LOL, I started buying at around $12, that's twelve dollars, not $12k.
My first coins were someone giving me 50 for free and I was like "the hell am I supposed to do with this?" and deleted them.
No wonder your defense mechanisms are in permanent overdrive.
I don't think they even had a dollar value at all then and you probably could have browsed faucets or something later on to get more if you really wanted to. Even though I've profited off the stupid things, I still view them pretty much exactly the same as then - as valueless, imaginary, super mario tokens. The first time I ever exchanged bitcoins for physical silver and gold I just looked around in disbelief opening the package like "did someone really give me silver and gold for imaginary 0's and 1's?". I felt like I just scammed someone.