Do I have to keep putting the A to Z badge at the top? I’ve chosen to put it at the bottom from now on. This is a long post. Get some coffee. Make yourself comfortable.

When we owned Moonrise, guess who docked her much of the time? Yours truly. I remember fondly the days when I would “ride cowboy” by standing on the seat behind the wheel and steer her into her little slip. Those days are behind me. Now we have full-keeled, heavy bodied, center cockpit Galapagos. As much as I love our boat, I loathe docking her. That’s because of the nature of traumatic memory and how it seems to live forever in our bodies sometimes, coming back to haunt us at the worst possible times.

Someday, this is not going to be the case.

If you’ve been following along with us for these years, you may remember the first time we took Galapagos out for a sail down in Astoria, Oregon. That was the day that three bad things happened all in a row. In the post I wrote about that day, I used sheer vulgarity. That was a day that got lodged in my psyche and in my body, and most importantly: in my brain in the wrong location.  I haven’t been able to shake it yet. I am determined that I will. But for now, it still lurks around. Amy G. Dala does her utmost to ‘save my life’ with this one, no matter how hard I try to shut her up.

We had taken Galapagos out for the first time with her shiny new engine, on the Columbia River.  We had just pulled over into a quiet area to practice things like turning on her keel, raising sails, you know…all the things that you need to know how to do on a boat. I don’t want to repeat all the things I wrote about in the original article, so suffice to say we were already a bit concerned about what might be going on with the engine and the transmission. Also, the bilge pump kept coming on and Mike couldn’t figure out why. There were enough things to be worried about  that we decided to cut the trip short and return to the marina.

I got cocky and confident and decided I would bring the boat into the marina myself. Well, it was the first time for both of us with this boat, remember? May as well have been me that took the hit. The dock was a straight shot and there was plenty of room if I flubbed it. I knew the current was wicked getting in and I would have to gun the engine to keep from getting swept into the steel wall at the entrance to the marina. I counted on having to use the engine to slow her down once inside.

What I didn’t count on was the transmission sticking in reverse, although one reason we were returning was because we were worried about the transmission. Go figure. Denial is a terrible thing sometimes. I had overshot the dock on the first pass due to current. No harm done, I was backing up to try again and the transmission stuck hard. It was completely jammed and once our girl is moving, she doesn’t stop very well unless you use the engine to stop her. Not being able to put her in forward, she just kept moving back. The dockhand was running down the dock yelling at me to throw the thing into forward, (Really? You think???), the Coast Guard boat at the fuel dock was lined with faces watching the drama unfold. I don’t remember giving a rip about that. But I will never forget the sickening feeling as the rear of my beautiful boat slowly pushed into the steel fishing vessel behind us, bending our starboard steel davit just enough to remind me every time I see it now. It was, in a word, awful, even though it could have been worse. Turns out, this was a traumatic experience for me. And I don’t use that term lightly.

Part of what defines a trauma is how the person experiences it. What separates a traumatic experience from any other kind of bad experience is that by definition it overwhelms the person’s coping mechanisms. People go into a dissociated state of awareness as a protection. They may experience the event as though they are watching it happen to someone else, like it’s a movie, or as though they are watching themselves from outside their body. Time seems to slow down.  Sometimes people will actually be unable to remember the sequence of events later, or they may be missing critical sensory information such as sounds or sights. Some people get tunnel vision. These are signs that the brain is going to be recording this memory differently than a regular daily event. And that’s a bad thing.

There she is. The boat that bent our davit.

Let me give you another example. A few years ago I was doing a Critical Incident Debriefing at a bank that had been robbed. This is where a therapist goes in and helps the staff process the event. There is a specific protocol. In this incident, two robbers came in waving weapons and shouting for everyone to get onto the floor. There was a lot of yelling and the criminals threatened to hurt people if they did not comply. Everyone present that day agreed that it was an extremely frightening event and commented on how much yelling there was. Part of my job was to assess each individual in the group for evidence that they may not integrate this incident very well and need help processing it.

One man clearly would need more help. He had hidden under his desk, eyes squeezed shut, as soon as the robbery began. He expressed to the group his surprise that everyone was reporting how loud the event was. He had heard nothing. To him, the entire episode had happened in complete silence. He didn’t even know it was over until someone found him under the desk.  He had absolutely no memory of any kind of sound. For him, the current memory was one of silence and no visual cues; just one long incident of being scared literally to death.  I referred him for further evaluation.

Traumatic events are cumulative over time. If you’ve had a number of events that have been pretty hard to take, over time your ability to handle unusual stressors can get eroded.  It may seem like you are able to take things in stride, only getting a little overly concerned about some situations, until suddenly one more thing happens and you’ve hit the end of the line. Then it can be a little like flipping a switch and there’s no turning back without some kind of intervention.

This was not my first rodeo with traumatic events. Even though this event was certainly not in the least life threatening, the conditions under which this happened proved to be a perfect storm that overwhelmed me. All the things that happened that day, being on a new boat in new waters,  and my own personal history all converged  and I experienced this event through the lens of a traumatic experience.

Oh, and the bilge pump thing? Our shaft seal had lost two bolts. It was leaking like a mother f*&^. The third thing? Once the docking debacle had been resolved, Mike discovered water in our brand new engine. Brand. New. Seriously. We were so completely beaten we both could have walked away from the whole project then and there.

Entrance to the Astoria marina. It always felt so small, then when I look at the photo I’m amazed at how much room there actually was.

I long for the days when I had the confidence to pull Moonrise right up into her slip without undue stress. Buying this boat down in Astoria without ever having taken her out on the water was a huge leap of faith. We knew she was a good boat. We never doubted it, and she has proven herself many times already. We actually love our boat. But we had zero experience with a full keeled boat and we also had zero experience with the kinds of currents that are ever present on the Columbia River. Every time we left the dock it was a challenge. Every time we came back, it was a challenge. And there was no one to teach us. Talk about trial by fire. And we chose this… WHY? Oh yes. Because we loved the boat and just decided we would make it work. How did I know that this would be the straw that broke my camel’s back?

That straw broke the camel’s back, and also bent this very sturdy davit, which acted like a shock absorber, protecting the boat. The fishing  boat was scratched, but the owner didn’t care. There was zero damage to the hull and the deck. Whew.

Ever since that day I have been very anxious, in fact sometimes terrified, whenever we are underway in a tight space close to other boats.  I have wanted to avoid taking the boat out because of my fear of bringing her back in. This has been, really, just terrible. I know what has caused these feelings, but knowing what causes post traumatic feelings goes only so far in handling them. To be fair to myself, I have actually docked our boat. If there are no other boats around, and the dock is a straight shot, I can swing that without a worry. When we pulled into Canada and check in at Poet’s Cove, I docked her and was so proud I almost cried.

When there are no other boats around, I’m fine. There is nothing to hit but the dock. I don’t care much about hitting docks.  And this summer, in spite of the fact that I suffered from pretty bad anxiety for almost the entire trip, I got to know the boat better and became more confident and comfortable on her. I have to think that once we are aboard and sailing around as a lifestyle, I’m going to get used to her even more and become more confident over time. I actually do believe that.

Added to my stress was that Mike was learning, too. I didn’t realize how much that mattered to me until he said that out loud; how much he felt responsible, and how much got nervous, too. That actually made a huge difference to me, and it helped calm me down quite a bit. It’s highly possible that the amount of anxiety I was feeling was magnified because part of it actually belonged to him. That was just a really bad, horrible day for us both. I consider it a testament of strength and our probable success as cruisers that we didn’t throw in the towel right there.

Now every time Mike docks the boat successfully I feel better about it, so I’m learning, even if I’m not, yet,  doing. A couple of times last summer, after the trip, I actually thought ‘I’ll bring her in this time’, but then I wouldn’t let myself, because if I rush this and something doesn’t go well, it’s going to set me back considerably and it’s not worth the risk. The fact that Mike is mastering this makes me feel loads better. When he wasn’t confident either, you really wouldn’t want to know what all was going on in my head.

See that area underneath the LL in Michelle? I did that. With my davit.

The last time we were out I handled the docking situation really well. I didn’t worry about it at all in advance, and when we approached the marina, I was pretty calm and cool. I waited until he did his part, then stepped off onto the dock and tied her off as though I’d been doing it all my life. Damn, that felt good.

You know why I handled it well? It wasn’t because I talked myself into it. Like I said, with traumatic memory, that rarely works. I’m glad that I know that. I’m grateful that I have the level of professional knowledge I have. I finally decided I’d had enough of this crappy anxiety and how much suffering it causes me, as well as Mike,  and went on medication. That’s right. I went on Zoloft. And thank God for it. Looking back over a few years I realize I should have done it a long time ago, probably when I hit menopause.  It has calmed Amy G. Dala down enough that I can feel like myself again. I may still be a little afraid, but I can put it in perspective once more and I know that eventually I will learn and it will be fine. This is a true gift because seriously, anxiety can ruin what is otherwise a beautiful thing: being on the boat.

Apologies for not realizing sooner that our site comment section was yacked up because of a bug in WordPress’ Jetpack. I know people tried to comment yesterday, and the day before, and possibly other days as well, but the comments didn’t show up. It isn’t that we were ignoring you. We think we’ve fixed the problem. Can you please make a comment below so we can be sure? Many thanks.

Crap! is a word I would use as an expletive were our boat to Crash into something, like a rock. Actually, there are many choice words I would use, but this is certainly one of them. Let’s check the Fearometer to see how this one rates:

As you can see, I get  mildly worried about crashing into things, with only one exception, which is being saved for our next post. Sorry. I don’t really lose any sleep over this, and I can’t really make up any weird scenarios whereby my boat suddenly crashes in a terrible way. Isn’t that weird? NO! That’s good. I don’t want to borrow trouble.

There is one kind of ‘crashing’ I do get concerned about, and that’s why my needle on the Fear-O-Meter is registering close to the ‘alarmed’ area. The kind of crashing I get more concerned about is more the ‘running aground’ or ‘finding a rock’ kind of crashing. Or maybe the Coral Reef kind of crashing, which actually makes the meter go up a little higher. Franny ‘The Frontal’ Cortex is still in charge when I think about that, but she and Amy G. Dala definitely begin speaking urgently and using their hands to gesture. The coral reef kind of crashing will probably become more of a concern when we actually get to anyplace close to a coral reef but I’m hoping by that time we’ll have enough confidence in our abilities that Amy will keep calm and carry on.

Nope. Not our boat. We took the photo of a poor soul in our anchorage. They anchored too close to the rocks.

Up here in the Salish Sea we have very nasty rocks. So far, I’ve only hit two of them and that’s not really very many considering the number we have. Both times I was compketely at fault. No real harm done to our boat, but still. I hate hitting things. Especially when it’s my fault.

Remember Team Vestas Wind? World class racing sailors ended up on a reef in the middle of freaking nowhere because the navigator had not scrolled in close enough on his GPS to see that reef. I could have told him he should ALWAYS be scrolled in way close, no matter how much water he thinks he has under his keel. I could have told him that scrolling out would cause him to hit rocks because that’s what happened to me.

We were in Barkley Sound aboard our Cal 34, Moonrise, in 2010. We pulled into an anchorage for the evening and I’m at the wheel, looking at the GPS and it all looked clear. Until we hit the rock. At first, I thought the rock was uncharted. Then I realized it was because I wasn’t looking at a high enough resolution. Damn electronics.

I’m glad the one time I had to learn that lesson we were going dead slow and not trying to race Moonrise. When I’m within shouting distance of rocks, dead slow is my favorite speed. Still, the impact took a fist sized piece off Moorise’s keel and it’s a feeling I will never forget. Poor Moonrise. She totally did not deserve that.  Now I always keep the chart plotter scrolled in close. I can be right in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and you can be sure my chart plotter will be on high resolution. Mike is always scrolling it out, but I correct it as soon as it’s my turn to steer. Those rocks move around, and you never know when one might surface for air. Or, due to climate change, coral reefs could suddenly appear in the Salish Sea. Hey. It could happen! I’m not going to have to learn that lesson twice!

Rocks. They are literally everywhere.

The other time we were leaving an anchorage in the Northern Gulf Islands and Mike had it under control, but I didn’t know that. I thought it was my job to steer out of the anchorage. He pulls up the anchor, then signals we’re ‘free’, and I slowly steer us out. That’s the way we always do it. So I went up and took the wheel.   I should have left it to him because I wasn’t really awake yet. He has this habit of getting up very early and getting underway without making me get up.  But then when I hear the engine come on, I feel guilty, like I’m not pulling my weight as First and Only Mate. So I get up there and try to do my job  before I have any coffee. Generally speaking, that’s a bad idea. In this case there was a rock in the middle of the anchorage. I knew it was there, because I had been steering when we came in the previous evening. But due to zero caffeine in my blood, I forgot.  I sure hate hurting our boats. And rocks are the devil.

These events have caused me to be very cautious when entering unknown waters. Very. Cautious. So much so, it probably drives Mike a little mad. But he’ll thank me when he’s still alive and our boat is still in one piece one of these days.

It’s April and the A to Z Challenge. I have to write 26 posts, all around a theme. That’s a lot of writing, so I chose Anxiety as my theme. You’ll see why.

Let’s jump right into this subject, which I am very excited to be done with early in the series because I don’t even like to think about it.  One of the primary diagnostic criteria for anxiety is the avoidance of the subject you are anxious about, including thinking or talking, or in my case, writing,  about that thing. This subject falls squarely within that criteria. You’ll notice that the needle on the Fearometer is way the hell over to the right. That’s how I roll with this particular anxiety, which, in my case, is actually a phobia. This fear will probably not lead to a complete panic attack, but it will almost definitely lead to leaping across a room in a single bound, screaming, and possibly diving into the sea without even checking for sharks.

I can think of situations regarding this subject that would push this needle right off the charts. All the way off.

Phobias, a very specific kind of anxiety,  are kind of interesting things, academically speaking. I mean, there are very common phobias people have like fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of snakes, fear of deep water, fear of being trapped, you know the drill. These phobias kind of make sense because some of these things could actually kill you if your Fran ‘the frontal’ Cortex is not in charge. So one can’t really blame Amy G. Dala for raising her voice about those things. After all, survival is her super power.

My phobia isn’t the kind people can really understand, however. It’s nothing as easy as a fear of heights (which I’m also not too crazy about). What I’m fearful of actually can’t kill me, unless I get disgusted to death which, I suppose, could happen.  I just get completely grossed out, my skin crawls, and I get lots of other really unpleasant visceral responses to a specific insect, the name of which I will not be typing due to my avoidance.

I’ll give you some easy hints: These are butt-ugly, disgusting, filthy, sometimes very big, have (shudder) long antennae, come out at night like monsters, are ubiquitous in the south and other hot places. Some of them fly. (Oh. My. God.) If you have one, you have a lot of them because they travel in giant herds. I can hardly bear to think about it. One time, in Nevada, I saw one that was easily 6 inches long. I kid you not. That’s right. Now you know what I’m talking about. I need to take a break from even writing this. Let me look at a picture of bug cuteness to bring my anxiety under control. Adorable! I love them.

I am so not afraid of these really cute bugs.

This is the kind of phobia that other people get irritated about. Phobias are annoying to almost everyone because sometimes they really don’t make much sense.  People will say things like, “Oh, Melissa. It’s just a bug! It’s not going to hurt you.”.  Those people should be extremely glad that I am A) generally non-violent  B) have never owned a firearm. FYI: “It’s not going to hurt you.” are words you should never say to someone who is in the midst of a phobic panic. This comes under the heading of using logic when Amy G. Dala is in charge.  You won’t be prepared for the level of rage that will erupt if those words are spoken. Besides, if that helped, don’t you think that person would have gotten over it? Sheesh. Don’t get me started.

I have had many bad experiences with these insects. Many. I’ve had bad experiences in Texas, Louisiana, New York, Indiana, Nevada, Mississippi… OK that’s all I can think of. But trust me! They were REALLY BAD. I could give you nightmares just telling you of them. How long have I had this phobia, you ask, assessing my level of sanity? As long as I can remember. I cannot remember a time when I could tolerate being around them. I have no idea what may have caused it, if anything. I mean, phobias are not always associated with real life events. They are not necessarily trauma induced. For example, lots of people are afraid of elevators, even though they have never been stuck in one and probably never will.

This spider is so adorable I would actually pet him and let him sit on my hand.

Incidentally, I am not afraid of other bugs. I am not afraid of spiders. I am not afraid of scorpions. I find them disgusting to look at and I certainly would never willingly pet one, but I do not get the same visceral response to them. I am not afraid of snakes, either, and I find almost all of the higher vertebrates to be charming. These bugs, however, are God’s way of reminding us that he also created evil. And it crawls among us. And multiplies. And I swear before you right now that if one ever gets on my beloved boat, I will abandon ship immediately until it, and any brethren it may have, are obliterated and sent straight to hell, from whence they came. This I do solemnly swear.

Distraction is a good way to calm Amy G. Dala down. So I’m posting photos of lovely bugs.

Want to hear one of my horror stories? Okay, here goes. I’m just going to be brace here. One time, in college,  my friends and I decided to explore the steam tunnels underneath the college. They were really cool in a steampunk-ish kind of way. Except for there were literally thousands of these creatures on all the surfaces. I still remember how it felt for them to crunch under my feet. (And now, just writing that, I have to get up and walk around and assure myself that there’s nothing under my feet here in my house.) This was a terrifying experience, and also gave me feelings of disgust that were just off the chart,  but no one was terrified or disgusted except me. I walked behind my then-boyfriend, using his body as a living shield hoping none of them would touch me.

Those tunnels looked like these that are under the Evergreen College campus here in WA state. I will not be visiting them. But you can see the article about them here:https://dailyevergreen.com/125179/news/campus-history-the-steam-tunnels-beneath-us/

He, of course, could not understand why I was in a panic to get out, tried to use his logic about the situation (stupid, stupid boy) and kind of laughed at me.He’s lucky he lived to tell about it.  (Yeah, I should have broken it off with him then and there. Reference the rage referred to above. Oh the errors of youth.)  As I recall, I finally escaped up out of the tunnels through a manhole cover in the middle of the street, trying to keep from touching the sides of the hole in case there were any lurking there. I’m not sure how long it took for me to feel clean again or to get a good night’s sleep after that. Probably I threw those clothes away.  (Mom, if you read this, well, there are lots of things about college you probably don’t want to know.)

In my formative adolescent years and early adulthood, I lost countless nights of sleep because I lived in places where I knew they would come creeping out at night. Like Louisiana, a place I have no desire to visit ever again, regardless of how lovely some places are there.  I knew they would get on my clothes; they would walk across my windowsill.  I was fearful of getting out of my bed to go to the bathroom. Those were some long nights.

Back to cute bugs that I like a lot.

So what’s a person with a full blown phobia to do? Sometimes these things really interfere with the kind of life you long to lead. I have had clients who have literally never been to Gig Harbor or beyond because they are too afraid to drive across a bridge. That’s a rough one! Imagine the beauty you would miss if were afraid to snorkel.

Personally, I have avoided traveling in countries where I might see them.  When we were planning a trip to Australia, I didn’t want my phobia to ruin our family trip (because everyone knows they hang out on every street corner in Australia, right?). So I decided to get treatment for the phobia through another therapist. She used EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) to help me deal with it, and that helped a great deal. Actually, it’s probably the lingering effects of that therapy that allow me to even write this post and try to be amusing because in real life, it’s not very funny and if you were to laugh at me you could literally die from the rage death rays that would come out of my eyes. The therapy really did make a huge difference and if you have any kind of phobia, I encourage you to find someone who practices EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing). I survived the trip to Australia and had a really great time, even if I was still a little overly ‘interested’ in anything I might see crawling on the floor.

See that’s the thing about a phobia like this. There is always this heightened sense of awareness, like a person has special antennae of their own that are meant to seek out and locate anything that even MIGHT look similar to the feared object. See a cigar butt on the ground? Better look to be sure that’s all it is. Is that a moth on the wall at night? Are you SURE? I mean, it’s kind of oblong and brown, so better check. Did something move out of the corner of your eye while dining at a restaurant? Be sure to stare hard at that place to see that it’s actually nothing. Public bathrooms are the very worst. Even here in Washington State, if I see something on a bathroom floor that is fairly oblong and brown, I’m going to make sure it’s not a bug.

Obviously, I’m much better with this than I used to be.  And I already know how silly it is, so don’t bother to remind me. (Remember: death rays).  But I am already planning my approach to traveling in places where I know these insects lurk, just waiting to infest my beautiful boat and make me insane and get me eaten by sharks due to diving in without checking. Here’s my plan:

No marinas (hey, that’s a win/win for lots of reasons). Also less likely to get rats if no marinas.
Don’t anchor too close to the land when possible.
No cardboard on board.
Rinse all produce in the sea before bringing it on board.
Catch a couple of geckos and let them live aboard.
Hang sign on boat: Beware! Geckos!

Ugh. Now I’ve written about this I’m thinking maybe a little more EMDR before I go south.

Phobias are a real thing. Do you have one? I’d be surprised if lots of readers didn’t have phobias. What scares you like this, even if you don’t get super human jumping skills from it?

Tonight, I will think of this bug. This is the bug that will be in my mind.