New book, new chapter of my life, new introduction of naturism? Let's see how my life changed back to a more sustainable self-love first. Don't worry, naturism is in my life today, and it will find its way in step by step in this book. Even if it's just a bit later in the book.

For naturism to return to the forefront, I would need to fight my demons. I'll spoil it a little. I don't have one; I have three of them to battle, only one of which I was aware of. It's also the first I tackled.

Because, see, I knew Ritalin wasn't perfect for me. Of course I did. I was losing my friends, I was gaining weight, and I was enjoying plenty of self-hate. The problem is that being emotionally numb meant that I didn't care that I knew it wasn't good.

And yet, like I said, it wasn't all bad. I was able to get the grades I always knew I could get but which I couldn't quite get.

But because I didn't care about the perception of others, I always sat in the front row. I had color-coded notes. Heck, I volunteered for extra credit even when I didn't need it. I wasn't a nerd, exactly, just... overcompensating.

My first summer on Ritalin, I couldn't stop taking it. I didn't need it for class, but I needed it to not care enough about who I saw in the mirror.

But now, I had finished my 8th grade and got a few awards of no importance and one of high importance. I had fame, fortune, and glory in the classroom, but class was over for the summer.

And I didn't want to avoid looking at me anymore.

I had breasts. I had a figure, a round one, but a figure nonetheless. My hair was longer. It was finer, more feminine hair. A few guys began looking at me, not a lot, but some. I still couldn't see them, but I suspected what the cause was.

My morning pill. The evening one made me a woman; the morning one numbed me.

I had a long talk with my family. I would stop Ritalin for the summer and try to regain my identity. Saying they were happy about my decision is underselling it. Edith was thrilled, and my parents were ecstatic.

I often asked them why they didn't encourage me to stop earlier, and their answer was always the same. They did; I just didn't listen to them.

But now, I could.

I like to think that during those 18 months, I was too busy becoming a woman to consider stopping the pill. It explains everything neatly. I couldn't face the emotional pain of the late puberty, and instead, I emotionally numbed myself.

But it's reductive. It's not the truth. I think that somehow, I compensated my physical immaturity with a need to perform well in school. I used to look like a kid; I wished to be taken like a teenager, and getting good grades got me that attention.

Olivia helped a lot. She was developing socially, not quite becoming popular, but just enough that we had a gang. A small one, just one more girl and occasionally another one, but still. A gang.

Marge sometimes ate with us. They accepted her. Edith usually ate with Charlie. They didn't accept him at all. Edith was becoming her own person in school, and while we were very friendly and amicable, we didn't hang out in the school building. We did at home, often playing video games, often with Charlie and sometimes with Marge too.

But school was now over, and I decided to take a break from the pill. Not the hormonal one; it was still working wonders, but the other one. The emotion-killing one.

I think I spent my first week of summer in bed. Barely leaving to eat, and then, I would eat more than I even ate under Ritalin, as if that pill caused me to eat more to fend up a stomachache, and my stomach was free from it and wanted to be nourished normally.

I even kept my curtains closed, not just so I wouldn't see the sun and the passage of time, but also to make an abstraction of the outside world. Other people may be going on with their lives, but I just didn't need to see it myself. I managed to watch some YouTube videos, often the same one a few times in a row. It felt easier to hit repeat than to pick something else.

That week, I slept in pajamas but also wore those pajamas when I got out of bed. Since I didn't remove it, it never made it to the laundry basket until Thursday. That day. My mother just about pulled me to the big bathtub in their room, stripped me, and dipped me in the hot water with bubbles overflowing over the rim. I must have stayed in there for over an hour. But when I got out, warm and pruney, my pajamas had already been washed, dried, and folded, waiting for me on the counter like nothing happened.

Marge came a few times, Edith did a few sleepovers, but Olivia could very rarely come over, and I didn't have the strength to go see her. As for her friends, my new gang, they were school friends. Exclusively. Only Olivia and I saw each other outside of class. Well, one of the girls needed tutoring, so she went to Olivia's house, but it was just that. Not a friendship like with me. Even if at school, they hung out. We hung out. We once had watched a dumb teen movie on her TV from a bootleg DVD. The kind of movie where girls argue over a prom date, and for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel like a ghost watching someone else's life. For those 2 hours, I could focus only on the movie, and it required so little brain processing that I think I managed to get fully into it. That we had popcorn helped a lot.

But now, usually, when I was awake without the pill, my brain was foggy. I had trouble forming sentences, and while I could watch Marge and Edith play video games, anything above Animal Crossing was just too much for me.

I cried all the time, to the point where I desensitized my family about it. I had a few anger bouts, which triggered Edith, but my parents just let her go downstairs in the basement until I could level off.

My energy returned, slowly. My emotions too, but with a switch, not with a dial. I could be numb and then laughing like an idiot, but not anything in between. And not just with laughter.

I could sleep, and I could do so with reasonable hours. I began eating a little less. I still probably gained some weight, but I steered clear from the scale in the bathroom.

Focusing on video games was still rough, but I could control a kart. Not well, but enough to not always finish 12th.

I used to love reading and writing. With Ritalin, reading took even more space as I isolated myself, but writing mostly went away.

When I stopped the pill, even reading became initially impossible. I had a novel I wanted to read during the summer, and each time I opened a page, it was like the letters were dancing.

That really made me question my decision. Did I need this stupid pill for every day of school? Would I need it to work? You already know I don't, but I didn't know that during that summer.

Still, what other choice did I have? I voluntarily asked my parents to deny me the pill, so I have no other choice. I had to suffer from the weaning off.

One thing I realized, however, was how tense I felt during those 18 months. Around 12 days in the weaning off, my own body felt more relaxed than it ever felt since I first took that pill.

Even Edith saw it.

Another three days later, I managed to get to Olivia's house, and she was ecstatic to see me. And honestly? I was too. It's weird, because I hung out with her daily at school while medicated. Yet that day spent with her and her mom was the first time I connected with her emotionally since our sleepover.

Her mother was even colder than before. Completely absent and usually sequestered in her bedroom. Olivia prepared us food for lunch, as she now had a job and was able to buy some quality food.

She got some broccoli she steamed, some egg noodles, and she added ground beef to the mixture with a packet-made sauce.

In her bedroom, she explained why it was this specific selection of ingredients: it's all stuff her parents didn't eat. Well, except for the ground beef, but she overcooked it on purpose and kept it loose to make it unapetizing.

I didn't care. The portion was too small for me; she didn't have a lot of money, but I found it delicious. I realized that even my taste buds might have been hurt over my long journey in Lala Land. Or maybe it's my brain that didn't notice the tastes?

We laughed a lot. I began feeling like myself again. Why couldn't my parents or Edith do it? No idea. Marge, I knew. We connect at an intellectual and perhaps even a social level, but not on an emotional one.

I don't have much in common with Olivia. She taught me her love for math, but that was about it. Except that emotionally, we connected that day like I couldn't with anyone else.

Olivia's problems were external. Edith's and Marge's problems were internal. Mindy was just missing from my life. Only Olivia could really be there for me, and that day, she helped me reset my brain a lot.

Not that it was a linear process. It took a good month to truly feel like myself most of the days, and even a month later, when shopping for school supplies, it was shaky.

Holding a box of pencils at Walmart, I made a decision.

"I am not going back on the pill in September", I said to my mom. Dad was with Edith in another aisle.

"I was hoping you would say that", she said, hugging me.

Coming back, in the car, I briefed Edith and Dad, who were equally happy.

That night, brushing my teeth, I felt at peace with my decision. Looking at the scale, it tempted me. The last time I weighed myself, I was at 144 pounds, one pound away from being obese, or at least, fat. I ate more in the beginning, but it was leveling off. Not in the diet zone, but I wasn't in the glutton phase anymore.

I was wearing my pajamas. The last time I weighed myself, I did so out of the bath, so I slipped it off, avoiding the mirror, and stepped on the scale.

I couldn't open my eyes, but when I finally looked down, I saw the number.

137. I lost weight? Right, water retention. The pill was making me bloat with water, and that was gone. That number didn't mean thin. It didn't mean pretty. But it meant possible. Like, maybe I could turn this around. Perhaps this wasn't who I'd always be.

I planned. I would walk and jog in the neighborhood and cut down on my desserts and second servings. I would reel back my appetite and regain control over my body.

With hesitation, I turn around and see someone behind me. A woman is looking back at me. A woman I don't really know.

It's not a girl; it's clearly a woman. She is naked. I can see her breasts, her pubic hair. I can see her stomach rolls, breaking her shape, but also her round hips, showing hints of her femininity. She smiles. She likes what she is seeing despite the imperfections.

Her smile is nice. It's genuine. Her hair is splendid and lush. Maybe if a teenage boy doesn't mind the extra pounds, she might find love.

I look at her. I haven't really recently, because I know the mirror doesn't lie.

But today, under the extra pounds, looking at my reflection, possibly I can learn to love myself again.

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