Chapter 4
For me, this stage of grief was one of the longest, but also one of the most hidden. I’ve noticed that of my disordered eating — it likes to hide.
In high school and my first year of college, I struggled with binge eating. Eating all the things in this photo — and more — five times over was my security blanket, my escape, the way I hid from the pressure I put on myself. At the beginning of 2018, I decided to go to therapy, and I eventually found an eating plan that worked for me. By that summer, I had a much better relationship with food.
But fast forward to after the shooting and fires, and some of my disordered eating came back. I remember traveling to Portland in February 2019, and eating so much that I threw up in the hotel.
Depression comes in many forms. This is just one of mine.
“I remember coming home for Thanksgiving break and everyone was in mourning. I drove around with my family and saw the damage done in the area. It all didn’t feel real. It was a sad and aching pain within a community.”
-Anna Randall, USC student, Thousand Oaks resident
“Just a couple months before, there was a domestic abuse case at The Oaks mall where a woman was shot… The look of fear in everyone’s eyes was something that resurfaced in my head when I heard about the [Borderline] shooting. It made the feelings worse because I was imagining the fear and pain that those inside were facing.”
-Daniel Razum, Cal Poly SLO student, Thousand Oaks resident
“The last few years in Ventura County have been rough as far as fires go. It's not the fire that you take with you, it's when you go back to the burned down house and you see the families digging through their stuff. Not to downplay it, but the fire is just our job... We go on fires all the time... It's not the fire that affects you, it's the people that you see afterwards.”
-Chris Sharp, Ventura County firefighter
“Going to [Kristina's] funeral was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. Whenever I think of her, it breaks my heart. It's so sad. That's the one thing that always comes back, just thinking about her not being here anymore, and being so young.”
-Luke Besselo, University of Arizona student, Borderline attendee