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As someone who constantly dealt with chronic pain, Gabe had been warned about the danger of self-medicating from an extremely early age.
Especially with a mother who had what felt like every prescription drug imaginable scattered throughout the house, in bathroom cabinets, kitchen drawers, the bottom of her purse. He learned fast what wasn’t his. What you didn’t touch. What you absolutely did not experiment with, no matter how bad things got.
He took that very seriously. Almost religiously.
Even when the pain was bad enough that it blurred the edges of the room, even when he lay awake at night pressing his fist into his abdomen and counting his breaths, he never reached for pills that weren’t prescribed to him. Even when the ones that were hardly seemed to make a dent in the pain most days. He didn’t double doses. He didn’t get curious. Pain made people reckless, everyone said. Gabe made a point of not being that person.
It wasn’t until he was thirteen that he learned there was more than one way to self-medicate.
At first, it really didn’t register as anything significant at all.
He was already in the middle of a bad stretch, the kind that didn’t have a clear beginning or end. His abdomen hurt constantly, not sharp enough to send anyone scrambling for the car keys, not mild enough to fade into the background. It was just there, like a tight, relentless pressure that flared when he moved wrong or laughed too hard or tried to behave like a normal person. Eating made it worse. Food had always been a gamble. Some days he got away with it, some days he didn’t, and no doctor had ever been able to tell him in simple words why.
Once the medical terms exceeded four syllables, he usually tuned them out anyway.
The day was going pretty normal for him, with a white hot fire boiling in his gut that made him just want to lay down and go to sleep. By noon he was exhausted. He pushed the food around his tray at lunch time, waited for the bell, told himself he’d eat later. Later never really happened.
By the time he got home, the pain was still there, sitting low and heavy. The thought of dinner made his gut tighten. He hovered in the kitchen for a minute, listening to cabinets open and close, then retreated to his room with the excuse that he wasn’t feeling great. No one argued against him, it really wasn’t unusual.
He sat down in bed waiting for it to get worse, for the familiar moment where his body turned on him and demanded attention.
It… didn’t.
That was what stayed with him.
The next morning, he woke up sore and tired but not wrecked. He stood up slowly, half-expecting the room to tilt, and was surprised when it didn’t. Breakfast came and went. He told himself he’d eat something once he felt hungry.
The hunger never really arrived. Or maybe it did, briefly, and he dismissed it without thinking. In hindsight, he couldn’t really be sure. A thirteen year old kid is never a reliable narrator.
School felt easier than it had in weeks. Not good, of course, just easier. He made it through his classes without asking to leave early, without curling over his desk. By the time he got home, he was deeply exhausted, but functional. That felt like a win.
Over the next few days, he paid attention in the careful, methodical way pain had taught him. On days when he ate lightly, or not at all, his insides stayed calmer. On days when he tried to eat normally, they often didn’t. Hunger came with its own discomfort, but it was quieter. He could push through it. Pain didn’t give him that option.
By the end of the week, it stopped feeling like chance or coincidence.
Gabe didn’t have the context to be afraid of that realization. All he had was the undeniable fact that something had finally, finally worked. After years of medications that helped a little or not enough, anything that promised improvement and delivered nothing, doctors who shrugged and told him to be patient, this was different.
This was immediate. This was something he could feel working in real time.
So he let himself fall into it. Harder and faster than he would ever admit later.
He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to just… stop eating. There was no specific day where he drew a line in the sand and announced it to himself. It wasn’t like that. It was a slower transition, like most dangerous things are when you’re young and in pain. They sneak up on you.
It started as an instinct, then became a habit.
If his stomach already hurt, he skipped meals. Not always intentionally, to be fair. Sometimes he simply forgot to eat because the pain made everything else feel like a low priority. Sometimes he told himself he was saving the food for later, as if he were a responsible person with a plan. Sometimes he told himself he wasn’t hungry because he didn’t want to deal with the consequences.
If it felt okay, he ate lightly so it would stay that way. He didn’t eat like a normal kid to begin with, but he drifted even farther as time went on.
Hunger became the new background noise. It was there, but he learned to ignore it. Water became his substitute. It was something to do with his mouth when he couldn’t stomach the idea of food, and his Mom would love that he was actually hydrating himself for once. Distractions worked well too. Homework, video games, lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling until the feeling passed.
He wasn’t hurting anyone. He wasn’t doing anything extreme.
Pain didn’t come on gradually. Pain hit. It took over. It didn’t care if he was sitting or standing, if he was holding onto a railing or leaning against a wall. Pain demanded his attention, and it demanded it fast.
So he chose the thing that let him keep his life, even if it meant his body was suffering in a different way.
Within weeks, it wasn’t a choice so much as a rule he followed automatically. Eat less, hurt less. He didn’t think of it as dangerous. He didn’t think of it as harmful. He didn’t think of it as an illness.
He thought of it as smart. Adaptive. The kind of thing you did when you were trying to live inside a body that constantly betrayed you.
He wasn’t taking drugs. He wasn’t doing anything forbidden. He wasn’t breaking any rules he could see. He was just… not doing something he should be.
And no one stopped him.
Not because they didn’t notice. His family did, he could tell. But none of them saw it the way Gabe did. None of them saw the pattern the way he did. They didn’t know that for Gabe, the silence meant relief. That the quietness meant the pain was muted enough for him to function. That the rule had become his life without him realizing it had happened.
It moved too quickly for anyone to catch it early.
By the time anyone realized what was happening, Gabe was already deep enough that stopping felt like giving up the only thing that had ever worked.
And that was the part that made it so hard to walk away from.
You could argue it even looked like improvement. He complained less. He didn’t curl into himself on the couch like he used to, didn’t disappear into his own body the way he had for years. His Mom noticed that and, for the first time in a long time, let herself hope without immediately bracing for disappointment.
His Dad noticed Gabe pushing food around his plate and assumed it was just Gabe being Gabe. Picky eating, or a phase, or something. He didn’t think to connect it to pain because he was doing the opposite of what a sick kid usually did. He was acting like he was getting better.
Natalie noticed too. She noticed that Gabe was thinner, that his clothes looked looser. But she was so young, and she didn’t have the words for it. She didn’t know how to ask without sounding like she was accusing him of something. She didn’t know what to do with the observation, so she tucked it away.
Gabe, himself, noticed everything.
He noticed the way his jeans hung off his hips. The way his ribs stuck out if he slouched. He noticed that his shirts looked baggier. He told himself it was temporary. That he’d grow into it, that it was just how clothes fit when you were growing.
He noticed his hands shaking more often sometimes when he tried to write. He shoved his hands into his pockets whenever he could, because he didn’t want anyone to see.
He noticed how standing up too fast made his vision narrow to a tunnel more violently than it used to. The room would tilt, just slightly, and his knees would feel like they might give out.
He didn’t like any of that.
He didn’t like feeling weak. He didn’t like how small he was getting. He didn’t like how tired he felt all the time, how everything took more effort. None of it made him feel powerful or in control. It just felt like the cost of doing business.
And the pain numbed. That made it all worth it. That’s what he told himself.
But the idea of losing the relief terrified him.
So a week after his fourteenth birthday, when his Mom finally sat him down and asked, really asked, what exactly was going on, Gabe couldn’t understand why she was so upset.
She didn’t slam a door or raise her voice. She just sat on the edge of his bed, hands folded in her lap like she was trying to look calm, and waited for him to speak. It was the kind of silence that felt loud and heavy and suffocating because it meant she was waiting for the truth.
“Gabriel,” she said, quietly, “I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
He blinked at her, like she’d said something strange. Like she was asking for a story instead of a fact. He tried to keep it simple.
“I’m fine,” he said.
She didn’t look satisfied. She didn’t look angry either. She just looked… worried in a way that made his throat close.
“Are you eating enough?” she asked.
The question made his face go hot. He didn’t feel as though he should be ashamed, but the way she asked it made it feel like a test. “Yeah,” he said.
Her eyes flicked to his body in a way that made him want to look away. He could feel the way her mind was filling in the gaps she hadn’t been able to see before.
She tried again, softer. “Are you being honest with me?”
He swallowed, frustrated. “I don’t know.”
Diana’s shoulders sagged slightly. She stared at her hands for a moment before she looked back up at him.
“I’m not going to punish you,” she said, and he could tell she meant it. “I just— I’m scared for you right now, love.”
He didn’t understand.
He wanted to. He wanted to be able to explain himself in a way that would make her stop being scared. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t doing it because he liked it. He wasn’t doing it because he wanted to disappear. He was doing it because it was the first thing that made the pain quieter.
He tried to say it, but the words didn’t come out right. They came out doused in anger.
“I feel better,” he told her, frustration leaking into his voice. “Why is that a problem?”
Her expression didn’t change right away. She just looked at him, like she was trying to decide whether to argue or to let him have the moment. The silence stretched out until Gabe started to feel it like pressure in his chest.
Then she said, carefully, “Because you’re not supposed to feel better like this.”
It was just a fact, spoken in a voice that made it sound like it hurt her to say it.
He didn’t understand what she meant. He stared at her like she’d said something wrong. “What do you mean? It’s not like I’m...”
Her face softened, but there was still that edge of fear there. “I know,” she said. “That’s not what I mean. But you’re doing something that isn’t healthy. And I don’t know how to stop you from doing it without taking it away from you completely.”
Gabe felt his throat tighten. He felt the corners of his eyes burn with tears. The word “stop” made him flinch. The word “take” made him feel like his hands were being pulled away from something he’d only just found.
He didn’t have the language for it yet. He didn’t have the words to explain that this was the first thing that had ever given him a break. That it made the pain so manageable. That it made him feel like he could be more of a normal kid, even if only for a little while.
He didn’t have the words, so he said the only thing that made sense to him.
“But I feel better,” he repeated, softer this time.
Trying to explain it to him was like trying to explain fire to someone who was cold. All he could see was what it gave him. Pain had ruled his life for as long as he could remember. This was the first time he’d found a way to quiet it on his own.
Of course he didn’t want to give that up.
He fought them when they intervened.
Well, fought, is a strong word. He just didn’t cooperate. At all.
He would sit at the table and take two bites of food and then put his fork down, staring at it like it had offended him. He’d say he felt fine when Diana asked, and then he’d go back to his room and lie on the floor because he didn’t want anyone to see him. He’d answer questions with short sentences, not because he was being rude, but because he was trying not to give them anything to use against him. He could’ve been hyperlinked under the definition of the word stubborn.
He was sure he had figured it out.
Therapy felt like punishment.
He didn’t want to go, but he didn’t know how to say that without sounding like a child. The therapist’s office felt too quiet, too clean. She asked him about his day. She asked him what he was feeling. She asked him what he thought he was avoiding.
He didn’t know how to answer.
Because the truth wasn’t simple.
He didn’t want to admit that the relief he felt from not eating was the only time he felt like he had control. He didn’t want to say that the pain had been so loud for so long that it felt like a miracle. He didn’t want to say that he was scared of what his body would do to him if he stopped.
So he sat there with his arms crossed and his jaw tight, answering with the bare minimum. He made himself small and unreadable. He did the one thing he could do to protect the one thing that was working.
He hated the way his Mom watched him eat. She looked at him like he was a problem she couldn’t solve. Like she was disappointed in him without ever saying it out loud. Like she was waiting for him to fail.
It all felt unfair. He didn’t understand that the quiet he’d found was temporary and that the cost was mounting every day.
All he understood was that the pain had been loud, and now it wasn’t, and the people he trusted were trying to take that away.
Recovery wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t fast. It didn’t happen like in the movies, where you decide to get better and then you do. It involved adults taking control away from him at a time when he felt like he needed it more than anything. It involved them making decisions for him, watching him, tracking him, forcing him to eat even when it felt like his body was rejecting it. It involved sitting in offices with therapists who asked him questions he didn’t know how to answer yet, questions that felt like they were cracking his skull open to see what was inside, carelessly spilling his thoughts all over the table.
It involved being told, over and over, that something could lessen his pain and still be hurting him.
That was the part that made him want to fight the hardest.
Because he couldn’t imagine living without the thing that finally made the pain stop long enough for him to breathe. He didn’t know how to be in a body that hurt all the time again. He didn’t know how to be a kid who couldn’t control anything, and now someone was telling him the one thing he could control was dangerous.
At thirteen, that distinction felt impossible.
It took a long time for him to see it. Longer to accept it. Even longer to forgive everyone involved, including himself.
Almost five years later, Gabe can look back and understand how quickly it spiraled, how little distance there was between discovery and dependency.
He doesn’t look back on that time fondly.
But he understands it now in a way he couldn’t then. He understands that the relief was real, even if it was built on something fragile. He understands that the fear of the pain returning was the same fear that made him reach for it in the first place.
And he still thinks about it. Often.
He’ll be standing in the kitchen, staring at his plate, and the old thought will pop up like a reflex: If I just eat less, it won’t hurt as much. Sometimes he’ll be in a meeting or a class, feeling the familiar twist in his abdomen, and his mind will automatically go to the solution that once made everything quiet. It’s not even a particularly seductive thought anymore. It’s just a reflex, at this point.
Most of the time, he doesn’t even argue with it. He doesn’t have to. But every once in a while he can feel the thought trying to turn into action, and it makes him uncomfortable in a way he can’t explain.
He doesn’t like that he still has it.
It’s a quiet, familiar path his mind knows how to walk. He catches himself in the middle of it sometimes, and he has to do something small, even walking to another room, just to remind himself he isn’t a kid anymore.
He doesn’t need to remind himself of what he has now. He just… knows. The meds are there. The heating pad. The skills drilled into him. The routines. The people who know what to do and don’t treat him like a failure for it. He has tools, and he uses them, because he has no reason not to.
Sometimes he wonders if he’d have survived that time without them.
And sometimes he wonders if he’d have survived it with them, because the help came after the damage had already been done.
He needed people to sit with him while he learned that relief could exist without being a trap. He needed the kind of support he hadn’t had when he was thirteen, when the only thing that made the pain quiet was the thing that was slowly taking him apart.
He needed help to let go.
And eventually, he did.