Karen Carpenter

 

When Adri turned 33 and had outlived Karen Carpenter, I felt a sense of relief. It's easy to think of eating disorders as a teenage disease, one that you grow out of in time, but I knew differently. This awareness came via my exposure and knowledge learned in my psych degree, yes, but also because of Karen Carpenter.

"She was 32 years old? Really? That seems old to still be battling an ED," etc. etc.

But with the birth of her kids and making it past what I hoped was an upper-limit age marker I had some optimism, and indeed things seemed better in the early part of the decade preceding her passing.

She looked healthier, her pregnancies were non-eventful. She glowed and gained the appropriate amount of weight. When I hugged her, it didn’t feel as if she would break into a million pieces. But the destructive thoughts were always still just under the surface, and food insecurity resulting from her economic situation never helped.

The beginning of the pandemic actually helped her in this regard. The increase in SNAP benefits as well as the stimulus checks received took away much of that food insecurity. Instead of having to make a meager amount of groceries stretch among a family of four and doing without herself, she was able to have a normal amount of food on hand. And what’s more, the extra money meant she could afford to buy healthier stuff such as more fresh produce.

It was at once heartening to me to see this, but also heartbreaking, because the implication seemed to be that perhaps it was all a function of food insecurity and not an ED, which somehow made it worse.

However, the increased funding of SNAP as well as the cash payments to millions during the pandemic came to an end; there was not enough political will to keep it up. The clash of political ideologies and their opposing priorities have real-world effects: tax cuts, wall building, and aircraft carriers became more important than raising millions of kids and their families out of poverty.

Once that Grand Experiment ended, I noticed a change in Adri physically: she was getting thinner, her hair lost its luster, her teeth worse. She suggested by omission and context that not only was there just less food again but that her ED behavior had returned. I started sending a box of food every other week that was fruit and veggie forward, with foods that would help her such as avocados. Her granny sent her nutrition drinks as well, that I would stress needed to be a meal supplement and not a meal replacement. She would take prenatal vitamins. But still.

Of course there were other contributing factors, a heart issue unrelated to behavior, alcohol issues, and various challenges (some self-inflicted, some not) that didn’t help.

In the end, Karen Carpenter made it 32 years, but died of heart failure brought upon by her eating disorder, and there should have been no reason for me to hang onto that age number like it was some magic goal line, that once crossed and surpassed I could worry a bit less.

This is not a disease that you simply grow out of.

Here’s a text from Adri sent in 2019 that illustrates much of this:

12/19/2019 8:31:15 PM

And I always wanted be counselor or psychologist. Always. So I’m doing that. I’ll get a grant and financial aid, and I can only get so much, so I don’t want to waste it.

Also, I’m old.

And I am worn out.

I can’t believe what all I have done to myself. It makes me so sad that I didn’t see that I was gorgeous, but I didn’t think I was pretty.

And I couldn’t see it, and I turned myself into the person I saw, and now I am ugly.

And worn out.

And makes me sad. Like so, so sad.

So I really, really want to try and help people before it’s too late. Suck it up show them before and after picture and tell them the truth so that my mistakes weren’t for nothing.

Maybe they were to save a life

Anyway, here are The Carpenters playing one of my favorite songs from their oeuvre, featuring Karen herself on the drum kit.