At an early age in my childhood, I became aware of death. There was nothing to my knowledge which happened that triggered this realization. It just suddenly occured to me that people die at the end of their lives, and I will die, too, sometime in the future. This thought shocked me so much that I had to vomit. All my family was needed to calm me down that night. I had a troublesome time from then on, because that fear of death did not leave my mind. It was hard for me to cope with it, but eventually I could handle it better - in some way.
Then when I got older and got to another school, I started to get bullied, and my bullies had knives and other weapons, and they threatened to kill me, and I assumed they were psycho enough to actually kill me (and I still think they could have killed me). This was a big problem for me. Because now death was no longer an abstract thought for me, something that happened far, far away in the future, but something that could really, actually, tangibly happen to me, every day I went to school and met my bullies. And this scared me a lot. To the point that everything went out of control for me and my life became quite the mess. And there was really no solution visibly to me, no way to solve this big problem for me.
Until I encountered Hardcore. The nihilism of Hardcore swept over me and became a part of me. That nihilism showed me that nothing matters in life and everything is pointless and without meaning. "It doesn't matter if I'm dead next week" (which, to me, also signified: "Noone cares if I'm dead next week") was my credo as a teenager, and I lived by it. I was no longer afraid of death, and this enabled me to get control over my life again and put structure and order to it, and solve this mess at least in some way. Hardcore really saved me.
Nowadays I of course try to be more life-affirmative and positive in life and not dwell too much in the darkness of the past, and the bullies are of course long gone. Also, there is of course not only total nihilism in Hardcore, but also positivity, enthusiasm, a force that creates and not only destroys. And I know that things in life must not always be seen as meaningless, but can also be full of meaning and importance and significance.
But I'll always be thankful that Hardcore music helped me in a very problematic phase of my life, and I know that its darkside can really be a strong ally.
