My default mode of self-love hasn’t fallen into either of the categories I defined earlier. Mine has been to spend money. Through spending I hoped I’d find a way to like myself more. Be more confident. Be someone people wanted to spend time with. This false promise of love got me into debt, made me indulge every but why shouldn’t I voice in my head, buying things for myself, paying the bills when out with friends, never saying no when I couldn’t afford to do something, showboating, until debt became a way of getting through the month for necessities like travelling to work and the weekly food shop. Paying the minimum payment on huge credit balances and then spending back up to the limit. Ever since I was eighteen and was first offered credit and an overdraft, I’ve amassed heart-thudding debts, the kind that make you dissociate, as though the debt is a fungus growing in the dark that you have no hand in. How did it get like this? I’d ask myself, clueless.