Lesson 1: Addicted To The Pursuit

The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. It was a beautiful day in South Florida—the kind of day northerners travel thousands of miles to experience. Or maybe it wasn’t. It could have been 50 degrees, gray, and drizzling for all I knew. The thick, velvet drapes were closed, so none of the Florida sunshine could make it into the room. Plus, I kept the light off most of the time, so it was always dark. I was in bed, trapped in a relentless fog of despair. For the last forty-four days, I had been anchored to this very spot—my master bedroom. And somehow, I couldn’t break free from this dismal, oppressive place. No matter what I did, I couldn’t figure out how to pull myself out. And the whole time I was there, this voice just kept repeating over and over, “You’re not good enough. Nobody cares about you. Nothing you’ve done means anything to anyone.” It was a whisper in my head that I couldn’t drown out.

Logically, I knew what the voice was saying wasn’t true. I’ve done so many things in my life. I’m a successful businessman. I’m an athlete—an Ironman. I’ve made multi-millions. And when it comes to people who care about me, I’ve got so many. Logically, I had so much worth living for. But depression doesn’t listen to logic. It listens to that devil’s voice whispering in your ear. He can be very persuasive. No matter how much you’ve done, he tells you it’s not enough. No matter how many people love you, he tells you you’re unlovable. He repeats it over and over and over, drowning out every other thought until you can’t help but believe it. And over time, the fact that I HAD done so much in my life became part of the depression. “You think you’ve accomplished so much, but just look at you,” the devil’s voice would say to me. “You can make a billion dollars, but you can’t even get yourself out of bed? Pathetic. How could anybody ever love someone like that?” It became a vicious circle. Depression kept me from doing anything. But then I had anxiety over not doing anything, which led to self-hatred over being lazy. The self-hatred, in turn, led to more depression. By the time I realized what a deep hole I’d let myself get into, I was in too deep to do anything about it.

It finally reached the point where I didn’t want to live anymore. But at the same time, killing myself was something I didn’t have the energy for. Obviously, I couldn’t do it in the house, where Jessica or my kids or someone else I cared about might find my body. I’d never do that to them. So, instead, I thought about taking my boat out into deep water, far away from everything and everyone, with my scuba gear, employing the benefits of “nitrogen narcosis,” which can produce severe disturbances of consciousness and even loss of consciousness, leading to death. But it’s a peaceful death. I thought that might be the perfect plan. No one would know what happened to me. It would be my final deep dive.

But in order to do that, first, I’d have to load all of my gear into the boat. I’d have to get up out of bed and leave the room. And that was more than I could manage. I was too lazy even to kill myself. What a loser. So, I stayed there, day after day, with the devil’s voice on a constant loop, for forty-four days…