Trouble at the yacht club: A story of neurodivergent rumination and threat response
I’m sharing the below story because I think many people will recognize themselves in this experience.
My lifelong goal has been to have a sailboat. My love of the ocean is immense. So, naturally, as soon as I moved to the island I sought out how to go about taking sailing lessons and signed up for an open house at a yacht club.
At the open house I signed up for a courtesy sail. The day came and I went out with a senior couple whom I will call Josef and Annabella. Josef seemed friendly off the bat, and Annabella was rocking her hoity-toity era. Excellent.
Josef gave me a thorough overview before we set out on the water. At one point he instructed me to do a thing with the ropes. Not understanding, I asked for clarity, at which point Annabella started yelling. I tried to ignore her so I could hear what Josef was telling me which was difficult as I use cochlear implants. My focus was interrupted when Annabella started smacking my hand away from the rope so she could do it herself. I yelled at her reminding her I don’t know anything.
This is when I realized I was in the boat with strangers, one of whom was hostile, and calculated in the span of five seconds how long it would take me to swim back if I jumped overboard. When it comes to danger, I don't have a gradual ramp up — I have a sudden jump into protective mode. I'm safe or I'm not; there's no in between. I'm a good swimmer, but it was far and my bag was below deck and not waterproof. While a neurotypical mind might have simply thought what a jerk, I was calculating swim times to shore. There are key differences in how different brain types respond to the same situation.
My escape plan was interrupted when Josef told me to steer the boat in circles. Around the buoys I went. Around and around. It was becoming a bit boring. "Weeeee," Josef said. Yes, out loud. "Weeeee." My definition of weeeee is a little more robust, but whatever.
Off we sailed into the choppy waves as Annabella sneered disdainfully at the spray and I told her cheerfully that I found the mist refreshing, at which she laughed mockingly. Into US waters we went, and back. Every second of this trip I was painfully eager to head in. Josef was a decent teacher, but his instruction was regularly drowned out by Annabella's yelling. At one point he told her to be quiet. At another she retreated below deck to sit with her head in her hands.
A couple of days after the sail, I was still upset at being yelled at and smacked. Something I deal with regularly with AuDHD is that situations loop in my head — often for years — when there has been an injustice, even a small one. I've since figured out that the situations that loop are those in which I haven't stood up for myself or received any closure. So, I told the coordinator at the yacht club they should think about who they send potential members out with. I assured her it was a courtesy, need not be mentioned to Josef and Annabella, and that I wasn't looking for any response.
A couple of days later, Josef emailed me a long, winding note full of advice I hadn't asked for. There were some helpful sailing tips in there — and then came the paragraph advising me to watch my diet and fitness. At no point had I asked for that advice on my body. I was not oblivious to the fact that I am slightly overweight, nor was Josef oblivious to the fact that I was not oblivious as we had discussed this prior to the trip on the topic of life jackets. It’s common sense to not offer unsolicited advice on someone else’s body. Not understanding the motive behind that piece of advice sent my brain into a spiral as I tried to determine the intention, and the loop began. Was it well-meaning? Passive aggressive? Retaliation? This is rumination. It doesn't resolve cleanly.
All this to say, the sailing trip taught me a lot. The biggest lesson was in Josef’s “weeeee.” I thanked the yacht club for the ride and told them it wasn’t a good fit. I’m now signed up for kite surfing lessons in search of my own genuine weeeee.