The very first time that my hat flooded with water, I was at around a hundred feet. I was a new diver and was wearing a KM-37 (a fiberglass helmet painted yum-yum yellow with the words U.S. NAVY written across it) that was filling up fast. Despite my rising panic, I managed to do what they had taught me, crack a valve called the steady-flow and tilt my head down and to the right. A torrent of air ripped into my helmet to do battle with the inflooding water, making a sound that made me feel as if my head had been stuffed inside one of those Dyson hand dryers that drip in the corners of airport bathrooms.
I tried to talk to topside, but the combination of the screaming air and the seawater covering my nose and mouth rendered any attempt at words unintelligible. I shoved frantically at the flap of neoprene that had inverted at the back of my neck, which was still bubbling with incoming water. Then, the bubbling stopped. With my last bit of air, I blew hard, hoping to clear enough of the water that I could breathe, and—when I finally stood up on the bottom of the sea floor—I took a ragged breath. When the rest of the water was purged from my helmet, I secured the steady-flow and sat down on the sandy ground, grateful to be alive.
When one of my graduate professors asked the class if anyone had any close calls that had stuck with them, I raised my hand and told that story. The responses from my classmates, however compassionate, confused me. People told me that they were sorry I had to go through that and “Wow, that must have been traumatic”—but it wasn’t traumatic at all. It was badass. Sure, it was intense and damned stressful. It was one of a handful of times in my life when I was almost certain I wasn’t going to make it out of a situation, but it wasn’t trauma.
This was perhaps the first time that I realized the extent to which I wasn’t a natural fit for the field of psychotherapy.
There is a reason why “Karen” is female, mind you, a non-trivial amount of males have adopted some very Karen-like attitudes, especially when it comes to “safety”, the TPS cop who told people to leave their car keys by the door for thieves being a good example.
Most of the world rightfully holds Canada and much of the west in contempt.
It’s never a good thing when any institution becomes temperamentally imbalanced—but this is especially true concerning the fields that define what is and isn’t mental wellness, normative psychological development, and human nature itself.
Hence we get the LGBTQueers DEMANDING you MUST RESPECT men who pretend to be women, and let them shower next to your middle school daughter … or ELSE!
Because men and women are … equal. There are no differences between the TWO (and only two) sexes.
“Wow, that must have been traumatic”—but it wasn’t traumatic at all.” Exactly. And no PTSD for him either. Now, every tragic aspect of the human condition is traumatic. I just roll my eyes when I hear people I know go on about their trauma or PTSD.
Oh Fifth, I have been feeling… guilty… for not being traumatized by my 4 years in Indian Day School. Your comment is a verbal smack upside the head which I have desperately needed. Memories have started coming back. Only a few are bad, if I choose to judge them as that. (Mine was a great school. Teaching Ojibwe in 1968. Wish it still existed.)
Do you have ANY IDEA how many Catholic school kids I know who have harrowing stories of their Nuns/Teachers!? Ohhhhhhhhhh mommmaaaaaa!!! The corporal punishment.
Oh yeah … and each one of them became college graduates and wildly successful adults.
I don’t doubt the veracity of their stories for a second. However, (sotto voce) *I was a good kid and didn’t get punished. I was also Caucasian.* My mental state is due to other stuff.
I can still count all the way to ten in Ojibwe. Heh.
But I thought the Residential schools eliminated the native language and culture? Literally BEAT it out of the poor children?
Good piece and well written. I’ve always been skeptical of the psychology studies but clearly the last 40 years should put everything in question. Stern has been in therapy for I don’t know how long, and now the man’s clearly Renfield.
We wouldn’t be so gay if we all got stranded on the way to the south pole more often.
Failing that just read “Endurance” about Edward Shackleton doing life and death stuff for over a year and “F” Tom Hanks’ puny crying movies.
Ernest Shackleton
“ the elevation of feelings to a state of primacy rather than pathology” – yup, that’s the problem.
I am going to be a therapist if I survive Woke grad school. But where can I learn how to do it well? Because the Woke Karens are leading me down a useless path.
Watch re-runs of The Bob Newhart Show.