Trauma Recovery: Healing From Water Trauma In Stages

“Like watermarks on paper, aquatics can leave ineffaceable impressions on cultures, on memories, and on one’s sense of place and identity.” ~ Kevin Dawson in Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora

Trauma healing is a process.

I was only ten years old when I accompanied my father and uncle to Hellshire Beach, a short distance from Spanish Town, one Sunday morning. I lived on an island, but I had never taken a swim class and had never waded in the Rio Cobre River down the street from my house on Nugent Street.

The day had begun with much excitement. At the beach, screams and laughter filled the air as children and teens played at the water’s edge. I added my voice to the merriment when my uncle loaded my brother and me onto a large inner tub and launched us into the water.

On about the third or fourth launch, I fell off the tube and into the sea. I kept going down and down into the water. I pushed upwards but could not pierce the surface. Only then did I acknowledge that drowning was a real possibility and that, for that very reason, my mother, who was not present that day, had always warned us to keep away from the Rio Cobre River. Finally, when I was convinced that I would die, a strong, solid hand grasped my arm and pulled me out of the water, spluttering and coughing.

I survived near drowning that day, and for many years, I feared venturing beyond the water’s edge, especially after hearing that, yet again, another of our numbers had been lost to drowning. Living in Spanish Town, I never had easy access to swim lessons, and even though I still remembered the warmth of the water against my skin, the fun, and that the sense of freedom that I had experienced in the deep, blue sea at Hellshire Beach, I never dreamed that I could overcome my fear of the water. I finally signed up for my first of many swim classes at St. Mary’s College during my freshman year when I learned of the existence of a swimming pool in the building next to my dorm.

“Water was a defining feature for African-descended peoples living along seas, rivers, lakes, and estuaries as immersionary traditions enabled many to merge water and land into unified culturescapes. Accounts indicate many were adept swimmers, underwater divers, and canoeists.” ~ Kevin Dawson

“Relax! Sing!,” Milojevic, my Croatian instructor tells me as he walks calmly alongside the pool observing my back stroke and freestyle. He has long silver hair and the muscles of someone who spent his youth swimming daily in the Adriatic Sea. “Relax. You can make peace with the water,” Milojevic assures me when I resurfaced sputtering once again, and promptly drop the ten-pound brick that I had retrieved from the twelve-feet depth of the swimming pool. At the beginning, I still experienced the same ten-year-old terror, fearing that I would not make it to the surface after going to such depth.

“You are a strong swimmer,” Milojevic fist bumps me when we meet at the shallow end of the pool. He is my latest in a series of swim instructors with whom I have worked in my quest to overcome my fear and renegotiate my relationship with the water.

Milojevic is reassuring. He knows about my apprenticeship, helping another swim instructor teach beginning swim lessons. Passing the lifeguard test is but another step in my trauma recovery process. The certificate ensures that I have the skills to support other brave swimmers in facing their fears, improving their skills, and enjoying all the freedom that the water has to offer.