The Tree Where I Died

This is the tree where I died. From here, I hanged myself hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. To pay for my mistakes, I walked up its steps, tied a rope around my neck, and escaped this world.

It’s challenging to hold captive dark thoughts that are too wild to share with even the closest friends. My secret battle with depression was one of them.

During the horror movie I played in my head, I always went beyond my death and experienced the finding of my body, my family’s reactions, my friends’ tears, and my daughter’s supernova pain. I felt the hurt they experienced. Depression is solitary confinement within the prison of your mind and body. Your punisher exploits all your weaknesses and appears and speaks exactly as you do. Despite not knowing how you got there, you desperately, immediately and permanently want to escape.

In the grip of depression, you feel deeply frustrated at your inability to communicate the details of what you feel with the outside world. It feels good to now be able to share this story. If you have been a visitor to this dark world, even for a little bit, or if you suffer from the occasional visit from anxiety, then I write these words for you.

Being in a depression is watching yourself drown in quicksand and not being able to scream for help. Your mind knows it does not have the energy to get you out of your depressed state, so it panics and loops. Your mind transforms into a theatre playing sad black-and-white movies of your life from morning to night. If you try and leave the theatre and think your way out of the stories of depression, you immediately get paralyzed, and your brain fries from overheating, shutting down your body, senses, and soul. Trying to calculate a route to solve your problems becomes as tricky as sailing a ship out of the thickest fog without a drop of wind.

Every time I battled the demons of depression I visualized killing myself knowing full well I wouldn’t and could never actually do it. The daily script was to show me replays of every mistake I’ve ever made of any kind, followed by scary screenings of future scenarios all which ended with my justified death. Depression wanted me to taste a little spoonful from the cauldron of death. I always was very aware that it was a really, really bad nightmare. The severity of depression forced me to experience the process of dying because it was the brain’s only way of solving each and every one of my personal problems. Death was an escape from the pain I was in.

When you are down, a sumo wrestler is sitting on your dreams and heart. The more you struggle, the more energy you lose, the more mistakes you make, the worse the stories get, and the harder it is to escape.

Life becomes a free fall as we descend from the sky to the ground. You have no parachute, and it all happens in slow motion. For your depressed mind, death becomes self-imposed euthanasia, given your inability to protect your well-being and escape your ever-growing pain.

That tree seemed like the only solution at the time. All the mistakes I ever made fell on me all at once like a rain of rocks. I lost the ability to make sound decisions and take care of myself. I fell hard and did it in silence, so no one would have to see me in that state.

My father left this world by hanging himself over twenty years ago. His death however, made me not want to die. Instead, I felt the fire of my life roar with passion. My understanding of life’s fragility and the significance of living your ultimate life was immediately shaped when I witnessed his casket going down in the ground. Ever since that day, I have constantly been pushing myself to live my life to the fullest in my own personal way.

The life I lived was filled with rich joy, incredible people, passionate love, beautiful experiences, and wonderful memories. For many years, I lived in bliss…until I tripped by accident and fell into the tightly woven cage of depression. I struggled hard to Houdini myself free, but nothing worked. I thought I was immune and that it would pass in a quick minute, but I had just begun my long journey to the tree.

A person who is down becomes numb to the things that usually bring them joy. It’s frustrating to be with the people you love, doing what you used to love, and finding no way of feeling good in your skin. In this dimension, everything is gray, and the button that turns on the colors of life is broken. The emotional paralysis is debilitating and feels like being stuck in emotional zero gravity.

To feel anything, you punish yourself. Hurting yourself emotionally is painful but at least allows you to experience what’s it like to feel something— anything again. Pain is a desperate alternative to numbness.

I would descend the stairs to the basement of my depression by visiting the tree. I’d walk there often to feel the intensity of my sadness and pay a visit to my personal portal of death. The way to my tree is through a beautiful old cemetery surrounded by majestic giant trees and a gorgeous view of the pond; Nature, life, death, and solitude are all sandwiched together.

At the base of the tree was an old thick rope, the last remains of the rope swing. The joy of summer it brought to many was now decomposing back into the earth. Every time I visited, I saw the irony of the rope, as if I was being taunted with the ammo to make my pain disappear. No one knew where I was, and no one knew what I felt. I’d stay there staring at the tree, experiencing the waves of sadness of the ocean of alone.

Time passed. Days, weeks, and months. I suffered in the day and the night, but the champion in me would keep marching forward as if motivated by the failed and constant attempts to bring him down. Even the demon of sadness gets tired sometimes, and whenever it would take a brief break from my mental abuse beatings in order to change its boxing gloves, I would take advantage of the opportunity and take action.

When I had occasional bursts of energy and clarity, I worked intensely to get better, launch more ideas, and keep pushing my businesses and dreams so I could crawl out of my hole.

However, before I could breathe a sigh of relief, the black storm would descend into my house to make it rain hard in an attempt to drown me. Each tear was a hurtful message from depression addressed directly to my heart.

Nature was my compassionate nurse through all of this. I biked, hiked, walked, and explored the forests around me incessantly every day. The trees would filter my mind of old stories and clean my soul. As I walked, I would feel ashamed of all the sadness I was leaving behind in the forest.

The swamp of sadness lasted for a very long time. I can’t tell you how long, but it was years. I lost many friends who misunderstood my silence. There were a few who would check in on me regularly and who would know every single detail of my life and my mind. I could always feel how worried they were about me. It must have been hard to see someone they had gotten to know as a strong, happy person in such a broken state of disrepair. I’m so glad the angels sent to keep an eye on me.

>> Fast forward past lots of suffering and learning.

One day, summer came to hug me with its warmth and gave me a sip from its cup of hope. I felt stronger, and more precisely, I felt released. A gorgeous sunny August day led me to the tree. For the very first time, I was brave enough to let my feet climb its steps. The energy in my body was intense, and I felt filled with life. Finally, after a long, dark swim in the night, my feet could feel shallow sand.

When I climbed, I knew that at some point in time, my mind believed that leaving this world was the best decision I could make. For the first time, I was able to see the wound in my mind. I was a kid in a school bus with a drunken clown driver driving through a mountain road with deathly precipices.

From the top of the tree, I was treated to a beautiful view of the lake, a warm, pleasant wind, and the caressing rays of the sun. The branches greeted me with a comfortable place to rest at the crown of the tree, and I laid back, floating above the water on the arms of the tree. The same tree that had held the rope that had repeatedly taken my life was now swaying as the wind slowly cradled me. I was a lion connecting to our star sun, absorbing everything and feeling grateful for just being alive. I was glad that my dark thoughts were unknown to anyone in the world.

Slowly, the mist of sadness burned off, and hope began to return to me.

Several more stories and a year later, I felt strong again, full of hope and possibilities. When I returned to the lake after being away in Costa Rica for half a year, I was shocked to discover that my tree- my private stairway to heaven- had fallen and been swallowed by the lake.

Seeing the tree submerged in the water was shocking. My brain had no words. The portal to my death had been closed. Nevertheless, it was clear that I had overcome one of the most challenging challenges of my life.

The day the tree fell.

I took my daughter Amalia kayaking on the lake that week. The day was majestic, the water was warm, and the sky was blue. We were so happy and full of joy. As we got close to the submerged tree, I could feel my emotions bubbling inside. My beautiful girl had no idea how much suffering I had endured right there, and as we approached the tree in our kayak, the universe sent me the most beautiful message of my life.

One branch remained above water, like an arm lifting out for its last touch with the sky before drowning. Awaiting us as we approached was a big turtle 🐢 perched on the branch. I looked at it. It looked and me. And when it was sure that I had enough time to download its cosmic message it dashed into the water, back to whatever dimension it was from. The turtle was a symbol for hope, prosperity, and protection.

To all those who are currently walking through the swamp of sadness, those who suffer in secret each day from tangled wires or their minds. Do not despair. Your suffering is leading you somewhere. Life does not want you to leave; it wants you to live!

A very important thing is waiting for you here, something you must do, experience, and feel. Rather than hurting you, pain guides you to the places and people you need to meet so you can do the things you are here to accomplish and experience. I never thought I’d say it but even though the pain of depression hurt, it led me into the right path, like a storm that shipwrecks your boat into a beautiful treasure island. I didn’t know how to interpret its words but now I’m fluent in its language and I understand that all along there was no demon, just my very soul trying to steer the adventure of my life to my true calling as a human being, as a father, and as a man.

Now is the time to begin the journey out of the caves of depression. Open yourself to the possibility that things are going to get better and that you will become adept at enjoying the simple beauties of life without the voice of sadness in your mind — It’s time to listen and seek for the ever-constant caresses from the winds of peace.