izigame.me

Left LoL after finding this game around 1 year into playing league with friends in highschool(about 2014). I loved Dota right off the bat, the first thing that stuck out to me was that nothing except cosmetics can be bought or unlocked.
My League friends unfortunately never got it. I had to keep playing League with them, they refused to give the game more than a few hours each. Crushed me, still bitter about that to this day.
My love for Dota turned into a total obsession. I learned as much as I could, and played whenever I had the time. I was so inspired by Fear and Dendi's stories in Free to Play, I wanted to go the distance myself. I saw Dota as the one path for me to turn my boundless enthusiasm for strategy games into freedom from jobs I didn't love and a place I didn't want to live. The one rope I could use to pull upward into the future I wanted for myself. Of course, I decided to become a professional Dota player.
This wasn't meant to be.
I was working as a busboy at the time and would work my shift and come home at night and play, then work again without any significant breaks. I would go 24-48hrs without sleep regularly to play as much Dota as I could without missing any work. Went to 1 LAN and placed 2nd, that was one of my favorite experiences in my life. Also met people from all over the world and learned words(mostly curses heh) from languages I would have otherwise never encountered, got to practice my Spanish a bit too. I grew so much as a person from the interactions I had in Dota. It shaped me.
Despite my extreme(and overzealous and counterproductive in retrospect) dedication I never got above 3.6k MMR. What happened instead was that I ended up in the mental hospital from playing between 5 and 22 ranked matches a day and not sleeping on top of working my full time job bussing tables(which I worked as hard as I could at as well). When I got to the hospital I was 135lbs(I am 5'11") and hadn't eaten or slept for 6 days, and was in full blown manic psychosis. Maybe if I had been provided for and fully supported during this time(and born without bipolar disorder) by my parents, I could have done it. We'll never know, but that's what happened. What I did was the epitome of the adage: "burning the candle from both ends". I flew too close to the sun and crashed and burned in the flames of psychosis and malnutrition.
It's been almost 6 years since that episode of mania. Don't worry guys, I'm fine now, I sleep and eat every single day and have never had a recurrence of mania. I use medication to stabilize my mood whenever that pattern fails. Although I still enjoy the game a lot, I really only play turbo on and off since that's what I have time for. Gone are the dreams.
I know I spent a lot of time on this game, and I will regret somewhat my failure to become pro for the rest of my life. At one point it was everything to me. I lived, breathed, and dreamed it. That said, I look back on all that time with nostalgia and fondness. This is a game that will one way or another leave an impression on the rest of your life. You will either give up at less than 50 hours, or you will never forget it.
How can I not recommend that?
It's a masterpiece.
P.S.
Here's my dotabuff if you want to see my schedule during that breaking point: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/34646363/activity