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    My tragic pursuit: And the 5 steps to freedom
    My tragic pursuit: And the 5 steps to freedom
    My tragic pursuit: And the 5 steps to freedom
    Ebook133 pages1 hour

    My tragic pursuit: And the 5 steps to freedom

    By Anthony Caputo

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    About this ebook

    From suffering with severe Anxiety and Depression to facing death in the eyes many times, Anthony takes you on a true life journey so unreal you may only see in the movies. This book is not for the weak of heart Anthony goes into details that he has experienced from the many years of trauma leading up to his suicide attempt a

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnthony Caputo
    Release dateApr 15, 2019
    ISBN9781999061210
    My tragic pursuit: And the 5 steps to freedom

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      Book preview

      My tragic pursuit - Anthony Caputo

      Cover_EPUB.jpg

      Dedicated to my wife and kids who have always seen more in me than my mental illness and inspire me daily to achieve my dreams.

      And to everyone out there struggling: you all inspire me to continue my mission of being a voice for those that feel right now they can’t.

      INTRODUCTION

      to Part 1

      The dictionary describes an expert as a person who has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge or skill in a particular area. In my case, I became an expert in anxiety and depression. It wasn’t by choice. Anxiety wrecked my life in lots of big ways and a zillion little ones. It reshaped my life, dictating choices, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. It owned me. My life had some seriously horrible things in it that put anxiety in the driver’s seat. I might have been highly anxious anyway but I definitely was after the massive heartaches and ugly situations I’ve gone through.

      But greatness came out of it. I was able to come to an understanding of something of vital importance, something that the greatest minds have been trying to answer since the dawn of time. It is, in fact, the number one asked question on Google: What is the meaning of life?

      It’s funny because the only time that question has ever been answered is when people are on their deathbed. I was only ever living a half-life. Anxiety and depression stole the rest from me. And then it got worse. I’ve tasted death. Now I’m about to share with you the knowledge that I have acquired from being that close to it.

      This book is divided into two halves. Throughout the first half of this book, I have woven little tasks. They might be simple. They might not be. They may open up some dark places inside you and if that’s the case, then I apologize. Learning to a live a fuller life may not be entirely easy. When I was living with anxiety, I would have done anything, anything at all, to shift it. So these exercises are worth it.

      In the second section, I offer steps that seem simple. I do them every day. Not joking. Every single day. I recommend that you do too. This book not only helps you overcome anxiety and depression, but it also shows you how to live a much fuller and deeper life. It gives you the tools you need to understand the meaning of your life. It will also help you achieve great success however you define it. Most say they want more money, but you can have something more precious: spiritually.

      In order for you to understand the impact near death had on my life, I need to take you on a journey, my journey, to where it all started.

      So here’s my story, which is actually the story of my anxiety, from its birth through to its death.

      ANXIETY

      Its Birth, Its Path of Destruction, and Its Death

      My journey started on a beautiful day in November 1977, the 16 th to be exact, around 4:20 in the morning: my first day of life. I was born into a very loving and supportive family. My parents were young at the time but that didn’t stop them from showering me with love or being the best possible parents they could.

      I was born into an Italian family, the first born to both my parents and grandparents. In an Italian family that boils down to really one thing – being spoiled rotten. I was the highlight of my family’s life; they called me the golden child. Life was good. I had everything I could ask for as a child: parents who cared, and grandparents who spent every waking moment with me.

      After I was born, I instantly developed a relationship with my grandfather. In fact, he was the one who carried me home from the hospital while my mother recuperated And I could do no wrong in the eyes of my grandfather. All he wanted was to spend time with me and all I wanted was the same. I remember playing in my backyard one summer day. My mother had gone in to make my lunch and my grandfather had stopped by and picked me up, not saying anything to my mom. Needless to say, once she called me in for lunch and I was nowhere to be found, she panicked and notified the police. Several hours later, once my grandfather and me pulled in the driveway after going out for ice cream, the police officers almost arrested him and gave him a scolding. It was funny because my grandfather couldn’t understand why. I mean, it was me. I was his. How could these people tell him he couldn’t be with his grandson? He just didn’t get it, nor did he care to.

      Most of the stories from my childhood came from different people telling them. I remember one particular story in 1979, when I was two years old. There was a very bad train derailment in Mississauga and almost the entire city was evacuated. It was terrifying for everyone that lived there. Residents had no idea what to expect or what toxic chemicals they had been exposed to as a result of the incident. The entire city was in a panic. Every street you turned down was already filled with the vehicles of others trying to escape. My parents, acting quickly, headed west into Burlington to one of my aunt’s houses; my grandparents went east to Toronto to my uncle’s house thinking we were close behind. But when my grandfather arrived at my uncle’s house and realized I wasn’t there, he made my uncle drive him back through 15 hours of traffic to pick me up. You see, he thought that if this was our last day on earth and we were going to die, then he wanted to be with me. This story gets told more often then most and I never get tired of hearing it.

      Hearing all the stories of the love my grandfather had for me is very touching. And I’m telling them to you because I want to make something clear. Anxiety can hit the nicest people from the best and most loving families. Anxiety makes you feel guilty about having anxiety. It’s extraordinary when you think about it but that’s how anxiety works. It keeps itself hidden through all sorts of mechanisms. I know a lot of them. I’ve lived most of them. And the first trick that anxiety uses on people is to get them to keep quiet about it.

      So you keep your anxiety to yourself. You don’t want to hurt your family or friends; you don’t want the shame or embarrassment for yourself or hurt those you love. So you stifle it. You might admit it once every blue moon, maybe because you can’t hide it after you’ve had a melt down. But even then you downplay it and what it does to you. The reality is a secret only you and anxiety share.

      Guilt. The first and the best of the ways to keep you half dead.

      In that darkness, anxiety grows.

      The last thing that anxiety wants is to have it all come out in the open and have a light shone on it. This is one of the reasons why I’m going to be really really honest about my life, all the good and all the bad. Because I’ve had lots of both. Maybe my anxiety wouldn’t have been so crippling if I’d had only good things happen to me. But who knows. Maybe my anxiety and depression would have happened anyway. But for sure my start in life was about as good as anyone could have asked. So you can come from the nicest of families and still be a slave to anxiety.

      One thing about my granddad was that he was an avid card player and would hang out at the local Italian social clubs for hours on end playing cards with all of his friends. This was his place to unwind and forget the world, and this is also where I met some of the most prominent and powerful men of the underworld in Canada. Some might say that it’s no place for a child but I learned a lot in those places. I learned respect. I learned loyalty. Most importantly, it was the first place I learned fear.

      Many of these men lived in fear. It was a different type of fear, I later realized. The fear these men were going through was brought upon them by themselves. It wasn’t until later on in my life when I was able to actually read the newspaper that I could see just how powerful and influential these men really were. By then, I was also able to understand why they lived in such fear and how they brought that upon themselves.

      When I think about it now, what bothers me most is that these men chose their lives. They chose fear. They chose fear when they had options about how they could respond to their situations which didn’t include fear. I had no choice. Fear came to me. Fear found me. I know that life’s unfair but this still really just pisses me off.

      I know my Nonno had his own demons with fear. I never got too many details of his story. I only heard it once and once only. When he was a child himself living in Italy, his mother was a maid and he would tag along with her to help clean houses. She was cleaning a house for this particular man, who was very well connected in Italy’s underworld, when another man whom he’d framed for something criminal, came through the door looking for him.

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