they were easy enough to find. Dumb drunk boys are always willing to canoodle with a sad fatty. And it was college… Cheap beer is always available. Whether you are lonely or a in a group of friends, Natty Light is there.

    Philosophy 101? I nodded along while thinking about lunch— I was always thinking about lunch. There even was a bit of heartbreak as I briefly got involved with a guy who had a girlfriend. I did learn how to fake confidence. I also learned how to survive. Another skill I picked up was how to dodge eye contact in the dining hall. As I basically lived there… Useful? Sure. Life-altering? Not really. I was just a broken person—slightly more caffeinated, slightly more cynical, but still emotional and down-bad me. College was not a plot twist. It was background noise. The real stuff happened after. Outside the quad. No cap and gown required. 

    The myth says it has to be epic. Reality says: it is just school.

  • Espresso Yourself.

    Espresso Yourself.

    I adore the me-time in the early morning hours. I get to make and enjoy my morning espresso during this time. To me, black coffee is the greatest. I do not need sugar or cream etc.  

     I do not just drink coffee. I live it. That first sip—hot, bitter, a little too strong—hits like a warm hug from someone who actually gets me. It is not about caffeine; it is about ritual. The grind, the way steam curls up. Every morning, I stand at the counter. My slippers are on and I am still half-asleep—I think: “this is the best part of being alive.” No one yelling. No balance issues. Just me, a mug, and my French dark roast. 

    I love how it tastes different every day—like it knows my mood. Yesterday it was smooth, almost sweet; today it is sharp, like it is mad I slept in. I love the way it stains my teeth just enough to make me smile in the iPhone camera and think, “Yep, that is me (Now I should brush my teeth!)”

    After initially getting sick, I tried tea. I tried matcha (with MCT oil). But never again.

    Coffee is a part of my personality now. I make it a priority to make and have my espresso. I stay away from food until lunch so it literally keeps me going in my mornings.

    Obviously I spend much of the morning hours on my man (as any woman should!)— so whether I am creating photoshops of us (right now), taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for him or writing something witty— I always have an espresso. We have an amazing espresso machine that brings me great satisfaction and hope for the day. It is absolutely delicious. I feel so sophisticated when I have a dark roast. Nothing too girly or foo-foo. 

    I do like a bit of foo- foo and girly though. Ask my (few) girlfriends and my boyfriend. The social aspect of going out to a coffee shop is one of my favorite things to do. Sitting across someone who I love and taking luxurious sips in between beautiful words about life is a heavenly experience. I typically celebrate by getting extra foam. I always say that my favorite food is the foam on the top of a cappuccino. It is a nice tasty treat. 

    Coffee is not a drink; it is a promise: “you’ve got this.” Sometimes it lies—late nights, shaky hands, jitters—but I forgive it. Because it is worth it. Because without it, mornings would just be… quiet. Lonely. And while quiet is fine…

    …Coffee is alive. So here is to the next cup. And the one after that. And the one I will probably spill on my shirt later. 

  • How Pretty Woman Shaped My Understanding of Love

    How Pretty Woman Shaped My Understanding of Love

    I want to elaborate on this post. Pretty Woman was one of the first movies that I watched in America. I was four years old. I did not speak any English. But I understood it completely. 


    To me, it is not a story about a sex worker. This contrasts with the Oscar movie Anora, which I was told was a modern version of Pretty Woman. It is a story of a woman who needs saving. So I spent my entire life aspiring to be a damsel in distress.

    At four years old, I was not sure what I would need to be saved from. I knew that Vivienne also saved Edward. So, I aspired that I would need to be a savior to my own man. 

    Ultimately, this is how I have arranged my own life. I am strong enough for him but I need him to save me from..myself? And everything that have been through. Women are not supposed to be “I do not need a man” strong—and while I do not blame anyone or anything that has happened to me— I simply should have reacted differently.

    Therefore, I need some saving. I need my man to save me from overreacting and overthinking everything that happens.


    I guess that is what I admire about this character and this story. Vivienne did not simply demand a check or cash to cure her status in life. She needed a man who actually cared enough about her and gave her guidance to achieve a better life. She also showed him that there is more to life than the money and status that he was chasing. She helped him overcome his fear of heights etc. overall, this movie is a beautiful fairytale for girls of all ages. 


    After viewing this fairytale throughout the years, I now know what is happening in the dialogue and the story. While Vivienne is definitely sharp and witty, she is a character who I am proud to have embodied as an influence

  • My Passion for Nutrition (pt. 2)

    My Passion for Nutrition (pt. 2)

    Let us talk about something a little less emotionally serious. It is still very serious to me. I am referring to seed oils. These include canola, which comes from RAPE SEED. They also include soy and sunflower. My boyfriend and I decided that sunflower is the least unhealthy one so I can eat it a little. Corn is the worst. The stuff that is in everything from chips to salad dressing. 

    This is something that I have been wanting to write about for a while now. But it is difficult to get any studies or information on. Mainstream doctors, and even the based AI: Grok, say they are fine. They even claim they are heart-friendly. But dig deeper, and the bad side creeps out. First: seed oils are loaded with omega-six fats. Your body needs some, but the Western diet slams you with twenty-to-one ratios against omega-threes. That imbalance leads to chronic inflammation—think joint pain, gut issues, even cancer. 

    A recent twenty-twenty-six study on colon tumors had significant findings. Ultra-processed junk filled with these oils creates pro-inflammatory sludge around cells. This process basically turns your gut into a war zone. Tumors never heal no matter what measure you take. Then you have oxidation. 

    Fry fries all day? (A food that I love). They spit out toxins like aldehydes—a chemical linked to DNA damage, heart disease, even Alzheimer’s. Real-world fast-food chains reuse vats of toxic oil nonstop. 

    Processing is another red flag: chemicals, bleaching, deodorizing. Residues might be low, but why risk it when butter or olive oil skip the factory drama? And of course oils are cheap (have you noticed how the country loves to use cheap ingredients to poison us?!) they are everywhere in junk food. Obesity, diabetes, metabolic messes all coincide with the seed-oil boom since the seventies. It all started after we had leftover corn oil from the world war. People used it to lubricate the engines of the tanks. 

    When using whole fats (coconut, avocado or just butter or ghee), people report clearer skin and better energy. States are pushing for criminalizing seed oils —Louisiana and Texas label laws, school bans, etc .  We need to begin with the younger generations in order to fight against this madness. 

    RFK Jr. types (like me!) call seed oils poison. They should be outlawed because they quietly wreck  everyone’s health while Big Food profits. Big Food does not care. Food companies are forming partnerships with chemical companies. This is done to profit off the consequences that result from our food (see Bayer purchasing Monsanto). Thus you should go avocado, coconut, ghee. Cooking at home is also beneficial since you know what you are actually eating. Balance your fats. Your body will thank you and you will not be subservient to the fast food industry. 

  • Discovering Strength Through Pain: A Journey

    Discovering Strength Through Pain: A Journey

    I used to think that my father was the strongest man. I never see him cry and I never see him ask for approval. But when I was at Syracuse University, my mother dismantled us.  I have always been a “daddy’s girl—“ you hurt him, you hurt me. Instead we were made to feel like something was wrong with us. Like we were just broken. 

    I hated to see him waive the white flag. I thought love was to be safe but instead I went into a tailspin. You hurt my father, you hurt me. So I went even deeper into my downward spiral. I kept eating my feelings. One year later I would end up in a coma and I would be disabled. 

    The worst part is that my mother had rewritten the whole story to make her the hero. She made excuses so she could be seen as the victim. I remember calling a good friend of mine (she has too much Ukrainian pride now though) sitting on the ground outside of the county jail in tears. There is no hero in this story. This was the moment when I broke down even more 

    So I turned to the manosphere accounts on Twitter (RIP). The manosphere gave me solace. It taught me about the manipulation that caused my father to fold. It also evidently taught me to hate on women. I know this is not exactly the right way to live. However, you will never catch me screaming about girl power and glass ceilings. I love men. I think that they are the greatest people on the planet. I also felt like I was being broken and betrayed by a woman. And I took it out on her. I took it too far. 

    I was already spiraling (because), but now I went down even further. 

    I learned how strength and weakness are not just physical— but instead strength is spine. Being able to say “no” instead of the quiet surrender I witnessed. I know that I should forgive. Holding onto pain only hurts you. But you cannot forgive when they keep taking. It is not pain and it is not hate— I do not have the energy for that. 

    We were dismantled. I was dismantled. It lead me towards rock bottom— but now I only have energy for progress and achieving my goals and desires. 

  • Losing Friends and Achieving Goals Through Physical Therapy

    Losing Friends and Achieving Goals Through Physical Therapy

    I have been through a lot of physical therapy throughout the years. One thing that I noticed was that many people treat their patients as a protocol and not just a person. 

    It can definitely be life changing. Still, you may need to wade through a series of therapists. I will admit that— at first— I used my physical therapy as a way to indulge my social cravings. I did not speak coherently. It was not easy for me to speak. But, I felt great pride and took immense pleasure in being capable of speaking. (I was mute from June thirtieth- August thirteenth, twenty-ten).  

     I became absolutely starved of social interaction. Even my friends faded away from me once I got ill and became unable to go out. My body betrayed me, and doctors only shrugged. It felt like a life on pause type of sickness. It started small. Texts went unanswered. Group chats dried up until it became absolutely nothing. Not even a heart emoji. Like I had vanished. At first I blamed the timing. People are busy, right? Work, kids, their own drama. But then weeks turned into months. The invites stopped. Just silence. 

    For the first few years, a few hung around but they eventually had to live their own lives. They finished school. Got jobs. They got married. Had babies.   All while I was drooling every time I went out in public and spent years in adult diapers.  I get it. Illness is not sexy. It is not funny. It is not a vibe. It is just… heavy. And nobody wants to carry that. But here was the part that stung: they did not leave because I changed. They left because I cannot keep up. Could not laugh at their jokes. Not pretend everything was fine. So they ghosted—not out of malice, but out of convenience— people vanish when it becomes too hard to stay. 

    At this point in my life, I needed someone to gossip with about the shows I was watching. I also wanted to discuss current events with them. Thus, I used physical therapy to cure my newly found loneliness.

    All the while I was desperate to recover but the many therapists I saw did not care about my recovery. They gave me false hope and promised to fix me. 

    Essentially, physical therapy only appeased my craving to chat. No tweaks to the recovery plan. No follow-up questions. They simply saw me as a paycheck. Someone who they could put through cookie-cutter exercise routines while they were on the clock. It seemed like a scam. 

    Now I have a physical therapist who actually watches how I move. He sees that I am compensating for my lack of strength in my left side. We both love sport. I no longer desire to talk about television or popular culture. So, I still get a good battery recharge from the quick recap we do during our sessions. But he also applies sports knowledge to the exercise program that he designs for me. It is crucial for me to understand the why behind my actions. I don’t want to be treated like a robot on a conveyor belt. 

    I also love getting to walk and I absolutely adore that he acknowledges it. He allows me to explore walking around without any cane or walker. I get teary-eyed when I am allowed to operate like a regular human being. It seems silly. Stupid. But it means so much. No one else did this for me. I find that odd because it is the point of my ultimate goal in physical therapy. My goal in physical therapy is walking around by myself on my own. 

    Good physical therapists exist. They are the ones who treat you like a person, not a protocol. And they will stay— not dismiss you because you do not fit conveniently into their narrative. 

  • Choose Your Fighter

    Choose Your Fighter

    Transformation: from disability to housewife-in-training (throughout the years of my illness)

  • My Journey: From Veganism to Weight Loss Success

    My Journey: From Veganism to Weight Loss Success

    A friend of mine recently reminded me about the five year stint I took from eating meat. It was from twenty-twelve until twenty-seventeen. I was vegan during this period. Eating meat again reopened my eyes. This reminds me of the many “fad” diets that I have tried. 

    After initially getting sick, I had testing to find out which foods I had an intolerance to. 

    At first, we saw a woo woo type doctor. He had me place my hands on a stone. I could do only my right one obviously. He told me that the stone showed I need to stay away from anything that comes from beef. My mother bought into everything that that “doctor” was shilling. However, my father and I had a hard time believing that prognosis. So I had my blood tested by an actual naturopath. 

    My blood tests showed that I had an intolerance to dairy and chicken eggs. I was extremely overweight at the time. So, I figured that I might as well cut out all meat and fish, as well. I did not quit because meat was too heavy, or bad for the planet, or—worst of all— too expensive.

     (Now I have a conspiracy theory that the doctors doctored those tests because I was so big and so sick). 

    Being vegan did nothing for me. It definitely was not difficult for me to give up meat; but I absolutely love sushi, ice cream and cheese.  But I knew that I could no longer overindulge in these anymore (that is the issue here— overindulgence)

    I mostly had a diet of carbohydrates during those years. This was obviously before I started my gluten free lifestyle. I could eat anything fried, doughy, and all of the pasta. And I still adhered to the diet. I also ate a diet full of beans and legumes. This ultimately made my body reject absorbing bean protein. Sigh. I do miss my hummus!—This recipe is not conducive to weight loss. 

    Now I simply eat whatever I desire. Because the second that that steak hit my tongue in twenty- seventeen everything clicked back into place. As if my body had been quietly waiting, storing up all this dumb, primal hunger. No guilt. No lecture. Just… meat. Warm, real, alive on the plate.

    Now, compared to when I decided to go vegan, I can demonstrate discipline. This change has been in effect as of twenty-seventeen. I control how much I eat. This was the major difference. How much I am consuming. As I have mentioned, I managed to lose more than one hundred pounds. 

    The body is created in the kitchen, not the gym. When I initially gained more than one hundred pounds— I killed myself in the gym and my parents had me see a personal trainer, but I kept eating more of anything and everything. That is why my weight barely budged. I was extremely unhappy and this—reflected in the mirror—and ultimately reflected in my health. 

    I have learned that weight loss and body image are based on my mental state. I finally found my voice and accepted my opinions instead of following the crowd. As a result, I got happier and met the man of my dreams. I also saw my body transform to mirror my state of mind. 

     I guess what I am saying is—sometimes you quit because you are scared. Or lazy. Or—in my case—it seemed the easiest way to lose the weight I gained. At least, I thought it was. And then one day you bite into something again, and remember: “This is why I liked it.” Not because it is fancy— although I do love that aspect. Not because it is trendy. Just because it is good. And good makes me happy. Happy equals healthy. 

  • Americana.

    Americana.

    I have lived in the tiny town of Snohomish, Washington,since I was seven years old. Snohomish is not flashy. It is not Seattle. It is the kind of place where you grow up slow. The biggest drama is who forgot to lock the barn. In Snohomish, “good morning” still means something.

    I used to hate that. I wanted to be a big city girl (ala Samantha Jones in Sex and the City). I even went away from the public school I was supposed to attend. I did this so I could dress and be a little more high class. 

    The girls who live in Snohomish pride themselves for living in a Bodunk town. “Fancy” usually means that you will sink into the muddy fields. It is not the norm.  But I did not like that. I did not want to wear pajamas and slippers to class. I wanted to wear stilettos and I dreamt of living in a penthouse. 

     None of that ended up happening. It became dangerous to even visit a city. Now I have a different perspective of this small town. It feels like living inside a postcard and that postcard smells like rain and fresh-cut grass most days. 

    This town is tiny, maybe ten thousand people. Main Street still looks like it did in the nineteen-twenties. It has brick storefronts, a hardware store that sells everything from nails to fudge, and diners. The river runs right through the middle—Snohomish River, wide and slow. Packed with sunburned locals in July. Around here, summers are for the county fair (something that I do not partake in). It is not the flashy kind with Ferris wheels taller than trees. It’s just a dusty field off Second Street, filled with goats baaa-ing, cotton candy, and sketchy ride operators. Winters are quieter. Fog rolls in off of Puget Sound like a blanket, and school buses crawl through it, headlights glowing. 

    People here do not rush. You wave at strangers because you have seen them before— since the town is so small. Everyone knows everyone’s business. They do not judge, or at least, they do not judge out loud. This was new to this little Russian girl. I left for college, came back since. The river still smells the same. The hardware store still sells fudge. And yes it rains, but it rains softly— as if this place is giving you a hug. 

    I want to share this hug with the love of my life. Convincing my boyfriend to move out to Washington state was like my experience of recognizing my hometown in the past. It is different from the postcard version I see now. 

    While we would not be living in Snohomish, small towns are so much more attractive than the big bad cities. While I do not want to dress like a slob or float down a river in the summer— I would rather that than be raped by an immigrant and encounter needles in the storefronts.  He would rather cheer for the teams that his family has always supported and not be surrounded by “aw shucks” coworkers. 

    So I do not belong in Snohomish, Washington, but I have definitely developed an appreciation for small towns. I might live in a small “Americana” town in Montana or the Carolinas. Wherever I end up, I will always waive “hello” and will not judge (out loud). 

  • Main Character Energy: Embracing Yourself Fully

    Main Character Energy: Embracing Yourself Fully

    I used to think confidence was something you either had—like eye color—or you did not have. Turns out, it’s more like muscle: you build it, you lose it, you flex it, then you flex again.

     The shift started small. I stopped apologizing for existing. No more sorry. No more shrinking when someone walked in. Main character energy. I just… stayed. Took up space. Let my voice land without flinching. That was the main challenge that showed me that I was on the right path. My voice. I started using it. 

    First trick? Fake it till you make it—except I did not have fake it. I borrowed it. Watched people who walked like they owned the sidewalk, copied their posture, their pauses. Turns out, shoulders back is not magic—it’s physics. Shrinking away physically makes you shrink away psychologically. And once you feel taller, your brain starts believing it. 

    Second: I quit collecting opinions. Not every critique needs a reply. Not every stare needs an explanation. I decided my worth was not up for vote. My worth has been at the center of my life and how it has been. 

    That alone cut half my anxiety. The real glow-up? Saying “no”. Not mean “no”, just clear “no”. Nah, I’m good. Not tonight. That is simply not for me. Especially when it comes to someone I regard as a superior. I have to stand up for myself. And I still get nervous. Still second-guess. Now, I talk to that voice in my head like it is a friend. “Hey, we have done this before. Chill.” (Life hack: this is how I know that I will recover!)

    The fear and the lack of confidence does not vanish. I still ask others to confirm that I am doing a good job. I do not just peacock around. But my lack just gets quieter. Confidence is not about never doubting yourself. It is about doubting yourself, shrugging, and moving anyway. Because the most confident person in my life? She is not fearless. She is just done pretending she needs permission. And honestly? That feels better than any spotlight ever could.