by Emma
I'm Emma, fom the UK and still too young for Neopets.
But I guess age doesn't matter when you're addicted.
I first heard about Neopets from a forum. I had moved two hours away from my hometown and my best friend had given me a going-away gift, which was part of a large-scale merchandising company, so they had their own website. After lurking at the forum there, someone posted a link to Neopets. I went to check it out and I knew from the beginning I'd join. This was in February 2004 when I was nine.
My first account was named xkikix19 and I used to play up to one hour a day [back then I used to do other stuff]. After eight months I started playing a bit more regulary. An hour and a half, then two hours, two and a half hours, three hours.. As December came around, I was spending up to six hours a day on that wretched site. I had no social life left. I just sat there in front of a monitor shouting random insults at people if they spammed the board.
I got temporairly frozen in December - for no reason. I was lurking the boards, playing games and sending neomails to my friends and then BAM, I get frozen. I changed my password every other week, it was my own computer and my family didn't play Neopets and then that happened.
I left Neopets for a while, calming down. I was back again before Christmas day. I actually remember on Christmas day spending about eight hours on Neopets.. how sad. I started to get obsessive-compulsive about Neopets in the summer of 2005. I'd log on before school, at school and after school. I'd stay up late just to get 5k. I deprived myself of sleep, food, water and love. I never went out, never listened to music, never looked after my dog or rabbit.
Then, soon after, I realised my mistakes and what I was doing to myself. I ate in front of the computer, washed in front of the computer, slept in front of my computer. I was chained to it. I deleted my main and my two sides.
I was fine for the first year and four months after quitting. I missed my friends that I made, I missed the adrenaline rush I got when I achieved my goals, I even missed roleplaying. I signed up to far too many roleplaying forums to keep me going with Neoepts.
Then in Feruary 2007, three years after my first account was created, I couldn't take it and signed up for a little side-account. After quickly deciding "what a stupid person I am", I deleted my account.
I only made a new one recently to keep in touch with my friends. They'd all left except one, whom I haven't heard of yet, so my account's going to die.
Addiction is a problem, addiction to Neopets is another thing together. It's just pixels and codes. They hold no value to you or anyone. I could've gone out with my friends and buy tops, jeans, shoes, socks, whatever that I liked. Instead that money was wasted on Neopets.
If you're ever in a state of that addiction where you get upset or frustrated about losing 1k.. I know what pain you're going through.
But now I'm happier, I have a social life, I buy things that I like, I'm involved in music and animals like I want to be, I'm doing better at school, I make more friends, I'm more creative, I play video games as in I /WANT/ to, not needing to for that darigan paintbrush, I write, I sing, I draw, I compose, I laugh. I don't play Neopets.