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Diving again after an incident
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scubadobadoo
Contributor
Much luck to you! I hope to soon hear about your good times in the water soon!!! 
I was involved in an incident where one of our dive partners suffered a heart attack. While most of the "bad stuff" happened on the beach, it still messed with me for a while. I only had 15 dives under my belt at the time. I had to face off with it on every dive for about a year. My advice would be to let any of your dive partners know about your experience and that you may wish to turn the dive early. Then at any time you do not like whats going on, turn the dive. You will be surprised at how fast panic or uneasiness goes away when you know your heading back to the beach. Just remember you are not required to be there. when it stops being fun head out.
Best of luck and wishes to you!
Eric
Best of luck and wishes to you!
Eric
Chris Horn
Guest
I think you will also be suprised at just how many people would be willing to jump in with you and wait in the shallows all day to feel comfortable and THEN buy you lunch afterwards in celebration of a good dive. I'm sorry for all the bad experiences, but like in most cases there are still good ones to be had, and you appear that you are looking for them. Go get them!
Kara,
The call of the ocean and it's sister waters are very hard to ignore once you experienced what they have to offer. Although it has been sometime since your past unfortunate expereince, it sounds as if you have a few more steps to take to continue with the emotional healing form such a traumatic event. As it appears that you were in engaged in activity in which your mother loved, there could be no more honor to her, to continue with her dream. As it appears you were engaged in an activity in which you greatly loved, there could be no more done, to honor yourself and continue with the exploration of part of this earth that not many choose to see. As you see, there will be many to support you and I hope you truly take up those offers of assistance. As you are concerned with flashbacks, yes they will occur, but remember, there are not a bad thing, but a way our mind heals form a traumatic situatin. With each flashback, we work on how to control our anxiety and eventually the flashbacks turn into just a bad memory, and then just to a memory. It very similar to how we all start diving, we are all nervous and concerned and eventually learn to deal with each problematic thought in our head. This comes through support of experienced others and practive, practice, practice. The situation you are in is very similar to being in a car accident and losing a loved one. After the car accident you need to decide if you will ever drive again, or how soon you will drive again. Everyone will give you varying opinions about when to return to driving, but the only one to answer that question is you.
As far as persons commenting on your past experience on this board, although we try to reamain constructive, sometimes it is easier for us to point out others mistakes or speculate on our own safety so we can individually feel safer. People need to point out mistakes they could "never" make due to their experience level or personal skills. It's a method of healing by blaming the victim. Happens all the time. Although some accidents are preventable, not all area avoidable, hence the word "accident". Somethings are not in our control despite what we tell ourselves.
I apologize for such a long response, but when I read your thread it struck a hearstring. About four years ago, I lost my best friend in a diving accident in the keys. It was a simple event, happened quickly, much specualtion occured from nonfactual information, which made some of the pain worse, and I needed to answer to same question you asked. I returned to diving shortly after the accident, to sort out my own anxiety about diving, and it was tough at first. However, with support of good fellow diving professionals and friends , I went on to become a rescue/public saftey diver even though I was an experienced diver prior. I guess it was a way to honor my friend, who was the one who got me into diving in the first place.
In closing, my condolences on your loss as I know first hand the emotional toll it takes. My commendations to you, in returning to an activity that both you and your mother enjoyed.
Sohnje
The call of the ocean and it's sister waters are very hard to ignore once you experienced what they have to offer. Although it has been sometime since your past unfortunate expereince, it sounds as if you have a few more steps to take to continue with the emotional healing form such a traumatic event. As it appears that you were in engaged in activity in which your mother loved, there could be no more honor to her, to continue with her dream. As it appears you were engaged in an activity in which you greatly loved, there could be no more done, to honor yourself and continue with the exploration of part of this earth that not many choose to see. As you see, there will be many to support you and I hope you truly take up those offers of assistance. As you are concerned with flashbacks, yes they will occur, but remember, there are not a bad thing, but a way our mind heals form a traumatic situatin. With each flashback, we work on how to control our anxiety and eventually the flashbacks turn into just a bad memory, and then just to a memory. It very similar to how we all start diving, we are all nervous and concerned and eventually learn to deal with each problematic thought in our head. This comes through support of experienced others and practive, practice, practice. The situation you are in is very similar to being in a car accident and losing a loved one. After the car accident you need to decide if you will ever drive again, or how soon you will drive again. Everyone will give you varying opinions about when to return to driving, but the only one to answer that question is you.
As far as persons commenting on your past experience on this board, although we try to reamain constructive, sometimes it is easier for us to point out others mistakes or speculate on our own safety so we can individually feel safer. People need to point out mistakes they could "never" make due to their experience level or personal skills. It's a method of healing by blaming the victim. Happens all the time. Although some accidents are preventable, not all area avoidable, hence the word "accident". Somethings are not in our control despite what we tell ourselves.
I apologize for such a long response, but when I read your thread it struck a hearstring. About four years ago, I lost my best friend in a diving accident in the keys. It was a simple event, happened quickly, much specualtion occured from nonfactual information, which made some of the pain worse, and I needed to answer to same question you asked. I returned to diving shortly after the accident, to sort out my own anxiety about diving, and it was tough at first. However, with support of good fellow diving professionals and friends , I went on to become a rescue/public saftey diver even though I was an experienced diver prior. I guess it was a way to honor my friend, who was the one who got me into diving in the first place.
In closing, my condolences on your loss as I know first hand the emotional toll it takes. My commendations to you, in returning to an activity that both you and your mother enjoyed.
Sohnje
macjeffff
Registered
I've been working as a professional counselor for 25 years. Believe me, you will benefit by finding a local therapist who is fully trained and certified in EMDR, the most effective technique for trauma resolution. It is quick (just a few sessions) and doesn't require digging into yourself. You'll be amazed at the results. Personally, I would take this step before anything else. I'm in Michigan, but if you can't find someone in your area, contact me and I will search someone out for you.
Guba
Contributor
Kara,
You have my heartfelt condolences for your loss.
I can only relate to you how I coped with the trauma of losing a dive partner on a dive. I know all of us are different, but perhaps seeing how one diver coped with a roughly similar experience might provide some insight for you. I don't think it's important for others have to read what we relate, but if that's what you want to do it's okay with me. Otherwise, just PM me and I'll be glad to share what I can with you.
God bless ya,
Bill
You have my heartfelt condolences for your loss.
I can only relate to you how I coped with the trauma of losing a dive partner on a dive. I know all of us are different, but perhaps seeing how one diver coped with a roughly similar experience might provide some insight for you. I don't think it's important for others have to read what we relate, but if that's what you want to do it's okay with me. Otherwise, just PM me and I'll be glad to share what I can with you.
God bless ya,
Bill
Kara,
First of all, my condolences on losing your mother. I can relate to how it is to suddenly lose a loved one and nothing any of us can say can change how terrible it is.
You're specifically asking about how it is to recover from an accident. I can relate two stories from my own past that might give you some insight.
In one case a student came looking for a "scuba review" and when I looked at her papers she had 600 dives and he last dive wasn't long before that. I, of course, asked her why she was there and she broke down sobbing and said that her buddy had recently died during a dive and that she didn't know what else to do.
As a person I was in a position to reach out to her but it had nothing to do with my ability as a scuba instructor. She didn't need lessons, she needed someone to reach out. I did that and I think I helped her get some direction but i'm not a psychologist (or even close)... just a guy with enough sense to shut up and listen when it's necessary.
I'm not sure you should take your chances like that. Many scuba instructors won't have the life experience or clarity of mind to handle stuff like that in stride when it happens. Chances are pretty good that if you did decide to go back and take the course again that your instructor wouldn't be able to help you with the *real* reason why you're there. For that you will need to see a psychologist if you haven't already.
In the other case we executed a rescue of a diver (someone we didn't know) who had run out of air and had been abandoned and left for dead by the dive-team who were there to ensure his safety. The diver actually survived the incident but at the time we were sure he was going to die and it made a big impression on all of us (me and my dive team). After the fact it took us months of talking to each other and to the divers involved in order to work out the trauma of what had happened. In the meanwhile we all continued diving but it took us all a long time before we could go diving and not think about it.
Those two incidents are clearly no where near as traumatic as what you have to deal with but the red-line through it all is that talking helps. Your idea of wanting to re-take a diving course may help you in some ways but i would strongly advise first visiting a professional to talk the worst of it out. As I said above, dive instructors are not generally well equipped to do that so only take the diving course once you're far enough along that you want help with diving, not with the trauma.
I hope that helps and I wish you the best of luck
R..
OP
hopashore
Registered
Continued thanks, to all of you
This thread makes me smile, when I was expecting it to make me sad.
To all those who've suggested counseling...you know, it's something I debated, especially right after it happened. And while I probably would gain some things from it, perhaps I definitely would have right away, I don't feel like it's a necessity in order for me to function. I feel like I'm doing well in my life. I miss her every day, but I can still enjoy the day. There are some days that are harder than others, but no one in this world has it easy. It tends to be silly things, like when I want to bake pumpkin seeds and don't know what temperature to set the oven, or in identifying the spider that's made it's way into my shower curtain. But the big things, I think I'm doing ok. I'm getting my masters in psychology at the moment so I'm surrounded by psychologists...I think if I was nonfunctional, my advisor would have brought it up by now
My question was more of the lines of "assuming you're functioning with relative normalcy now, has being back in the water been different or made things different or did you have reactions you weren't expecting." Obviously everyone's different, but I like being able to control situations and the fact that I don't know how I will or might react bugs me
Honestly the hardest is I don't think I can tell my dad. Not because he'd tell me not to, or that I shouldn't, but because I know he'd be constantly worrying and thinking about it the whole day and wouldn't be able to be there to see that I was ok. :/
This thread makes me smile, when I was expecting it to make me sad.
To all those who've suggested counseling...you know, it's something I debated, especially right after it happened. And while I probably would gain some things from it, perhaps I definitely would have right away, I don't feel like it's a necessity in order for me to function. I feel like I'm doing well in my life. I miss her every day, but I can still enjoy the day. There are some days that are harder than others, but no one in this world has it easy. It tends to be silly things, like when I want to bake pumpkin seeds and don't know what temperature to set the oven, or in identifying the spider that's made it's way into my shower curtain. But the big things, I think I'm doing ok. I'm getting my masters in psychology at the moment so I'm surrounded by psychologists...I think if I was nonfunctional, my advisor would have brought it up by now
My question was more of the lines of "assuming you're functioning with relative normalcy now, has being back in the water been different or made things different or did you have reactions you weren't expecting." Obviously everyone's different, but I like being able to control situations and the fact that I don't know how I will or might react bugs me
Honestly the hardest is I don't think I can tell my dad. Not because he'd tell me not to, or that I shouldn't, but because I know he'd be constantly worrying and thinking about it the whole day and wouldn't be able to be there to see that I was ok. :/
blue sky
Contributor
That's what makes the scuba community special. If we were teamed as insta-buddies, I would want you to let me know what your "baggage" was. I'd be supportive of your actions and be sure to be the best buddy I could be for you.
Get wet! Dive safely! Have fun! If you ever get to the Tampa area, PM me and I'll see if my wife and I can put together a dive trip for you.
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