Realising I had a problem
After high school, I deferred from university and took a gap year. I had no idea what I wanted to do but had been accepted into a double degree of Commerce and Health Promotion at Deakin University. The gap year was a good experience in leaving Australia and experiencing something different, but it was also problematic.
I was incredibly insecure and shy and found it very difficult to interact with others. I would spend a lot of time alone, hiding away trying not to be seen. I was able to travel around a lot of Europe with Huw (who was later in the car crash I talked about in the introduction to the book) and spent a lot of time drinking and using it to mask my discomfort with not knowing how to cope on my own. For the most part, I struggled. Towards the end of the year, my dad had his third election approaching, and due to my struggles, I decided to come home and be there for it.
I started my course at Deakin only to pull out after just six weeks. I was too depressed and couldn't bring myself to try to fit in and meet people. This only led to further alcohol abuse, where I would build my whole week around it. I wasn't working or doing anything else, just counting down the time until I could drink again.
I would be out every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and often many other nights, drinking myself into the ground. For me, that same compulsion that I had when it came to competing in sport would kick in. I loved the feeling of escape; I loved the complete freedom my mind gave me to fully express myself, say what I thought and show my personality. I would push myself for no reason other than to outdrink whoever was around me, fuelled by a compulsion that felt illogical but, again, that I couldn't help.
The short-term high of this behaviour would lead to incredible lows. I'd spend the week in bed, locked under the covers, afraid to face the outside world. It also led to life-threatening incidents on a weekly basis. I would wind up passing out in random places, vomiting all over myself, walking down freeways against traffic and making dangerous decisions.
Around that time, I began seeing a psychologist, and also told one of my close friends about what I had been going through. At this point I hadn't told anyone else. I was even too embarrassed to tell my parents how I felt, despite them seeing me fall apart and facilitating the psychologist. I was literally trembling, thinking that my friend would never look at me in the same way again.
But to my surprise it was the complete opposite — she understood, offered emotional support and was there for me. It was a major weight off my shoulders and was the beginning of me eventually talking to more people about it. Importantly, reaching out for the first time instilled in me a key point I regularly speak about now: the importance of having unconditional relationships.
Meanwhile, I was still dealing with issues around drinking and abusing alcohol and had major insecurities and hang-ups from growing up. One of those was around girls. I hadn't been with many girls until the age of 19, when I had my first sexual experience with someone 10 years older than me. It was a relief to have finally had the experience, but due to the social isolation and shame that I felt through my adolescence about not fitting in, I had enormous insecurity about being vulnerable or intimate with girls. I relied on alcohol to interact and turned down opportunity after opportunity to date girls who showed interest in me. I had an irrational fear that I couldn't explain and allowed it to hinder me from having the experience I wanted most: to be in a relationship.
Getting help
For years, I had been suffering and done too little about it. I would come up with every excuse possible to avoid being vulnerable and confronting these issues. I knew that things would not magically get better, but I was afraid of my own shadow and too scared to do anything about it. I was also becoming more self-destructive and didn't see a way out; nor did I want a way out as I felt I had nothing left that I cared about.
It got to a point where I couldn't leave my bed even to do something as simple as walk downstairs and wash the dishes. I was almost catatonic. I couldn't hide the severity of what I was experiencing from my family either, and finally my mum intervened. She dragged me to a psychologist to get the help I so desperately needed. I was now 20 years old.
It was during my first session with the psychologist that I found out I was severely depressed. Even after all I had been through, it still came as a shock. I saw depression as something I was stronger than and thought it was embarrassing for a man to fall victim to such a thing.
But this feeling very quickly turned to relief as I was shown examples of people who had been through similar things and had come out okay at the other end. I began to understand why it was happening to me, to be able to own up to my story and then start to move beyond making plans and begin to make changes.
I found this incredibly liberating. When you're in such a state, often no amount of reasoning or logic will change your mind. You feel so overwhelmed that the thought of facing the future is simply untenable to you. I felt like my life was over and so riddled with emotional pain that no words could describe what it felt like.
Now, it really scares me to think back to those times where I had lost all hope. But equally, I'm thankful that I experienced them and forever grateful I have such a close-knit family and friends who love me. I know now that if I hadn't experienced all of this, I wouldn't be able to develop the same level of empathy for others who were suffering.
It also taught me to never judge, to always listen and never compare two situations. Everyone has their own story, and everyone's suffering is relevant under their given circumstances. The key is taking action before things become bigger and bigger problems.
Beginning to heal
As part of my healing, I enrolled in a Business and Entrepreneurship course at RMIT University. After so long out of university and not working, I needed some purpose and something to focus on. The psychologist was instilling in me the importance of taking baby steps forward, so I liked the sound of starting my own business. But there was a hurdle: I was expected to do 15 oral presentations in the first semester as part of the assessment.
I was still too shy to speak in front of even one person, and couldn't look people in the eye, so I completely panicked. I couldn't sleep, was sick to my stomach and tried to pull out of the course due to my fear of public speaking. I would have quit too had I not had the support of my mum, the psychologist and my friend. They knew, as I did, that pulling out would not only waste more time, but would also lead to having no purpose again and putting myself in life-threatening situations.
I turned up for the first of the presentations. They were often in front of just five people, as it was a small course. Nonetheless, I was in a state of sheer panic. So much so that I vomited in the bathroom beforehand.
When it came time to deliver the presentation, I read what I had written word for word and stood there, staring at the floor and mumbling the words. No-one would have understood anything that I said. As horrendous as I felt, nothing bad happened. Sure, I'd made a terrible job of that first speech, but I'd kept going and got through it, even when I stuffed up.
I did many more like that and they taught me an invaluable lesson: not to listen to all the stories that your mind tells you. My mind would say, ‘Nick, you're not good enough’, ‘You are pathetic’, ‘You have nothing good to say’ and ‘You don't deserve to be here’ to the point where I would throw up beforehand. We can’t stop our mind from thinking, but we can choose which thoughts we give power to.
As well as not listening to the stories your mind tells you, it also taught me something I apply to this day: not to give credit to everything your mind tells you. It taught me that even when I did an average job, people were supportive. It taught me that it's okay to try new things and that it's okay to not be the best. The only way anyone gets good at anything is by taking that first step.