Something happened over the years when I was a student. 

I hated school, and I hated studying. My earliest memories of primary school (other than eating chicken nuggets) were of me walking home alone, crying from inexplicable sadness. 

I doodled through all my classes. My notes and textbooks were messy with drawings. 

But I understood completely, through implicit and explicit messages, that no one would help me if I failed. I learned that if I wanted to be anything other than a failure, I needed to "make it" through my own efforts... no matter what it took. 

Come exams, I would study like a madwoman. I'd study into the night, snatch a few hours of guilty sleep, wake up at 4am and study again. Sleep became a privilege, not a necessity. 

I cried while I studied. 

I felt something inside break. This happened a few times. Each time, far inside I would think, this must be it. This is where I give up, throw in the towel. This is where I must accept my fate as a failure. 

But living as a failure (real or not) had somehow become connected to death, and I didn't want to die. So I grit my teeth through the madness and memorised what I had to memorise. 

The grades came, but math and science were not my take home lessons. I learned that as long as you are alive, being broken doesn't necessarily stop you from doing things. Even difficult things. 

I learned how to function through all my madness, which burst out in unexpected ways, like an eating disorder at one time, and extreme anxiety in lecture theatres another. I still don't want my future house to be near my old university. 

Till now, I don't exactly know how to feel about all this. I was once told that I have compromised a lot for most of my life. That puzzled me. I was not compromising. I was carving out the best possible future I could for myself, in the only way I knew how.

Alright, I suppose the point of this post is this: 

Maybe I know more now.