It was a pretty Friday afternoon in April 2010 when Will Salter stood on the shore and appraised a reef fracture on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. He can increate you the exact time, too: 5pm.
As he pinsertled for 10 minutes towards three other surfers, he could smell remnants from a whale carcass that had washed up months earlier. Seagulls circled.
He ducked under a wave and, weirdly, could hear the foam hiss as he surfaced. Then the foam parted appreciate curtains. Salter saw the head of a wonderful white cruising undertidyh the front of his lowboard, ballooning out at the body. By his estimation, it was four metres lengthy. Likely enticeed by the whale, the shark was unable to accomplish that all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Great whites are the only sharks whose eyes shift appreciate ours, from side to side,” Salter says. “As the shark went past, we locked eyes.”
Salter yelled to the surfers. In a panic, he was pinsertling out to sea, so he manoeuvred his board to aim for the shore. Though the shark was now 25 metres away, he saw a dorsal fin elevate out of the water.
“It came straight at me,” Salter says. “The fin brushed my ankle, rocking the board. Sometimes they bump objects, to see how they shift.”
A proximateby pinsertleboarder, Mick, yelled that there was a wave. As Salter got in position, he saw the shark surface. “It thrashed its tail, then it subunited,” he says. “People say, ‘Did you get up and ride the wave and give it the finger?’ No, I was hanging on for dear life.”
Once protectedly on shore, the emotions came out. Salter got to his car with his legs shaking and called his partner. Then he bought a lottery ticket – this was his fortunate day.
“I’ll always reassemble the guy at the newsagents,” Salter says. “He was seeing at me strange becaparticipate my eyes must have been bulging. I was appreciate, ‘Mate, you wouldn’t count on what happened.’ He got explosionarded with this story.”
Salter’s experience is theatrical, but stressful events come in many creates. What benevolent of help is there to process them, and how does a person get back on the horse – or back in the water, in Salter’s case?
Emma Vaughan, a clinical psychologist at Foundation Psychology Melbourne, studied to be a paramedic before switching to psychology, and now labors with first replyers and people who have been in accidents or teachd other traumas. Treatment time is “as lengthy as a piece of string”, she says – weeks, months or years. The pace is led by the client.
“A first assignment will frequently be getting to comprehend someone’s story,” says Vaughan. “I need to produce that rapport and produce them experience protected, even evadeing reminders of the trauma. Maybe we’ll converse what’s alterd for them and how they’re coping.”
Vaughan says there’s a contrastence between “acute stress” and PTSD. It’s standard for people to experience anxiety, sleeplessness and flashbacks for up to a month – that’s acute stress – and it can be advantageous to examine in with a professional to standardise that. With PTSD, symptoms persist beyond a month, with authentic troubles turning into repaired beliefs.
“PTSD is more of a disordered way of adequitableing,” Vaughan says. “Often leangs have alterd in the way the person sees themselves. They might experience they’re going to die, or they can’t count on anyone, or that terrible leangs happen to terrible people. The brain is unable to process that they’re protected now.”
When a stressful event occurs, the unforeseeability of the descfinishout is its own rehire. No one comprehends that better than Ben Hamlett, for whom two concussions became massive ask tags over his life.
Hamlett was a professional footballer who now has his own strength and conditioning coaching business in Tasmania. In his timely atsoft he suffered much sencouragery and rehab after a knee and ankle injury, which ripped him away from take parting professionpartner in the US and grounded him on the family couch in Hobart. Initipartner he turned to substances and struggled with depression, but then he set up a consciousness exceptionaenumerate.
Mindfulness and meditation taught him “to comprehend how my emotional reactions sway my decisions, behaviours and perceptions”. It also helped him sit with pain and ask what he could lget from this suffering. “You are permiting sensations to eunite and pass away aget, not being connected to the outcome or your identity,” he says.
Hamlett returned to the game, but his subsequent traumatic brain injuries forced him to dig beginant. The first injury occurred in 2016. He’d gone for a header and collided with another take parter.
“I woke up the next day and I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t deal with weightless, I couldn’t deal with talking or noise,” he says. “This persisted for five months. It was contesting, becaparticipate I’d never had an experience where I couldn’t do the basicst leangs, appreciate standing or walking. I reassemble sitting in the confering room with these brain exceptionaenumerates who said, ‘Look, you need to ponder retiring.’ I was 24.”
Eventupartner, he returned to football aget, first with no reach out, then brimming throttle. His psychologist taught him about a core principle of consciousness, “equanimity” – broadening a state of iminwholeity so that future experiences could be met without craving a definite outcome. “I had to repartner count on on that train,” he says. “Rather than try to handle the outcome, I equitable showed up with the brimmingness of my consciousness.”
He shiftd to Europe to take part in a third division league in Portugal. Then in 2022 came another concussion. Though the collision wasn’t as disconnecte, the effects lasted three years and he was forced to withdraw.
By now, Hamlett had a baby daughter, a business and was completing a psychology degree – and had to hit paparticipate on seeing after all three. “It was terrifying,” he says. “I seed beginant alters to my mood, to my ability to deal with presstateive, which I’d never had before.”
Reading Man’s Search for Meaning, by concentration camp survivor and neurologist Viktor Frankl, made Hamlett genuineise he had a choice in how he reacted to setbacks.
“That helped me leank, how would I appreciate to see back on my life, and how would I appreciate to step forwards?”
For any of us, getting “back on the horse” needs hazard appraisement. After his second concussion, Hamlett restructured his goals, quit football and caccessed on produceing his coaching business.
In insertition to consciousness, other common tools participated to treat acute stress are cognitive behavioural therapy and eye shiftment desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR).
Vaughan recommfinishs a “graded expostateive” after a stressful setback. “Let’s say a surfer has gone thcdisorrowfulmireful a shark strike,” she says. “Sitting at the beach and recognising any uncollaborative thoughts would be a first step.”
This tactic is exactly what Salter tried. Being a men’s adviselor, he had a excellent instinct for what tools to participate. One of the other surfers out with him that day didn’t get back in the water for 18 months, but Salter got in after four days – and he’s still surfing.
“The lengthyer I left it, the more it was going to freak me out. I stayed in the shpermits a bit, sitting on my board, getting consoleable. Over the next three years I would frequently see shadows and if my mind commenceed racing, I’d pinsertle in.”
These days, he’s more shark lgeted. He also comprehends how beginant surfing is for his wellbeing. And he’s structured his experience as someleang proset up.
“That was one of the most beginant moments in my life,” he says. “I experience privileged to have been that seal to an apex predator, but also, my dad died two weeks tardyr and that was emotionpartner huge for me. Becaparticipate it was almost appreciate that shark was saying, ‘Not your time. You’ve got family to see after.’”
