A picture of me, taken in '99
To this day, the most defining time in my life was the summer of the year 1999. Just a note for Northern Hemisphere readers, summer in the Southern Hemisphere (I live in Australia) is the months of November, December, and January. And it truly was the best of times, and the worst of times; the best, because I'd just quit high-school, and the world seemed full of possibilities, Christmas was just around the corner, and because I live in a town that's fifty meters from the beach, this makes it a popular destination over the Christmas break, and the town population increases by a factor of ten. What this means is that there are tourist girls a-plenty, and on Christmas day and the week after it, they show off their new bikinis they've been given as Christmas presents; it was a tradition among my drinking buddies to hit the beach on Christmas day at around 11am, beer cooler in tow, and we'd ogle all the lovely ladies and their new attire.
But it was also the worst of times. Mental illness was starting to be the predominant factor in my life (I suffered from severe depression, and also what one psychologist described as "the worst case of Panic Disorder I've ever seen.") I started to self-abuse: I'd start drinking as soon as I woke up (being utterly, utterly wasted was the only way I could leave the house due to the panic disorder), I'd cut myself, then moved on to burning myself. I have to explain why I did those things, as I think we've all seen how self-abusers are treated on the internet; how they're referred to as 'emos' and that they only do it for attention, etc, but I did it because I was in such a dark and painful place that hurting myself was the only way I could feel anything; also, holding a lighter under your arm for thirty seconds, apart from giving 3rd degree burns, focused my mind and brought me out of The Pit, if only for a short time.
