Kaya Jarvis - Break Out of My Mind & Sit With You

 

 

In March of 2020, my parents drove me and my sister from our New York City apartment upstate to spend quarantine in a little cabin. It was heated by a fireplace for the first two months. It didn't have running water, so we had to use our neighbor's hose to brush our teeth and take showers. It was very tight and cramped. 

 

And like everyone else, we were going crazy. We were fighting a lot. I was finishing eighth grade at the time. I didn't want to be stuck in a house with my family. My sister didn't want to be stuck in a house with a family. My parents didn't want to be stuck in a house together or with us. And it was a lot. 

 

Throughout eighth grade, I felt very isolated and insecure, and I didn't feel very connected to the people around me. I was going through a lot of depression and anxiety. And this got really heightened in quarantine, because I had more time to just sit with my thoughts, and I didn't have the distractions of taking the subway and always being surrounded by people and things to take me away from what I was feeling. Throughout my life, I've always dealt with bad feelings with food. If I'm having a bad day, I would eat something that made me feel really good and happy. 

 

But in eighth grade, I approached food in a very different way. Instead of eating something that made me happy, I would restrict to take my mind off of things that were causing me stress and to give me something else to focus on. This progressed a lot in quarantine, to the point where all I could think about was food, and what I would eat and what I would not eat and how many calories I wanted to eat and how much I weighed and what I looked like. This got worse and worse throughout quarantine, and I couldn't think about anything else. 

 

My mom wanted us to really connect. And so, she started making these really elaborate dinners a couple of times a week. She would make us all get off of our phones, and sit us down at the table and present us with roasted vegetables, salad and pasta and whatever she could come up with, and have us all eat there and sit together. But these dinners didn't really help me, and they made me feel very stressed out, because I would look at this plate in front of me and not be able to eat it. I would try to hide it from my parents, but at one point, I couldn't hide it from them. So, I had to sit my mom down and tell her that I had an eating disorder and that I needed some help with it. 

 

And so, my parents were very supportive and they signed me up for therapy. My mom started driving me down to a doctor's in Manhattan once a week, where I would get weighed and I would have to list everything that I ate that day and everything that I'd eaten that week. I was very lucky to have this help, but I also felt very watched and in trouble, like I was doing something wrong, which I was but I also couldn't really tell that I was doing something wrong at the time. 

 

This went on. I kept on going to these doctor's appointments. I kept on having therapy, but it wasn't really helping that much, because I still felt really isolated and disconnected. One time, while my mom was driving me to the doctor's appointment, she brings up my friend Lana. And she's like, “Hey, why don't you reach out to Lana and ask her to hang out? You know, she lives right by the doctors. You guys could go to the park. It might be nice for you to talk to someone outside of the foreign family members that you're stuck in a house with.” 

 

So, I reached out to Lana. Lana was one of the only other black girls in our mostly white Upper West Side middle school. So, we always had this connection that I didn't really feel with any of my white friends. And we always understood each other on a deeper level. I reached out to Lana, and we made plans. Throughout quarantine, she was one of the only people I ever actually stayed in contact with. I was isolating myself from school and my friends and even my family, because all I could think about was food. 

 

And so, I reach out to Lana, and we make plans to hang out and I'm really excited. And the next week, I go to the doctor's appointment. It's very cold in there, and the doctor isn't very nice, and I'm being weighed and I feel very watched again, but I know I'm going to see my friend in a couple of hours. So, I make my way from the doctor's appointment. I walk 10 blocks to her house. But as I'm walking over to her house, it hits me that I'm sick and I have an eating disorder. 

 

When you hang out with people, you're supposed to eat. You're supposed to have fun eating, and you're supposed to talk with each other and not focus on the food. But all I could focus on at the time was food. So, I'm making my way over to her house, and I'm very excited, but I'm also deeply, deeply stressed. But I pick her up, and we do a little air hug and we start walking over to Central Park. And then, she's like, “Hey, there's this pizza place around the corner, and it's really good. Do you maybe want to get a slice?” And I'm like, “Sure. Yeah, I love pizza. That sounds great.” 

 

But we go to the pizza place, and I'm really stressed out the entire time. I get my slice, though, and we go over to Central Park and we sit down at this really nice bench. It's super sunny and the wind is blowing perfectly. She's telling very great stories. She's a very funny person. We're looking at TikTok’s or whatever. She starts to eat her pizza. I look down, and I open up this box in front of me, and I can immediately smell how good this pizza will taste. I look at it, and it has the perfect amount of cheese and the right crust. It has all of these things that I really love, but also all of these things that at the time I'm really scared of, cheese and oil and bread and whatever. 

 

And so, I don't want to be weird and I don't want Lana to suspect anything. I just want to have a normal hangout. So, I take a couple of bites and I just make myself eat. But I don't finish the slice, and it's okay. She doesn't notice anything. We just go on with the hangout, and it's okay. And the next week, I go to the doctors again, and we hang out again and we get pizza. I'm still really scared and I don't finish my slice, but at least I know Lana won't be watching me and I know that she'll still treat me like I'm normal. This goes on. 

 

Every week, I go to the doctors, I go to therapy. I feel really watched by everyone, including my family. My mom would check my plate every meal, and I would have to list everything I ate. But I would always get to see Lana every week, and we would always eat together, and I would always be able to laugh and focus on what she was saying. Overtime, these hangouts really helped me, because I was able to associate food and eating with my friend and the laughter and the joy I feel when I'm around her and also when I'm eating with her. 

 

It's now about to be ninth grade. We're about to start high school. It's a very big time. I'm nervous about that, but I'm also really excited to start something new. I'm doing a lot better with food. I'm eating a lot more. I'm feeling a lot less stressed about it. And a big reason for that is Lana. And so, we're hanging out. And that day, we get pizza and we decide to go to Riverside Park and we find this really nice spot, that's away from everyone where you can see the river and we're covered by trees and we start to eat our food. 

 

I notice that I'm not thinking about the food, and I'm just thinking about what she's saying and how nice it looks that day. And so, I decide I want to tell her and I go, “Hey, Lana, throughout quarantine, I've had an eating disorder and I'm a lot better now. And you're one of the main reasons I'm a lot better.” I'm scared to tell her this. I don't want things to change. I want to feel normal. I don't want to feel watched. But she gives me a hug, and she tells me she's proud of me and she tells me how strong I am. And things go back to normal. We watch TikTok’s, and we talk and we laugh and it's fine. 

 

Throughout ninth grade and high school, I'm now a junior. We've stayed friends. I'm fully recovered now. Every time we hang out, we eat together and we laugh and we share stories. And instead of focusing on food and the negative parts of it and the things that are scary about it, I can now focus on what I love about food and also what I love about the people that I share food with.