this weekend i almost drowned.
i don't really know how to talk about a traumatic or scary situation because almost immediately, it feels like it never happened to me. in the moments after coming out of the ocean, i felt like my body was completely numb, and although i was teetering on the edge of a panic attack, i sort of dissociated for about an hour instead.
tw: drowning, almost death, and mention of suicidal ideation.
some friends, my boyfriend and i went to the ocean over the weekend. i am a very strong swimmer and feel super comfortable and happy in water, but i do not have a lot of experience with the ocean and didn't know what a riptide was. by the time i was pulled away from my friend, i really had no idea what was going on. apparently you are supposed to swim sideways to exit the current but i didn't know that, so i was trying to just stay afloat, not swallow too much water, and wait until there was a break in the rolling waves so i could swim my ass out of there as hard as possible. i tried several times at first to swim to shore and whenever a wave hit i would roll me under or back further rather than forward.
by the time my friends realized anything was wrong, i was already getting myself out of the situation, which is crazy to imagine because for about ten or fifteen seconds i was screaming at the top of my lungs and trying to wave my arms but none of it registered to anyone because of how loud and fast the waves became. it's fucked up to think about.
i have had some dark moments this year, and in general, where i have wanted to die. it is something that rolls around in my head a lot especially as i struggle to handle very deep grief and generally deal with my various anxieties, depression, and whatever else is going on in my head. so it was a bit of a surprise how i felt both terrified by and comfortable with the thought of dying in the ocean. i had a moment of thinking, "holy shit, i might not be able to get myself out of this," and decided to fully relax rather than fight the waves because i was becoming physically exhausted and my throat and eyes were burning from the salt water. i am lucky to be able to float easily. although i had several friends there, i was pulled so far away from them that i don't know if they would have been able to reach me. my boyfriend is a good swimmer and had a board he could have used, but when he saw me paddling my ass off to safety, his thought was, "there's my little swimmer!" (there was friend drama on shore so i don't think they were watching me like a hawk, and i don't blame them! i wouldn't have known that this could happen.)
obviously this is not going to keep me out of the ocean, but it is a bit odd. i have dreamt of drowning and have even written a poem about it, but the perspective is a lot different now that i almost did. man. imagine how this poem would have aged had i actually drowned. kinda funny, really.