Kat’s Musings

Tag: physical-health

  • Shattered.

    Shattered.

    If we are going to go through the character arc of my not being good enough and the affect that it had on my life thus far , we have to further elaborate on what led me into my post-high-school downward spiral and my current health issues. 

    In high school, I tried extremely hard. After my middle school experience at being an overweight/ flunking embarrassment, I was shown how people only gave me praise and attention if I wore a size zero and excelled in my studies. So I withered away and took notes/ highlighted my books until my fingers bled. I tried to keep a social life, but eventually the obsession with my food and appearance gave way. 

    I even drove myself to school (once I got my license) hours earlier so that I could sit in the computer lab and search for homes where an adolescent can live on her own (I always thought that living on my own was the answer to my prayers!) 

    And then of course there was a boy. He was a firefighter, did not go to my school and actually showed interest in me. I was not used to this. I was deprived of romance and even though I had no interest in him, I craved his touch, his kisses and his text messages as if I had been trekking through the desert for years and he was a fresh spring of water. 

    But I never slept with him. I must have had some kind of moral code, because this would continue in university. We would do everything but as soon as it came to the actual act, I became dismissive. That did not please the twenty-year-old-playboy -firefighter, and suddenly his attention turned elsewhere. He went back to his ex-girlfriend— an easy get— fake tanned, a bit chubby and dumb as rocks. 

    My ego was absolutely shattered. My heart cracked open—like someone took a hammer to a glass jar and just let it shatter. Even though I had spent years not eating or enjoying life in order to be at the top of my class and in order to look like I was perfect—even though I made myself better than anyone else—I was once again still not good enough. My carefully curated Kate Moss-esque figure and resume quickly became crumpled trash in the midst of a “normie” high school girl. So I officially gave up. 

    I literally just stopped caring. I threw my hands up and started eating everything that I was missing out on for years. I stopped studying too. I took my tests after spending the night binging a television series (and binging copious amounts of snacks!). I would skip my classes the day that a major paper was due so that I could get it done the second before it was due.

    I gained more than twice the amount of weight that I weighed in high school. My parents were shocked when they saw me, they had me workout with a personal trainer, as if that was the issue—I simply had to move more not eat less.  However , the judgements only made me eat more. Still not good enough. 

    I reached out to some of the family friends I had grown up with so that I could have some semblance of a social life. And they helped. Invited me out. Made me laugh. But now everything felt fake.

    I was avoiding everyone from high school who knew me as the “anorexic girl “— the one who would only wear high heels and dresses or skirts instead of the jeans and sneakers of everyone around me— because I used to be better than everyone around me (or at least I believed I was). 

    Now I was ashamed. Now high heels would pinch my chunky toes and instead of flaunting my slender legs in skirts, I hid my giant slabs of meat in sweatpants and size thirty-two jeans. I avoided posting pictures of myself. I used to be so beautiful. I used to take immense pleasure in hearing my father tell his friends, “isn’t my daughter so hot?” He stopped saying that…

    Essentially the high school “breakup” did not just end a relationship—it ended me.  Once we had met, once I had tasted the attention I had been yearning for; I had built my whole senior year around him: I had started eating again (but not too much and of course I would never let myself go to sleep without working off every calorie I had eaten that day), late-night texts so that he could get more attention than my studies did, and fantasies about life together. 

    College was supposed to be freedom. Instead it felt like punishment. Instead of being lithe and studious, I was just studying myself—how to numb out, how to fake smiles, how to avoid anyone who might matter. I “slutted” around, but obviously nothing stuck. Every kiss tasted like betrayal. Every “I like you” sounded like a lie, because why would anyone like an over-two-hundred-pound girl?  I drank too much and I slept too much (making up for sleeping only a few hours every night in high school). 

    The worst part? I blamed him. For years. Like if he had never cheated, I would have gone to Yale, had a perfect GPA and had a perfect boyfriend. But It took recovering from my upcoming disability for me to realize: heartbreak does not ruin college. It does not ruin life. You do. You ruin it when you stop showing up. When you decide you are too broken to try. When you treat every new person like a ticking bomb. 

    Do not let one bad love story become the whole plot. Because the truth is, the boy who broke me? He is probably still in his mom’s basement, playing Fortnite. And I am here—yes, I do not like my current situation but I am surviving—writing this, breathing, alive and planning for a future. That is the real win.

    Essentially this entire experience taught me that everything happens for a reason— as corny as it may sound. Because honestly? The real damage was not the “breakup”—it was how I let it define me. I let one boy’s cowardice rewrite my future. I let shame decide my friends and my life.

    It is not something that I should look back on and regret, because what is really the point of that?!  If I was never made to feel like I was not good enough and thus never imploded, I would not have gone through the whole process of finding my voice and who I am, that means that I would not have started with the Twitter account full of snarky comments and controversial statements (seriously— people would constantly accuse me of either being a federal agent or a man pretending to run a girl’s account) and that would not have led me to meet the someone three thousand miles away— the man of my dreams. Maybe he is that perfect boyfriend I had envisioned finding in college. 

    Senior Year High School
    Post University

  • Undefeated.

    Undefeated.

    I have been struggling with this body for my entire existence. At first, I had to wear suspenders in order for me keep my pants from falling off. Then, as a little girl who just moved to America, I discovered my love for loaves of white bread, snickers and Coke-A-Cola.  The combination not only made me into a chubby elementary-middle school girl who was constantly made to feel like the ugly duckling in her own house (by my beautiful and perfect cousin), but led to the most pivotal moment in my young development. 

    In the summer before the sixth grade, my parents and I returned to our motherland (Russia). It was terrible. I had not seen any of my family since I was four years old and now as soon as my grandmother opened the front door she exclaimed, “Oh my!  You look so American!” I had no idea what that meant but I knew that it was not good. It was like my cousin had been telling me —  I simply was not good enough—at this point, she had moved out and was sent to boarding school.

    My other grandmother would also partake in the criticism of my appearance. I remember having my hand smacked away as I reached for the bread basket. Listen, I get it. The family should not be embarrassed. But I was just a kid, not some morbidly obese adult who just sat around and ate junk food all day . I had not even gone through puberty!  (All little girls puff up before their bodies release the excess storage). 

    Turns out, I would not even go through puberty until the end of high school because as a result of that criticism and the immense shame I felt, I simply stopped eating (and showing my body that it simply was not worth growing and developing). 

    It started innocently. The summer after the horrendous seventh grade— in which I ballooned into a new heavy weight category and began failing classes/ not trying—I started eating only fruits after 5 pm. No more snacking. No more junk food. 

    My parents loved my new look and would constantly praise me. I even started trying hard in school and I finally got straight As. I loved the praise and attention that came with this. Life was so much easier. I made lifelong friends and I loved the attention I would receive. Even from the teachers. No one talks about that part. 

    Ultimately, my body and I have been in a toxic on-again, off-again relationship for years. One minute I’m squeezing into size-sixteen (big kid) jeans, feeling sad and defeated—convinced I would never see my collarbones again (my favorite body part!). Then it gets extreme. The only-fruit diet turned into full-on anorexia. Not the glamorous kind you see in movies—just me, a bathroom scale, and a daily tally of how many grapes I could stomach before crying. I’d stare at my ribs like they were trophies, I would flush my food down the toilet—until one day my mom would see me pass out after a day of a few Venti americanos from Starbucks and she dragged me to a counselor. 

    I lied to that counselor about everything. I told her that I was gaining weight and that I was being forced to eat more. Ultimately it was the counselor’s fault though. I was an adolescent girl whose soul purpose is to be perfect— why would you put your full faith in me?  (She should have weighed me!)

    College flipped the script. Depression rolled in like fog, and food became comfort. I ballooned—obese, sure, but also numb. I’d eat a whole pizza alone in my dorm, then hate myself for it, then eat another slice because why stop now? I was broken hearted when a dumb high school fling showed me that I was not good enough (here we go again!) and I carried that pain all the way to Syracuse University in New York.

     I ended up not caring anymore. The straight As turned into Cs and Ds. When I could no longer befriend the beautiful people around me, I decided to hide from the world— only finding temporary solace in strange college boys who enjoyed plushy emo girls. 

    Now? I am actually happy and extremely healthy. I love everything about this government’s whole MAHA movement. I have been following “bro-science” accounts for a while now and have been obsessed with the detrimental impact of everyday products— like fluoride and seed oils.  So yeah…I am no longer eating whole pizzas alone in my room. 

    Years after the bleed, I also managed to lose over one hundred pounds— all while being bound to a wheelchair. I did this ultimately because my mindset had changed and I had finally discovered my own voice. Maybe it was because of Functional Neurology, but I had to learn that bodies were made in the kitchen and while I cannot currently take a walk or go for a run— I can show determination and discipline. This is what finding my own voice and personality taught me…. That I am invincible. I still yo-yo, I still binge eat when I get stressed or anxious, but I know how to stop it. 

    This reminds me I’m not broken, just… human. And yeah, my weight has been a mess. But I know that I can win. I can be better than human. So here’s to the yo-yo: up, down, sideways, whatever. I’m still here. Undefeated. 

  • My little journey

    My little journey

    I still remember the date—June thirtieth, twenty-ten—like it’s etched into my skull. That morning, everything felt heavy. I’d been carrying this quiet tumor since sixth grade; doctors shrugged it off back then, said it was dormant, harmless. 

    But I wasn’t dormant. I was crumbling—mentally frayed, body aching from the stress and exhaustion of my broken heart —and then it happened. One second I’m pacing, doing my PR work for a R&B artist in Seattle, Washington, next I’m gone. Coma. Lights out. 

    When I woke up two weeks later, the left half of me was missing. Not gone, just… silent. Arm limp, leg dragging like dead weight. I couldn’t grip a spoon, I couldn’t even hold my phone let alone text, and I couldn’t step without someone holding me up. The tumor had burst, they said. Pressure built, brain swelled, and my left side paid the price. The first weeks were a blur—hospitals, tubes, nurses who spoke too loud. I remember staring at my hand, willing it to move. Nothing. Just a stranger’s fingers attached to me. 

    Rage came next. Why me? Why now? I’d already been broken—why finish the job? 

    But rage burns out. What stayed was stubbornness. Physical therapy felt like torture at first—electrodes zapping my arm, therapists yelling squeeze! Even the simple task of sitting up in bed or in the wheelchair was torture. I hated mirrors. I hated pity. I hated the way people talked slower, like I’d lost my brain along with my limbs. Months turned into years. I learned to walk again, but only with help—slow, lopsided, cane in right hand like a crutch. I taught myself to write, even though my handwriting looks like a kid’s. I can complete tasks like buttoning my shirts and tying my shoes awkwardly. And I can cook—awkwardly, one-handed—because I refuse to live off someone else’s help forever. 

    The real recovery wasn’t muscle. It was headspace. I stopped asking why and started asking what now? I went through a number of therapists and some of them turned out to be lifesavers. I read all of the books and I watched all of the videos on neuroplasticity—stuff I never cared about before—and realized my brain was still rewiring, still fighting. 

    Today, I’m not cured. My left arm waves around without purpose while clenched in a fist. While my left leg drags on bad days. 

    But ultimately I have found an incredible love who accepts me as me and continues to inspire me through this journey. This is why I am writing this—I’m not the girl who got thrown into a coma; I’m the one who clawed out. If you’re reading this and you’re in the dark—whether it’s a brain injury, depression, whatever—listen: the body forgets, but the mind remembers how to want. And wanting is enough. Keep moving. Even if it’s just one stupid, stubborn inch at a time.

  • This Is Me…

    This is a little project that I am working on while I wait for my Prince Charming. You can follow my journey as I recover from disability and wax poetic about my passions in this life. I do not want children but I strongly desire to be a perfect little housewife. This is where I speak my dreams into reality…

    I have always loved the quiet thrill of a well-run home—like it’s my own little kingdom. There is something magic in turning chaos into calm. Folding laundry while the kettle whistles, watching sunlight hit the counter just right, knowing dinner’s simmering and no one’s yelling about deadlines. I’m not here to sell you on domestic bliss. I just… like it. The rhythm of it. The way a clean sink feels like a tiny victory. The slow burn of bread rising while I write this little blog . This is me. A future housewife who’d rather scrub grout than climb ladders.

    I will also write about being natural and all-in-all health. I spent years chasing perfect bodies, pills, and quick fixes until I realized healing isn’t about looking good; it’s about feeling whole. Now it’s less kale smoothies and more slow walks barefoot on grass (once I get to walk again!), breathing like I actually mean it, and saying no to anything that makes my gut twist. It’s messy, it’s unglamorous, but damn if it doesn’t feel like coming home to myself. 


    And the man of my dreams? I have finally found him, but even though he is over 40, he’s still growing into someone who loves me mid-recovery, mid-mess, mid-laundry pile. He knows that I want a man who can sit with me while I journal about old wounds, who can hand me my espresso without asking why I am crying (I can be overly emotional). Not a prince. Just… steady. Kind. Real. So I’m writing it all down—recovery, health, love—before the apron goes on. Before I start folding his socks like they’re sacred. Because if I’m gonna build this life, I want the foundation to be mine. Not borrowed. Not borrowed from anyone.