By the time I turned twenty-one, life seemed to be heading in a reasonably good direction. My job at Autofix was going well, I was earning my own money, paying my own bills and enjoying the independence that came with having a regular income.

I had celebrated my twenty-first birthday with a small, low-key gathering at home. There was no huge party or extravagant celebration, just some family members and the few friends I had at the time. It wasn't anything spectacular, but I was happy enough with where life seemed to be taking me.

Autofix had given me some structure. I would turn up for work, serve customers, work on cars and collect my pay. After the uncertainty of the previous few years, there was something satisfying about having a routine and being able to support myself.

I'd also managed to buy myself a Subaru Legacy Turbo. I loved that car. It wasn't just about owning a turbo Subaru, although at twenty-one that was certainly a big part of it. The car represented something to me. I'd bought it myself, I was paying it off myself, and every time I got behind the wheel I felt proud of what I'd managed to achieve. For someone who had spent much of his teenage years simply trying to work out where he belonged, I finally felt as though I was beginning to build a life of my own.

Then one ordinary day at work changed the direction of everything.

A customer had brought in a Holden Commodore with a 3.8-litre engine that wasn't running properly. It had a misfire, and I was trying to diagnose which cylinder was causing the problem. With the engine running, I started checking the ignition system and pulled one of the spark plug leads.

The electrical shock that hit me was enormous.

An automotive ignition system can produce tens of thousands of volts, and whatever came through that lead gave me one hell of a belt. The closest comparison I can make is touching an electric fence, except this felt considerably stronger.

It certainly woke me up.

At first, I didn't think much more about it. Working on cars came with the occasional cut, burn, smashed knuckle and other unpleasant surprise, so getting a decent electrical shock wasn't something I immediately considered life-changing.

I carried on with my day.

As the hours passed, however, I started feeling strange. I didn't feel seriously ill, and there wasn't one particular symptom I could point to. I simply knew that I didn't feel right.

That evening, when I lay down, something happened that I had never experienced before.

My body suddenly jolted.

About five seconds later, it happened again.

Then again.

And again.

It felt similar to that strange falling sensation people sometimes experience just as they're drifting off to sleep, when the body suddenly jumps and wakes them up. The difference was that I wasn't drifting off to sleep. I was completely awake, and these weren't small twitches that could easily be ignored.

The jolts were violent, painful and very obvious. Roughly every five seconds, my body would suddenly jerk hard enough that there was absolutely no hiding what was happening. Anyone looking at me could see it. My muscles would violently contract without warning, and before I had even recovered from one jolt, I knew another one was only seconds away.

The jolting continued whether I was lying down, sitting or standing. I couldn't predict it, control it or make it stop. Changing position made no difference. Trying to relax made no difference. My body seemed to have developed a mind of its own, firing off these violent movements every few seconds regardless of what I wanted it to do.

I had absolutely no control over my own body.

It was frightening, particularly because I had no idea what was happening to me. Only hours earlier I'd been at work doing the same job I'd done countless times before. Now, roughly every five seconds, my body was violently jerking in a way that was painful, exhausting and impossible for anyone around me not to notice.

I eventually went to see a doctor and underwent a series of tests and scans while they tried to determine what was happening. I was told that the involuntary movements were a symptom known as myoclonus, which causes sudden, uncontrollable muscle jerks.

What was never completely clear was why it had started.

The timing made the electrical shock impossible for me to ignore, but whether it had actually caused the problem, triggered something that was already there, or was simply an extraordinary coincidence was never definitively established.

Knowing what the condition was called didn't make living with it any easier.

Myoclonus is the medical term for sudden, brief and involuntary muscle jerks. Most people have probably experienced a harmless form of it without even knowing the name. That sudden jolt you sometimes get just as you're falling asleep is a type of myoclonus. In my case, however, it wasn't happening once as I drifted off to sleep. It was happening repeatedly, roughly every five seconds, while I was completely awake.

The movements weren't something I could anticipate or control. There was no warning before they happened and no way of simply telling my body to stop. A muscle, a limb or sometimes much of my body would suddenly jerk violently, and seconds later it would happen again. Imagine someone randomly flicking a switch connected to your muscles, except you have no control over the switch and no way of turning it off.

Myoclonus itself isn't necessarily a disease. It's a symptom that can occur for many different reasons, including problems involving the brain or nervous system, reactions to medications, metabolic problems and a range of neurological conditions. Sometimes even after testing, the exact cause isn't obvious.

That was the frustrating part for me. The doctors could give what was happening to my body a name, but giving it a name didn't give me an explanation for why it had suddenly begun.

The doctor prescribed diazepam in an attempt to control the jerking. It reduced the intensity, but it didn't make the problem disappear. Instead, it created a different problem.

The medication completely flattened me.

I could barely function properly. I felt heavily sedated, disconnected from everything around me and incapable of doing much of anything. I was no longer jerking with the same intensity, but I was walking around like a dribbling mess.

That didn't feel like much of an improvement.

I had a choice between experiencing the constant involuntary movements or taking medication that left me so sedated that I could barely function. Neither option was particularly appealing, but eventually I decided that I would rather deal with the jerking and at least have some ability to live my life.

Unfortunately, there was another consequence that I couldn't simply choose to ignore.

I couldn't work.

Working around moving vehicles, machinery, tools and electrical equipment while my body could suddenly jerk without warning wasn't safe or practical. The job at Autofix that had given me independence and stability was gone.

For the first time, I began to understand how quickly someone's circumstances could change through something they had never planned for. One week you're working, earning money and paying your bills. Then something happens that you never saw coming, and suddenly the numbers no longer add up.

My rent still needed to be paid. The electricity company didn't particularly care that I'd developed a medical problem. Neither did the people expecting repayments on my car. I had bills, debts and everyday living expenses, but the wage that had previously covered them had disappeared.

The government assistance I received barely touched the sides.

At first, I tried to manage. I looked at everything I owned and started working out what I could live without. The motorbike was one of the first things to go, which hurt. Motorcycles had been part of my life since my grandfather bought me my first bike when I was eight years old, and selling one wasn't something I ever particularly enjoyed doing.

But sentiment didn't pay rent.

Other possessions followed. Every sale gave me a little breathing room. I could cover another bill, make another payment or buy myself another week or two. The problem was that once something was sold, it was gone. There was only so much I owned, and eventually I was going to run out of things that somebody else was willing to buy.

The Subaru was becoming the biggest problem.

Only a short time earlier, I'd been driving it around feeling proud of myself. Now I was looking at the repayments and wondering how much longer I could possibly keep them up.

I had already explored the options available to me and deferred payments for as long as I could. I had stretched things as far as they would go, but eventually there was nothing left to defer. The bills weren't disappearing. They were simply waiting for me further down the road.

I knew what would happen if I stopped paying for the Subaru.

I'd lose the car.

After that, keeping up with the rent would become the next battle.

I wasn't prepared to simply sit there and watch everything I'd worked for disappear. I had already bought myself as much time as I could. I'd sold possessions, deferred payments and tried to stretch every dollar, but I was reaching the end of the road.

The problem had become brutally simple.

I needed money.

I couldn't work, the government payment wasn't enough, there was little left worth selling, and I had exhausted the breathing room I'd managed to negotiate.

Something had to change.

And it had to change quickly.

I needed to think outside the box.

Quick smart.