Focus on Stephen

Ecz-motto: Scratching is a nightmare dressed like a daydream.
Get the shirt.

I’m just another gamer, Swiftie and spreadsheet enthusiast.

I was big into video games in my childhood, but these days I’m more likely to be spotted playing “Magic: the Gathering” or dodging poles while on “Pokemon Go” walks. Outside of that, I like to tinker with spreadsheets to draw conclusions like which French fry size gets me the most per dollar, or whether it’s worth it to take a non-remote job that pays 20% more. Also, I eat pizza with chopsticks.

Modern treatments ended almost three decades of sleep deprivation caused by my eczema.

It started when I was four or five. They say that kids often grow out of it, but I wasn’t that fortunate. I eventually learned to live with it, developing a daily moisturizing routine as I scratched my way through education, relationships and jobs. Throughout, my well-meaning parents pointed me to treatments with varying levels of scientific backing, none of which were able to provide any substantial help. It got to its worst in the years after graduating university, but I eventually discovered modern treatment options, which reduced my eczema to a mild inconvenience and saved my sanity.

After wearing socks on my arms and finding toy handcuffs ineffective at stopping me from scratching at night, it occurred to me that adult handcuffs might be a more comfortable fit.

Moving to a new city caused me to have nighttime eczema flares unlike any I’d ever known, keeping me up all night scratching. When it began to affect the quality of my work and relationships, I was willing to try anything to get sleep. Browsing through the discount store, I thought children’s handcuffs could be the answer, but they barely fit, and only made it worse. It was only then that I realized that adult handcuffs could be a more viable solution and had an interesting time trying several of them on.