The Year I Lived on Credit and Coffee

 

Photo by Marco Zuppone on Unsplash

Alive by Sia plays at the mall.

I take off my Air France jacket, hang it behind me, open my laptop, and sit at this square-shaped wooden terrace surrounded by warm light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. From here, you can still see people entering and leaving the shops around the café in the middle of the third-floor hall.

I like this place because you always see the same kind of people: a man in khakis, a blue Montgomery coat over a pink shirt, wearing thick-framed indie glasses. A woman in her sixties — maybe seventies — carefully puts on her jacket over a gray turtleneck and matching pants. With grace and straight posture, she leaves the café with quiet ownership. Another man in khakis, blue shirt, and sky-blue jacket sits alone, scrolling through his phone. A young server, probably just turned twenty, moves lightly between tables.

I’m a decade older than him. Ten years of living — but it doesn’t feel like thirty. My real life began when I finished high school, when I turned twenty and moved to the U.S. That’s when everything started. So in a way, I’m only ten years old.

I came to the mall to make the last payment on my credit card. After a year of not paying, I received a letter saying I was being sued for nonpayment. I contacted the financial office and we made a deal. Instead of paying everything I owed — including the late fees, which totaled over three million pesos — I would pay half in eighteen installments. Today, I’m finally free. No more credit cards. Just debit.

I want to reflect on what it means to end this nightmare, but I don’t know where to start.

It was January 2023, a hot summer day. I went to Mall Alto Las Condes, and later to Cencosud, to apply for a credit card. I was wearing shorts. I’d been losing weight since October, when I think my manic episode began. I wasn’t eating much. I biked all over Santiago after work, ate salads for lunch, and drank coffee multiple times a day. My metabolism was racing faster than I could catch it. My ADHD meds helped too — they took away my appetite.

They gave me a limit of about four hundred thousand pesos. A few days later, I requested an increase. Suddenly, I had three and a half million pesos to spend. I’d never had that much virtual money — except maybe the financial aid I received from Harvard each year, or the grant that funded my volunteer work in Malaysia.

You just don’t give that amount of credit to someone bipolar in the middle of a manic episode.

By then, I had already left home in the saddest, most painful way. That’s another story, but the short version is that my parents rejected my way of being. I moved into a friend’s one-room apartment downtown, sleeping on a hard two-seat couch covered with a thin blanket. At night, I left the windows open to let in the madrugada breeze.

I needed to eat, but my roommate — also bipolar — didn’t care much about food. The fridge was always empty, but she somehow found a way to fill her stomach. Around the corner, a grocery store became my most-visited place. That’s where I bought a peach-flavored Lipton Iced Tea, a liter and a half, that I’d chill until it was almost frozen. It was perfect at night — cold, sweet, and a little addictive. The tea gave me dopamine spikes that felt like electricity. It energized me during the day but ruined my sleep at night. And when I lose sleep, everything unravels — mania, psychosis, chaos.

Bejeweled by Taylor Swift plays in the mall.

I went to cafés every day. I charged everything to my credit card. It felt like I could afford anything. The shame came later, when it was too late to fix it.

I read Alberto Fuguet. I began to think like him. At every café, I studied people — how they moved, talked, existed. Observing them helped me understand myself, my place in the world, and unlearn my assumptions about others. My sociologist eye was sharp. I also wrote — a lot. I lost my fear of writing. It became routine. Writing saved me.

Bones by Imagine Dragons plays.

I don’t remember exactly when I realized how much debt I was accumulating with my daily — and sometimes multiple — café visits. By February, my roommate started charging me rent, even though I was sleeping on the floor because the couch had broken my back. One night, around two in the morning, I couldn’t handle the pain and asked her to take me to the ER. I waited on the floor all night until they called me at six a.m. Diagnosis: lumbago. The wooden frame beneath the couch cushions had injured my spine so badly that I could barely move.

Some of that pain wasn’t just physical — it was the ache of missing my family, and my dog. I was desperate to go home, but I had promised myself I wouldn’t. I couldn’t live where my identity was punished. Still, I missed those afternoons with my mom on the couch, the dirty dishes from lunch stacked in the kitchen, our sachet cappuccinos, and Korean dramas on Netflix. I missed walking Roko around the block at sunset, buying bread for tea time. I felt guilty. I knew they rarely walked him. The thought crushed me.

Then one day in March, I ran into my mom. I was picking up my meds at the hospital near home and took the bus that runs through my neighborhood. She got on at the primary care stop. My heart started racing; I felt pins all over my body. Before I knew it, I was crying. She saw me, came to the back of the bus, and sat beside me. We cried loudly — sobbing, trembling — while everyone watched. I rested my head on her lap as she ran her hand through my hair. Time froze.

We got off at Plaza de Puente Alto and went to eat gohan — sushi al plato. Her eyes looked heavy, full of old pain. Later, she confessed that they feared I had left Chile the day I moved out. She worried I had no money. I couldn’t tell her about the debt or ask for help. It was my problem.

I didn’t go home with her that day, but my heart felt lighter. The back pain didn’t matter anymore. My soul had finally gotten what it needed.

Slowly, my mania gave way to depression. By April, I was hearing voices, hurting myself, and thinking only about death. I had recently started Prozac, and the first months were brutal. I applied for over a hundred jobs — no calls. Even after tailoring my résumé, nothing. With depression, I could barely function.

My partner began sending me small monthly transfers to cover rent. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I realized how deep the hole was. I stopped using the card except for essentials. I ate the same thing every day: rice, lentils, spinach salad. Sometimes chicken.

That winter was long and cold. I lived alone on the sixteenth floor with my books, my drum kit, and my dog. I developed rituals to make the days bearable. I’d heat the bathroom, dim the lights, make coffee, toast bread, and fill the tub with hot water. I’d place my laptop on my drum stool and rewatch Princess Mononoke from the bathtub. Coffee mug on one side, grilled cheese on the other, a towel under the door to trap the warmth. Naked, I’d see myself reflected in the mirror across the room and feel at peace. It became my sanctuary — a ritual that made existence possible.

My new medication had my mood on the floor. Against my better judgment, I started ordering whiskey through delivery apps and making Irish coffee in the mornings. The adjustment had left me so anxious I could barely shop in person — I got everything delivered. The mix of whiskey and coffee gave me a calm, steady buzz that made writing possible.

By November, I decided to go back home.

I’d already been visiting once a week. My family was different now — gentler, more careful. They let me sleep all day if I needed to. But one night, during a church meeting they hosted at home, I broke down. I hid in my room, listening to their voices, their words — how fake and hypocritical they sounded when I thought of myself as queer. Rage took over. I tore apart a razor, cut my arms, then swallowed all my sleeping pills. I ended up in the ER with an antipsychotic shot.

The good news is that after that, I was never the same again. I began to heal, to read, to write, to know myself. My psychiatrist added a permanent antipsychotic and a mood stabilizer. That combination worked. Life became livable again. I didn’t find a job until the following September, but I lasted a year before the contract ended.

Now, when I look back at those expenses, I don’t see waste. I see survival. Cafés became my therapy, my anchor, my mirror. I couldn’t afford that life, but those spaces helped me stay alive long enough to learn how to rebuild one.

Today, as I sit here listening to Hymn for the Weekend by Coldplay, I close this chapter. I’m free from debt, and from the chaos that created it. I don’t promise I’ll never fall again — but this time, I know what it costs to keep breathing underwater.