Content warning: This article discusses uncomfortable medical conditions and drowning.
I am going to throw a big word in your direction: Hydrocephalus.
This is a term I first encountered in Ava Reid’s 2022 young adult fantasy novel, A Study in Drowning. It is, essentially, a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid deep within your brain, in the ventricles (brain cavities), causing an increase of pressure to your skull and brain tissues. As you might guess, this is not a good thing. The historical name for this condition was “water on the brain.”
Essentially, you are drowning within your own mind.
Hydrocephalus. Water on the brain.
Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning
However, I am less interested in the biological aspects of this condition, and more concerned with its potential metaphorical applications. Within Reid’s novel, while there is a character who died from hydrocephalus before the events of the book, the reference is more of an extension of the themes underlying the plot – an exploration of mental health and the feeling of quietly, internally drowning.
I think most have us have been there at one point or another.
It begins slowly: a slow trickle, hardly noticeable at first. Little oddities that might initially seem insignificant. Perhaps you begin to feel alienated, but brush it off as overthinking. Perhaps you slowly start withdrawing from society. Your behaviour might be noted, but doesn’t raise much concern. You fall into the sea, but do not notice the current carrying you away until you can no longer see the shore. You think you are still swimming, but really, you have not yet realized you are beginning to drown.
But didn’t all drownings begin with a harmless dribble of water?
Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning
The signs of drowning are often silent – there is no dramatic splashing, no loud sputtering. The person is often quiet, struggling to stay afloat. The same is true with hydrocephalus. The damage is slow, a gradual onset. Eventually, you are not you anymore. You might struggle to stay afloat in your mind, but are slowly losing against the relentless pressure of the water – and a gradual drowning is a cruel one. People might not be aware that you need help. You might not even know it is happening until it is too late.
This is the sort of drowning I have experienced. I have struggled to stay afloat within my mind, but it was so gradual, and took such a long time, that I didn’t realize I needed help until I got it – a kind of raft, to maintain the metaphor. My mind is a loud, roaring ocean in the middle of a tempest, and I became too accustomed to the noise to notice it until it was muted. However, just as hydrocephalus has no cure, only treatments, the raft can only do so much. The water is not gone. You cannot control the sea, but you can protect yourself against it.
There is a moral to this: in recognizing the signs of mentally drowning within myself, I know when to seek assistance before I succumb to the waves. There was a period back in January where my raft vanished, and I began to sink again – though because I knew what was happening, I could seek help before I was dragged too deep beneath the surface. It feels more painful, being fully aware of the drowning. But it is even more painful to do it alone.
So, how do you live with the crushing pressure of the ocean around you, where land ceases to exist? You learn to live with the sea. It cannot help what it is, and it will not change its behaviour for you. Nature rarely makes exceptions – so you adapt. You evolve.
You find a beacon. Find others with the same experience and help one another. Your raft becomes a boat. Eventually, it becomes a ship. So if you are fighting in the waves, slowly sinking, you can search for a crew to navigate the sea with you. A ship on the horizon.
Are there any ships on the horizon? Will they signal back to me?
Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning
I am on a ship. And I will signal back.