Numb

Free Fire

The scoreboard reads 3-3. The deciding round. Three enemies are still alive. My teammates are all down, and I am the only one left. It's a 1v3! It all depends on me. The pressure is immense, but so is the adrenaline. My eyes are glued to the screen, and my fingers move with the precision of Beethoven's fingers dancing across piano keys.

An enemy appears. I spray all my Skorp bullets into his body. He goes down.

Knocked. Easy target.

Then two more appear. My pupils are dilated as fuck. I start throwing Gloo Walls here and there, trying to protect myself from their bullets. The screen is a mess of movement, gunfire, and walls appearing out of nowhere. One of them rushes towards me. I turn, aim, and spray all my Skorp bullets into him.

Knocked. That was seriously hard and risky, as there were two of them on the other side.

One remaining. He's hiding behind his Gloo Wall, waiting for me to make the first move. Meanwhile, the safe zone is shrinking, and I'm standing right at its edge. I can't afford to stay here for long, but I can't afford to step out, either. I activate my character's skill, break through his Gloo Wall, and open fire. My bullets land on his head.

All three of them. Gone.

Then I shouted, "Fuck yes, behenchod!!!"

Booyah!

Then, a message appears on my screen:

You have reached our daily healthy gaming limit. Please come back online on 15/10/2026 04:00:00

Please take breaks and game healthy!

Well, thank you, Garena.

For more than 9 hours of the day, I've been lying on my bed, my bedsheet crumpled beneath me, using it as a pillow. I've barely moved. My mobile is in my hands, held close to my face, and my eyes are swollen, red, and irritated.

My neck hurts. My fingers and wrists hurt. My back hurts. I feel completely drained of energy.

I was just 3 stars away from reaching Heroic in Clash Squad. But Garena had to suspend me until 4 AM the next day because I had exceeded their 9-hour daily game limit.

I ain't taking care of my health. At least Garena is. Aww, Garena!!!

Free Fire ain't free, guys! It costs you your time, energy, health, social life, and the person you want to become.

Nothing's free!

When I lie down to sleep, I see people running across Bermuda and I find myself rushing at enemies with an MP5, knocking them down and enjoying the sound - "First Blood". I close my eyes, but the game continues somewhere inside my head. And I hear those sounds, too - "Enemy Spotted", AWM gunshots, etc.

I've played so much that my brain feels fucking high on dopamine or whatever. All I know is that I'm feeling numb.

I'm writing this and my hands are shaking, and my wrists and fingers hurt.

I've been living like this for the past month.

Fuck Atul Kumar. Fuck. I hate myself, my name, everything about me.

I'm tired of lying to Mom every day, telling her that I'm okay and that I'm studying. Fuck me.

Figure 1: I have been using this as a pillow for my gaming sessions

Chodforces

Today was a Div. 2 round on Codeforces, and I got a WA on Question A. Yes, Question A. I wasn't able to think properly. I blindly guessed and submitted my code. My brain was foggy as fuck after all those hours of gameplay. My focus was scattered, and I wasn't even making a genuine effort to solve the question. Now, my rating is gonna drop like my mental health in drop year. My current rating is 1140 (Newbie). Already low.

What have I become?

I feel like a complete fraud after winning these Fractal contests. It's crap. It's fake. I just get lucky all the time. I'll be exposed soon. I'm a damn loser. I'm a fraud.

It's been 2.5 months, and I haven't done CP properly. No proper contests, no proper problem-solving, nothing. I had just 6 DP lectures left to watch, and I procrastinated for 2 whole months, managing to watch only 5 of them.

Shame on me. Fuck me. How the fuck do I deserve to win these contests? It's total bullshit. Shame on me.

But do you know what's even more problematic? MY IMAGE.

I don't fucking know how I developed this public image of being a smart, disciplined guy who's incredibly focused on his work. I'm the complete opposite, motherfuckers. I'm a bakchod.

Disciplined guys don't waste 2.5 months playing free fire, watching random YouTube videos, and sleeping the whole day. They don't jerk off out of stress after waking up from an afternoon nap. Well, that probably explains all those white squares on my Codeforces heatmap.

And then there's the constant praise.

Before a contest, almost every time, 4-5 panegyrists will run into me and start praising me with ridiculous exaggerations.

"Ye toh fixed hai... carpenterx #1 hi rahega... baaki neeche ki positions change hoti rahengi."

"Arey Atul bhai, tumhara kya kehna hai? Tumhara jeetna toh fix hi hai."

Bro, I ain't tourist or Magnus Carlsen. My victory isn't guaranteed. I'm not some fucking machine that wins every contest it participates in.

Dude, this puts an enormous amount of pressure on me.

Every human being, knowingly or unknowingly, tries to protect their social image. I've gotten better at handling this by mentally telling the world to fuck off and ignoring what people say. Because I know the reality. I catch these people very quickly and I know the pattern. People mask their own insecurities by putting someone else on a pedestal. They exaggerate that person's abilities and build an image around them that may have little to do with reality.

Now, there are two possibilities:

1. I win.

They can reassure themselves and preserve their own social image because, well, "Atul always wins." Everyone knows that. His victory was expected anyway.

2. I lose.

They can feel good about it, and literally nobody cares. They care about their progress, anyways. Umm, yeah, there might be a few jealous people, but who cares?

Fuck humans.

I seriously dislike people who shower you with exaggerated praise but never tell you the objective truth. It's not worth having such people into your close-circle as they don't care about you and your progress. They are noise. I'd rather have someone tell me that my performance is shit when it actually is shit.

Students are noise. Their judgment is shit. Nobody knows anything. Everyone is operating on assumptions, half-baked opinions, and fake-ass self-belief.

I know my reality and what to do.

FUCK THE NOISE.

What Now?

I feel terrible and lonely at this point. I've got plenty of friends here, but I ain't emotionally close to even a single one of them. This is a very vulnerable state for me.

I've fucked up my life. I didn't even bathe today. This has been my life for the past two months: skipping college, skipping breakfast, watching porn out of stress (it's a terrible pattern... it's better to watch it when you're horny, not when you're stressed), and getting debarred in 5 out of 7 subjects in the last CT. I don't mind getting debarred. Fuck IET. Fuck CGPA. The problem is that I didn't do anything productive with the time I gained by skipping college.

Fuck Atul.

I've become a damn fucking loser. I've social anxiety since childhood. I can't talk to people. I fear people. I fear social interactions. At least I could've indulged in some bakchodi and gone out more during my first year instead of rotting in my hostel room in front of my laptop. I've got no personality, nothing interesting going on in my life. Nothing. I've become a piece of shit.

From the outside, my life looks damn sorted to people. Fuck. Only I know how fucked up I actually am. Duh!

I'm also haunted by my terrible past. And then there's 13-15 October 2023. Those dates remind me of the beginning of a very dark period in my life. Fuck that. Arggh! It fucking hurts.

I was always an indisciplined kid. I gotta learn these things.

Man, I don't know what I've done to myself. Fuck me.

Aah, there's too much to write. I'm limiting myself. I won't write any more.

Fuck. Focus on the present, Atul! Nobody fucking cares. Fuck people. They're just noise. Go back to the basics. You know what to do. Fuck perfectionism.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Get back to the basics. Keep it boring. Fuck people. Be super logical. And beware of becoming so attached to self-improvement and metrics that you forget to enjoy life. Do not make any major decisions right now, as you're high.

Life's an MMORPG. I don't like my character. Gotta mod it. Let's reach Heroic in life.