Jake’s story

PALMER — Before sprinting into the record books, Jake Parisien had to outrun his demons.

Parisien capped his prep running career in historic fashion. The Palmer High School star earned a state championship in the 3,200-meter run at the 2008 ASAA 4A State Track and Field Championships in Fairbanks, set a state record and upset Kodiak’s Trevor Dunbar, the athlete who once held the state mark.

But as significant as Parisien’s win in the 3,200-meter was, the race does not come even close to the biggest battle of his life. Parisen’s most triumphant struggle came off the track.

Parisien, who graduated from Palmer High in May, spent most of his prep career fighting an eating disorder.

Diagnosed with anorexia as a freshman, Parisien was saddled with the problems that come with the illness for more than three years.

He fought depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.

He battled his subconscious.

He starved himself.

Parisien steadily receded mentally and physically, going from the heralded young athlete he had been to a mere shell of his former self.

Rather than running toward all of his hopes and dreams, Parisien was chased by his inner demons. His muscles began to atrophy, all of his energy and motivation disappeared and Parisien flirted with potentially life-altering health problems. His friends, family and coaches watched as Parisien fell into a steady decline.

At the low point during his illness, the 5-foot-9 Parisien could barely top 115 pounds.

“There was a time when I wasn’t sure if he was going to be here or not,” said Parisien’s mother, Bobbi Robinson. “He was very ill, very sick.”

Parisien started his running career by breaking records at the middle school level and finished high school as the fastest Alaska high school runner ever to compete in the 2-mile run.

But in the time in between, a period he describes as a living hell, Parisein fought a battle he very well could have lost.

“High school was hell for me, probably the biggest regret of my life,” Parisien said.

A running prodigy

Robinson said her son could always be described as a kind kid.

“He was always quiet, always athletic,” Robinson said. “From the time he could sit up, he was always watching basketball on TV. He always had a ball in his hand. He was a good kid.”

Robinson said she urged her son — an athlete who has excelled in basketball, cross country running and track — to participate in sports at a young age. While Parisien was in elementary school, Robinson convinced her son to join an after-school running program.

“I gave him a choice, you can stay after school and do some running, or you can sit home and do nothing,” Robinson said.

So Parisien ran.

And he was a natural.

“He was a prodigy,” said Gary Howell, who coached Parisien at both the middle school and high school levels.

When Parisien moved to Palmer Junior Middle School, he instantly found success, and eventually shattered records, setting up what would be a highly anticipated high school career.

Starting down

the wrong path

Parisien is still not completely sure what brought on his eating disorder.

“I don’t know what triggered it,” Parisien said, who first fell into the depths of the illness during the summer that followed his eighth-grade year.

Parisien would normally spend a part of each summer with family in North Dakota. When he left Alaska that summer, Parisien said he weighed about 138 pounds. When he came back to the state, he was at about 120.

“That shocked a lot of people,” Parisien said. “When I went down to North Dakota I was so much bigger than everyone since I matured really young.”

Parisien said he is not sure how much the pressures of being a running prodigy had to do with triggering his illness. Although most people are still unsure why this started, those close to Parisien have their theories.

“He had a lot of pressures at that age,” Robinson said. “I thought it was because of those types of stresses. Those kids his age shouldn’t even have to deal with that. But we really don’t know.”

To this day, Howell is still afraid that he may have had something to do with adding pressure on Parisien.

“I always wondered what set it off,” Howell said. “I always worried that I played a major role. I coached him in middle school. He was a prodigy. It scared me, telling him things like there was no limit to what he could do. You will be a state champion, you will be a phenom.

“Awesome, I’m the guy to push this kid to the breaking point,” Howell added with remorse. “I don’t know what that kind of pressure would be like.”

Laura Phillips, a local dietitian and counselor who helped Parisien fight anorexia, said the pressures of excelling in sports can certainly play a role in developing an eating disorder.

“It’s hidden within the athletic industry,” Phillips said. “Especially in wrestling and running.”

Phillips also said society’s general take on appearance also plays a significant role.

“The pressure to look a certain way, weigh a certain weight, perform in a certain way — it gets the ball rolling,” she said. “An interest [in appearance and performance] turns into an obsession, and once it’s an obsession, it’s full-blown.”

While struggling with the disorder, Parisien said he thought he was supposed to look a certain way.

“When you have an eating disorder, you really don’t notice the weight coming off,” Parisien said. “And if you do, you like the way you look more than anything.

And what troubles Parisien now drove him while he was anorexic.

“If I look at pictures now it disgusts me,” Parisien said of photographs of himself taken two years ago. “But if I looked at them two years ago, I wouldn’t see anything wrong.”

Freshman year

When Parisien returned to Alaska for his freshman year and his first season of high school cross country running, it was apparent all wasn’t right with the rising running star.

“When school began that first year, I realized there was something wrong,” Robinson said. “I didn’t know how to deal with it or anything.”

Howell, who began coaching at PHS that year, also noticed.

“I think if you knew Jake, it was obvious,” Howell said. “He was a physical specimen in middle school, put together. He was on the front page of every paper breaking records. People don’t just lose 20 pounds — not boys in the summer — unless you’re 250.”

Seeing Parisien weigh 20 pounds less than he did just a few months before caused Howell to flash back to his own past.

“The irony of it is I dated a girl who was severely anorexic,” Howell said. “It was familiar by all means. It was pretty spooky when he came back after being away for the summer.”

Once Robinson began to fear that her son may be intentionally starving himself, she felt helpless, but began doing all of the research she could.

“There weren’t really any people in Alaska who had experience with eating disorders, with kids and males especially,” Robinson said.

But Robinson was able to find one person, Phillips, who, with more than 15 years of experience, is considered one of the foremost authorities on eating disorders in the state. Robinson found Phillips, who now operates a private practice, at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

“She and I worked together for a while before she started seeing [Jake],” Robinson said.

Finding Phillips allowed Robinson to get Parisien the therapy he needed. Robinson and Phillips also found a local psychiatrist who had experience in the field.

“For about two years straight he saw both those people,” Robinson said.

Parisien visited Phillips and the psychiatrist two days each week, and Parisien’s coaches also played a role in his therapy.

At first, Howell said he didn’t even want Parisien to run cross country during that freshman season. But Howell and Parisien compromised. In order for Parisien to run, Howell would have to track Parisien’s weight with regular weigh-ins. To stay on the team, Howell said Parisien weighed in three times a week.

“Howell wouldn’t let me run unless I was gaining every week,” Parisien said.

Before Parisien could run, he’d have to weigh in.

“You have to draw that line in the sand,” Howell said. “That’s something you have to do with anorexics. That was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a coach. I do have a pretty special relationship with Jake. I think of him more as a little brother.”

Fighting the battle

Parisien now admits he would take measures to look like he was gaining weight, even though he continued to starve himself.

“I’d find ways to cheat,” he said. “I’d drink a lot of water to make sure I gained weight. I was telling myself I wanted to gain weight, but I was really trying to stay small.”

As Parisien fell further into the illness, he’d not only cheat on his weigh-ins, but he became more destructive with his diet.

“I couldn’t eat a whole bunch in one day without feeling guilty,” Parisien said. “And if I felt guilty, to make myself happy I’d exercise.”

If Parisien felt he ate to much in any given day, he’d put in extra time running.

“I remember times I’d go running at like 2 o’clock in the morning to feel better, to feel skinnier,” he said. “If I ate too much back then, I felt fat, so I’d figure out a way to burn it off.”

When he was at his worst, Parisien said he’d only consume about 300 calories per day. There were days when he’d only eat an apple. Robinson said she tried to do everything in her power to get her son to eat, and all the while she knew he was cheating.

“There were days when I knew he’d walk out of here with his lunch and I knew he wouldn’t eat it,” Robinson said.

Parisien said his eating habits would go in cycles.

“I’d eat a lot, then I’d eat less to make up for what I ate the day before,” Parisien said. “But when I look back, when I ate a lot in a day, that’s how much I eat in one meal now.”

Parisien said a meal as average as a cheeseburger and fries would be considered too much. A huge meal, Parisien said, would be a few pieces of pizza, which is nothing to him now.

“I remember the days, if I knew I was going to have pizza, I’d go all day without eating just so I could have pizza that night,” Parisien said. “Even though the next day I wouldn’t eat that much.”

Parisien said he got to the point where it felt more normal to him to starve.

“When I starved myself, my body got used to starving,” he said. “I got used to not eating. I got pretty easy to go through the day without eating.”

Two Jakes

“That’s the biggest thing about eating disorders,” Parisien said. “You’re not thinking for yourself.”

Parisien said it was almost like being “two Jakes.” There was Jake the normal kid, and Jake with the eating disorder.

“I couldn’t think for myself or stand up for myself,” Parisien said. “It was like I was competing with someone else in my head.”

Phillips said Parisien’s struggles are common for those who suffer from eating disorders.

“Eating disorders are considered mental disorders, not physical disorders,” Phillips said.

Along with the eating disorder came obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. Phillips said this is referred to as “comorbidities.”

“A lot of times depression, anxiety, substance abuse, manic depression and bi-polar disorder become diagnosed,” Phillips said.

Parisien said his OCD was discovered after he was diagnosed with the eating disorder and he had major bouts of depression. He was put on medication to treat the depression, but Parisien said he only took the drug for about three months.

“It didn’t really do any good; it just made me tired,” Parisien said.

Thoughts of suicide can also coincide with the illness, but Parisien said that is something he didn’t have to deal with.

“People say eating disorders can lead to suicide, but I never thought about suicide,” Parisien said. “I like my life way too much, but I can see how people could commit suicide.”

The eating disorder also took a toll on Parisien’s social life.

“I was never a social person, I had no energy, I never wanted to talk to someone,” Parisien said. “That’s the thing when you don’t give nutrition to your body, you always feel dead. You never feel like doing anything.”

Having control

Regardless of what was happening in Parisien’s life, even though he was starving himself, he was able to control what was going into his body.

“That’s a common misunderstanding. People think it’s about weight,” Howell said of anorexia. “It’s really about control. They know they can control their eating.”

Phillips said the desire for control is a common trait among the people she treats.

“With most of my clients, there’s an external factor of their life that they aren’t in control of,” Phillips said. “It’s a way to have control of something.”

Physical damage

At his worst, Parisien was not the muscular 5-foot-9 runner he was in the eighth grade. He was frail.

“I was so small, my chest bones were sticking out,” Parisien said. “My wrists were so tiny I used to be able to wrap my fingers around them.”

Parisien was also close to doing irreversible damage to his heart and said he routinely had chest pains during his sickness.

“I used to get pains in my heart when running with no food,” he said. “I knew I was messing it up, but I didn’t want to eat.

“If I went all day without eating, there would be times I’d feel that burn in my chest. It’s scary to think about. There are people who have lost their lives about that.”

Potential damage to his heart also worried Parisien’s mother.

“He had lost so much weight, he had no body fat at all,” Robinson said. “The doctors worried that when all the muscle is gone, that’s when your heart goes too.”

Robinson took her son to Providence Hospital in Anchorage for a series of tests.

“Thank God nothing did happen to his heart,” Robinson said. “There was no damage. We were afraid of that. He’s very lucky that did not happen.”

Phillips said it is common for people suffering from eating disorders to do serious damage to their hearts.

“You starve yourself to the point where your electrolytes are so low, you literally have a heart attack,” Phillips said.

Heart failure is just one of several serious health problems that an eating disorder can lead to. Anorexia weakens bones and can lead to osteoporosis. Other major organs can also be damaged.

“They all begin to deteriorate,” Phillips said. “They atrophy in a way, get smaller and smaller. Your heart shrinks, your brain shrinks when you’re not getting the nutrients.”

Throughout his prep running career, Parisien was plagued by injuries. Muscle pulls, strains and tears all kept him out of action at one time or another.

Howell believes all of Parisien’s injuries can be linked to his illness.

“I know whole-heartedly that’s directly caused by his eating disorder,” Howell said. “You can’t repair and grow at the same time.

“Had he not been anorexic, no doubt in my mind he would have won state four years in a row, uncontested,”

Parisien, a promising young basketball player, also saw his talents diminish on the court.

“I was a really good basketball player, but I lost my step, lost my shot,” Parisien said.

Into the darkness

Parisien’s first three years of high school were a virtual roller coaster of suffering. He’d take step forward, then two steps back. He’d put on weight during the running seasons, and fall back into bad habits during the offseason.

Parisien left for North Dakota once again during the summer that followed his freshman year, gained some weight and returned to Alaska to place second in the ASAA 4A Cross Country Running Championships. Parisien even tried out for basketball, and earned a shot at playing on the varsity squad.

“Everybody saw my life coming back,” Parisien said.

But winter hit, and he regressed.

Parisien said, for whatever reason, the winter months during his first three years of high school seemed to affect him most.

“I’d just get really depressed,” he said. “Those OCD things started coming back to me, and my eating habits. I was scared to eat too much. I didn’t want to feel guilty.”

When Parisien left for North Dakota during the summer that followed his sophomore year, he said things got much worse.

“I didn’t want to come home, I didn’t want to see friends,” Parisien said. “I got depressed. I didn’t eat like I should.”

Parisien was still running, but for the wrong reasons.

“I wasn’t running to get faster, I was running to lose weight,” Parisien said.

Parisien stayed in North Dakota for the first semester of his junior year, and at that time is where he was at arguably is worst.

He wasn’t eating. He was down to 116 pounds. Parisien said he thinks if he had dropped any more weight it could have been life-threatening.

Road trip

After returning to Palmer for the second semester of his junior year, his life began to improve. Robinson was able to get her son on a more stable diet. But Parisien’s biggest changes, mentally and physically, came on a summer road trip.

Parisien said his father had bought him a car in North Dakota, and during the summer that preceded his senior year, he and a friend flew to North Dakota to pick up the car and drive it back to Alaska.

A quick trip from North Dakota to Alaska turned out to be a life-changing journey for Parisien.

“The trip helped me out a lot,” Parisien said. “Since I was on the road, we ate out every day for two weeks. I’d eat whenever I wanted on that trip and didn’t feel guilty.”

Parisien’s adventures took him to places such as Arizona, Las Vegas and Oregon.

“When the phone would ring, I’d be afraid to ask where they were that day,” Robinson said. “They went all over the place. My biggest fear is they were going to run out of gas on the Alcan (Highway). But they made it.

“Well, 30 miles outside of Sutton, they ran out of gas,” Robinson said with a chuckle. “He’ll always have those memories.”

Howell said he called to check up on Parisien that summer, and Parisien was in Las Vegas.

“Las Vegas?,” Howell laughed.

Howell said even though you’d have to worry about a pair of 17-year-olds on a cross-country road trip, that journey could have been the best therapy for Parisien.

“It’s weird, but that was probably the best thing for him,” Howell said.

When Parisien returned from his summer adventure, he was virtually re-born.

He fought the temptation of the habits caused by his OCD — things such as turning on a light switch twice — so his friend wouldn’t see that side of him. The smorgasbord of fast food also allowed Parisien to get back to 140 pounds.

“When I got back, I was at a good running weight,” Parisien said. “I felt good to go.”

Senior year

“This whole year’s been a big recovery,” Parisien said. “My life turned around this senior season.”

Parisien had a successful cross country running season, made the Palmer High varsity basketball team and earned a full-ride athletic scholarship to attend UAA.

He learned how to manage his diet and maintained his weight.

He became more social, and now has a steady girlfriend.

And he capped his senior year with the historic run at the state track championships.

“The whole track season went definitely as planned,” Parisien said. “The beginning of the year I was just picturing what it would be like to beat Trevor, go down the home stretch with everyone cheering.”

And, despite more than three years of struggles, Parisien was able to realize his dream, by passing Dunbar on the final stress and cross the finish line as everyone was cheering.

Parisien’s family has that race videotaped, and it’s a video that still brings his mother to tears.

“It’s overwhelming,” Robinson said. “Anybody that knows me knows that all I do is cry when I see him run. I’m not yelling and screaming because I can’t. When it comes to that, I have to sit there and hold my breath sometimes. To see him, see his accomplishments now, I get tears in my eyes.”

Parisien is grateful for what he has been able to accomplish, and said his struggles only reinforced that gratitude.

“It made me a lot stronger person, lot more respectful of my life,” he said. “I’ve come so far. It’s pretty special that I’ve got a scholarship to go to UAA and am ranked in the top-10 in the nation in the 2-mile. It’s pretty special to recover from this and have that success.”

Support group

Parisien was in steady counseling for about two years, but he said the biggest help came from a central core of people who stood by him, a list that includes Robinson, Phillips, Howell and his girlfriend, Shawna Thien.

“A big thing that helped me a lot this year was Shawna,” Parisien said. “She’s there for me every day.”

Parisien still keeps in regular contact with both Phillips and Howell.

“(Laura) definitely saved my life. If I kept doing it on my own, I definitely would have not gotten any better,” Parisien said. “Gary, he’s like one of my best friends now.”

And Parisien said his mom was always there to help him out.

Sports the cause or the cure?

While Parisien is not exactly sure what triggered his eating disorder, and it’s still unknown how much the pressures of athletics relate to his anorexia, Parisien is confident that sports helped him become the healthy person he is today.

“Running helped me get through it,” Parisien said. “When I started to notice I was getting better when I was weighing more, I’d eat more to get faster.

“Who knows what it would have been like if I didn’t have sports,” he added. “First, I was eating for track, but now I’m eating for myself.”

Distancing himself from his demons

Parisien is confident he won’t relapse.

“I’m 100 percent sure I’m in the clear,” Parisien said with new-found confidence. “Nothing like that will ever happen to me.”

Phillips said those who suffer from any of the various forms of eating disorders do have an excellent chance of a full recovery, and the opportunity to live a relapse-fee life.

“The incidents (of relapse) aren’t nearly as high as addiction,” Phillips said, while also noting that those who suffer from an eating disorder should always be conscious of a potential relapse.

“There could always be something lurking under the surface,” Phillips said. “You have to be on top of it on a daily basis.”

Phillips said, just like with drug and alcohol addiction, certain stresses could trigger the return of the eating disorder.

“It could easily come back with any kind of major situation that gets you off balance,” Phillips said.

Robinson said she’ll always worry about her son falling back into the grasp of the eating disorder. But she’s also confident about the work Parisien has put in to beat the sickness.

“I am sure he’ll have to struggle with that the rest of his life,” Robinson said. “I worry, I probably always will. But I think he knows, he realizes what this disorder took away from him. He can never have those years back.”

The future

When Parisien thinks about his illness, what now scares him most is the idea that one of his siblings will go through the same things he did.

“That’s the scariest thing, having one of my family members go through it,” Parisien said. “The scariest thing for me is my little siblings saw me go through that, like my little brother, he’s a basketball player and a runner like me. Once I got over it, I was like ‘Oh my gosh, what if my little brother goes through it?’ He’d always follow in my footsteps.”

The thought of his own siblings suffering this illness combined with the knowledge he has gained over the last three years has prompted Parisien to turn toward a career in counseling.

“I think I’m going to be able to help people out a lot,” Parisien said, adding that he hopes he can become someone that young male athletes like himself can turn to. “When I was going through this, I was talking to females, and they can’t really relate as much.”

Parisien stressed one of the most important lessons he learned was simply talking about his illness and what he was going through.

“Once you let it out, it feels so much better because they can talk to you about it,” Parisien said.

He said discussing your problems and seeking immediate help are the best things a person with an eating disorder can do.

“The biggest thing is to get help right away,” he said. “Don’t hide what you’re thinking or feeling. Let it out, let the counselors help you.”

Those around Parisien are thrilled to see him follow this new path.

Phillips said this is an area that’s deeply lacking in Alaska.

“There are hardly any dietitians or doctors who feel comfortable treating people with eating disorders in Alaska,” the longtime local dietitian and counselor said. “There are no residential treatment centers in Alaska.”

Judging by what her son is gone through, Robinson feels her son will have a lot to lend in counseling.

“He’s going to be an awesome professional to go to,” Robinson said. “What he’s been through.”

But most importantly, Robinson is just happy to have the old Jake back.

“It’s almost amazing, when I think about it,” Robinson said. “Even today, the turn-around. He actually made it. So many don’t.”

And Parisien is happy to be live a healthy lifestyle.

“I’m pretty much living like a normal kid now,” Parisien said.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.