I've always been fiercely competitive and I guess I just got to a point where I felt like I couldn't push it any further without any outside (pharmaceutical) help. And damn, did I feel the need to push it further at that point when I was one of the best at one of the best elite schools in the country and my parents were trying everything to just make me stop (taking away my light bulbs so I couldn't work nights, dragging me to doctors and all) and I just wasn't going to have it. It was my first taste of success, not just the silly good grades or being first in your class kind of stuff and I wasn't going to let anyone take it away from me.
I was 17. I went through the first box of pills in almost 4 months and most of it was finished during the last week of that interval. The next box lasted two weeks. Then a week. Then 4 days. I freaked out. I was still in school, I couldn't afford that. And it was starting to show. Well, it had been showing for a while, but at the time I didn't really make the connection with me becoming more volatile, getting into lots of arguments and just storming out of the classroom whenever something annoyed me. I did however notice when I started to feel sick at inconvenient times. Later in uni, I'd feel too horrible to even dare to get up with other people around for fear I might collapse, but at that point, I was just milking the wisdom teeth situation. My dentist had told me my wisdom teeth were coming out, so whenever I'd feel sick, I'd ask to leave using the wisdom teeth excuse.
I somehow managed to scale back during the last few months before uni and then somehow managed to find some kind of balance during my first years at uni, not really letting overuse to spiral into uncontrollable abuse. For the most part. Whenever I wasn't around family during holidays and their surprise visits. Then it was like all Hell broke loose. It's one of the reasons why I remember those first years of uni with such fondness. Another part would be was having profs who actually cared to teach us something, though it's fair to admit that goes both ways. When I switched from engineering to Mathematics and I happened to have some better moments, I'd get pleasantly surprised by how much effort my profs were willing to put in when
I was willing to put in the effort. It's also why I dread holidays and being around people. I almost died a bunch of times during holidays.
At that point, it had stopped being about the initial purpose and it had turned into a way of "protecting" myself whenever I was around other people. And then during the third year... it all started unraveling. Or I guess I did. The following almost half a decade is very blurry, though I guess I got to visit a lot of interesting places... public toilets, ambulances, hospitals. I'm an encyclopedia of public toilets, ambulance equipment and signing yourself out of hospital against medical advice forms. And it was easy, you know? When you're in your mid-20s and are lucky to have a round face that makes you look like you're 13 and innocent, nobody's really going to figure it out. Not even medical professionals. Though to be honest, the awareness of how underage I looked back then makes all the sexual advances from randos on the street even more disturbing.
I kept trying to find that fragile balance again... and ended up with a huge collection of cuddling toys. And smelling like a combination between a fruit and cake bar due to my fruit, spice, chocolate and nutty scented cosmetics. And later on with a collection of concert tickets. If you literally don't have any money left for the following one or two weeks, you cannot spend that money on anything. 0.00 is the ideal sum of money to have. Then you got nothing to do but work, hug a teddy and smell delicious... not just to the nose of a cannibal. And still nobody's going to eat you because you don't let anyone in anyway.
It was never about partying, a social thing for me. When you're trying to get better at something, you have your priorities in order. You need to put more and more into your goals and less and less into everything else. Less of every fucking thing that social sciences label as necessities. I probably averaged going out with people about 3 times a year during high school and most of those outings were school-related. That average dropped below once a year during uni. And I never ever touched alcohol as a teen or into my early 20s when my abuse was at its peak.
It was always very secretive and personal. Something you don't open the door to let anyone into. Literally too because they'd be horrified at all the tell-tale signs of what was going on lying on the floor. Which pretty much turned me into a savage and I developed some habits that aren't really compatible with being around people. But are very convenient financially and for peace of mind.
And I'd be a hypocrite to claim not missing it, especially those first years of uni. In spite of all the nights I've slept shivering on the floor because I just could not lift myself enough to get into bed. All the times that the hot water vapours from showering were enough to make me throw up, even though I hadn't eaten in a week because I had spent all my money. I'll forever associate Iron Maiden's Rainmaker with how cold the wall felt that one morning when I was holding on to it while hunched down, worshiping the porcelain god. All the times I woke up in the middle of the night and blood was coming out of my mouth and nose and didn't know how to make it stop. All the times I was curled in a ball around the table leg, in so much pain that I couldn't move. All the times I just skipped going to exams because it wasn't like I was in a condition that was compatible with any activity that required more effort than lying down. All the times I collapsed in public. All the times I signed myself out of hospital against medical advice because it wasn't anyone else's fucking business and I didn't feel like getting preached.
But then there were the times when I was on top of the world. And it was better than anything before my teen years, better than anything I could have even dreamed for. And better than it could ever get now. And I miss it like crazy, but it's not coming back because my body couldn't take it anymore. I guess didn't have enough appreciation for it at the time, but young bodies are insanely tough. No way I could ever pull off not sleeping at all for five nights in a row now.
And it was incredibly calming. There are so many things that go wrong and you could lose your mind over. But you can't because you are living your own grand drama, you feel so crappy you can't bet you'll still be alive in the morning. It makes you disconnected, indifferent. And that feels great. You could die, but you don't have a care in the world. It does wonders for your peace of mind. And when you have that peace of mind after such an extreme episode, it just makes it a lot easier to be a little robot. To say focused. Wake up at 5am, go to sleep at 2-3am, spend all the time in between on school-related stuff. Pull off marathons of working on a project for more than 24 hours straight, no breaks for anything but drinking water and going to the bathroom. You don't think of anything else because nothing else exists to you. You're in your world, the master of it all and nothing else can come in, you've pulled up the drawbridge. I don't have that ability to focus anymore. It's completely gone.
And it gave me a lot of things. It contributed to getting noticed at uni. To getting noticed and getting the one real job I ever had, even if I ended up quitting because I couldn't stand to be around humans. Being completely messed up one night in 2008 meant creating that silly little blog that lead to meeting people and silly coding experiments that lead to making a living now. And being messed up on the 30th of October 2015 meant I was at home that night and didn't die in the club fire.
I stopped for the stupidest of reasons. I lost my pills while on a long concert trip in 2018. And it was horrible, one night I was even afraid I would die. Then the pandemic happened and, in spite of all the blabla about distancing, for me personally it made it completely impossible to avoid people like I used to. For years before, I was either really traveling, really physically out of the country (and whenever someone would say something about going to a bar after a concert, I'd be all my bus leaves at 4am or something) or just using it as an excuse to keep the world at bay. Curfews made night shopping when nobody's around impossible. Suddenly, it wasn't dark on over 90% of the occasions I was going out, I didn't feel safe anymore, camouflaged in the night. Suddenly, it wasn't quiet and empty when I stepped out of my cave, it was full of people and they were loud and obnoxious. Suddenly, I couldn't avoid the human race anymore. There was just one place left to hide. The bathroom. At least if you're sick, people leave you the fuck alone and don't insist that you take part in any activity. And in a way, it was also a grotesque statement of power. As so many choices got taken away from me, I made a choice that nobody else could mess with. As for stopping again... I don't know. I didn't die the first time around, but who knows, maybe second time's the charm...