837: Swim Towards the Shark 01:05:46

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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Maybe you saw this story in the news earlier this summer. A man's getting mauled by a shark, maybe 100 yards out from a beach near San Diego. He yells for help, yells shark. A woman swimming near him also yells. And some guys hear it and swim towards the shark attack to rescue him.

Which they do. He lives. So, you know, happy ending. But here's the question. I couldn't stop thinking about this. Who does that? Who hears somebody else shark and swims towards the shark? What kind of person is that? So I work in real estate development for a company that's based out of L.A. in Brentwood. We build apartments, hotels, resorts, offices. Meet Cameron Whiting. 31, single, newly moved to San Diego.

And he was there the morning of the shark attack with a group, the North County Ocean Swimmers. That means four times a week to swim a mile, mile and a half or more. I was out in the water about 100 yards offshore just past the breaking waves with another swimmer, Kevin Barrett. And you guys, had you finished your swim for the day? Yep. We were done with our swim. Most of the group had made their way in. Some were in the showers. Some were kind of playing in the waves. Kevin and I were body surfing.

beyond the break and that's when we heard the screaming. How far is it from you? He was probably 50 to 75 yards from us, so just barely within shouting reach. It was hard for us to hear the screams, but the tone of it was so extreme that we knew something really bad was happening. So this is the moment I wanted to ask you about. Somebody yells shark and then you swim towards the shark. Could you just talk about that moment?

Yeah, that's one of the moments that, you know, in the four weeks since this has happened that I just keep replaying. And in the moment, everything happens really quickly and you don't really have a lot of time to psychoanalyze what's going on and what you're feeling. You just kind of react on instinct. But, you know, there are a few options in the moment. And I think in the second it happened, first of all, Kevin Barrett, who's next to me, just took off. Took off towards the shark. Didn't hesitate. But Cameron did hesitate because Cameron is not only a real estate guy.

Cameron's actually this incredible swimmer, the fastest swimmer in this group of ocean swimmers, and also a trained lifeguard who still works as a part-time lifeguard in Los Angeles, where they put you through this rigorous sort of boot camp training.

200 hours over 10 weekends. Lifeguard Academy. Including all kinds of ocean rescues. You know, they taught us in Academy that slow is pro. Slow is pro. Professionals stop and assess. So yeah, there was that split second. But my head was just racing with all the scenarios. And it was, one, we need to make sure somebody's going to get back up. Back up. He looks at the beach to see if anybody's running to call a medic. Looks like yes.

On to scenario two, which he was thinking about because he was actually in the middle of getting recertified as a lifeguard. So it's funny. You have to watch all these videos. And the video I had just watched the night before was how, as a first responder, you can't swim into or you shouldn't respond to an unsafe scene. Like, scene safety is number one. And, in fact, through our lifeguard training, they even taught us in the academy manual that if there's a shark attack, you're not supposed to swim into it. You're supposed to call your supervisor and wait for help. Yeah.

But that just didn't make sense to me in the moment. I think the more important thing they taught us is that you have to make a judgment call in those difficult circumstances. You know what's so weird about that is that they're saying, like, use your judgment about whether to go in. But, like, what does that even mean in this situation? Like, what data could you be using to make a judgment? Yeah. You know, for me, it was just years of experience swimming out there, and I felt comfortable. You know, I've swum thousands of miles out there in way sharkier waters, and I've never seen or had an issue with a shark.

And so even though there was a shark attack, you know, I've heard that when there are shark attacks, usually they bite you and they kind of spit you out after they realize they aren't what you what they wanted to eat. And so in my head, I think and again, I didn't have a ton of time to analyze this in the moment. But I think the risk of a shark coming back and and trying to attack all of us was minimal. Oh, that's so interesting. I think I think you see that differently than most of us civilians do. Yeah.

You know, I feel like the thing that I've heard and I feel like so many people have heard is like if there's blood in the water, the sharks are going to stick around because there's blood in the water, you know? Totally. Yep. I think it was the shark made a mistake and realized it and probably swam away. And I think, you know, the conditions make a big impact, too. I think, you know, the morning of the incident, there was red tide, which is a red plankton that makes the water really murky and muddy. It was kind of choppy. And so...

In my mind, the shark attack happened because the shark probably couldn't see and it couldn't tell what it was biting and it attacked it thinking it was a seal because there was a seal out there that morning. Alet said he was still scared. He says sharks are always in the back of his head as an ocean swimmer. And for whatever random reason, for a couple months before this day, he'd been having nightmares about sharks coming at him, emerging from the deep. Now he might be heading towards what he calls a 1,500-pound pit bull, agitated and fighting.

But in that quick moment or two before he took action, he took note of a couple of other things. He and Kevin were the closest to the guy who got bit, who was another swimmer from their group. No lifeguards were near. And I think I just did the math in my head in that split second of, I think the thought of living for the rest of my life, knowing that I was in a position to help and not doing it, would have just eaten away at me way more than the thought of swimming into something that's dangerous.

It's funny when you weigh it up like this. I feel like the math of it actually seems really, really clear. You're like, I'm a really good swimmer. I'm trained for this. Other people are further away. And I really don't think the shark's going to bite me. Like the math is so straightforward. Yeah, in my mind, it didn't seem like a huge thing. I was just out there in the right place in the right time. But again, Kevin's the one that really made that first move and inspired the courage in me to go. And had Kevin done this kind of training too?

He hadn't, and he jokes that the reason he instantly responded the way he did out of instinct was because he didn't have the training. I didn't think. I really didn't. I just reacted.

This, of course, is Kevin Barrett. 51 years old the day he hurled his body through the water towards a shark attack. Married, two teenage sons. Pays the bills as a financial advisor, but also has a little startup trying to convert ocean waves and their motion into electricity. Used to play rugby and do triathlons, but at some point switched to ocean swimming.

Talking with him about why a person might swim towards a shark attack is pretty much the opposite day, upside-down world, mirror universe, black-as-white version. We're talking with Cameron about it. It's almost ignorance is bliss, right? I didn't have that knowledge set. And so for me, it was my friend's in trouble. I just reacted and went to him. I didn't have the same knowledge that Cameron had. So I just...

I just reacted. Well, it's funny, when he describes his thing, it's almost not heroic. He just did the math, you know what I mean? Like, whereas when you describe yours, it's way more heroic because you're just sort of throwing yourself at danger. Did you assume that the shark would probably swim away once it bit him that one time?

Honestly, I really didn't think too much about the shark. I was really just focused on Caleb. Caleb, the guy who got bit. I was like, I need to get my friend. And he's injured. And how bad are his injuries? And let's get him to shore. How well do you know Caleb? This was the third time I'd met him.

The third time he'd met him. They'd chatted a little about rugby on the beach. Caleb also used to play. That is the extent of the friendship for which he risked his life. People, man. Kevin and Cameron would both be very annoyed with me if I did not point out right now that other people were also critical to saving Caleb's life that day. There was the woman who stayed by him during the attack and yelled for help. Then when they got to Caleb, he was bleeding. Badly. Like a lawnmower hit his torso, Cameron said. The shark was gone.

and a surfer approached with a surfboard they put Caleb on to get him to shore. Then there were medics, of course, and others who helped. Caleb's fine now. Cameron and Kevin both say that since this story hit the news, lots of people have come up to them, saying they could never have done what the two of them did. They would not have swum toward a shark. Cameron says he tells them, you'd be surprised at what you can do. Kevin tells them, of course you would. People, I think, are innately good.

And we will do the right thing when pressed. And, you know, I'm just like you. And, hey, you know, we do good. I don't know. I think you and I see people differently. I think that we are a mix of good and bad. And all the people who say, like, I wouldn't do that, I think that those people, many of them are telling the truth. And I guess that's where we differ. I'm not any different to anybody else.

And this is the reaction that I had. Trust that you would have the similar reaction. That's a cool thing to think about. That is a cool thing to think about. And we don't agree on this. I do think that there are some people who are like you and some people who aren't. But because this is your interview and not mine, you will get the last word. Okay. Good. The day on our show, people who decide to put themselves in danger and swim towards sharks.

Sometimes they're doing it out of idealism for the greater good of everybody because they're good people if such a thing exists. Sometimes it's purely personal and the only way they know to fix some problem in their own life. Sometimes the people around them do not understand why they're doing it at all. True stories of human peril and the people who seek it out. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us. ♪

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This American Life. Act one, if I only had my brain. When Sarah was 15, she landed the lead role with a professional theater company playing Alice. The lead role in Alice Through the Looking Glass. And during the course of the production, she became petrified of going on stage. Stage fright at an almost chemical level. Every day, she says, the very thought of doing the show again drenched her in sweat.

heart pounded so hard she thought it might explode. She was afraid. And she was afraid people would discover she was afraid, which made it worse. And long story, but she lied her way out of the gig. So she didn't have to do it anymore, which ended the play's run early, leaving her adult cast members who needed work out of work. She felt really bad about that. Didn't know enough to it for years after. The funny thing is, Sarah, she'd acted a bunch before this and after it.

In movies, on TV, where there's no audience with you in the room. You may have heard of her, Sarah Polly. These days she works behind the camera as a director and screenwriter. But being on stage, after that one production, it was a shark she did not swim toward.

One of several. Yes, I've never been somebody to push myself. In general, if something makes me anxious, I don't do it. And certainly throughout my acting career, there are a lot of things I just backed right away from the second they started to make me anxious at all. Like I just didn't want the trouble. It's time to move in a different direction. And then a couple decades later, well into adulthood, something happened that just changed all of that. Made her way less avoidant, fearful.

And it wasn't a thing that you would expect. She told the story to one of our producers, Sean Cole. So it's October 2015. Sarah had just finished swimming, actually, at the local rec center and was getting ready to walk home. But her hair's wet and it's chilly outside. It's Toronto where she lives. Gets cold. And she can't find her blow dryer. Goes to the front desk, says, has anybody seen it? Woman says, no, go check the lost and found bin.

So she goes over to the corner of the lobby and crouches down to rummage around in the bin, above which, hanging on the wall, is this big industrial fire extinguisher. I was overheating, and I stood up quickly to, like, toss my winter coat off in a kind of tantrum. And I think what must have happened is my shoulder must have dislodged the fire extinguisher, and it crashed down, like,

on the left side of my head. So my memory after that is foggy. But what I do remember is I felt like all my teeth were going to fall out of my head. I had a lot of thoughts about dentistry and how I wish I knew more about dentistry, because that seemed like a priority at that moment.

And I kind of put together very slowly this terrible pain in my teeth and on the left side of my jaw and head with the fact there was this huge clang around the same time and I could see the fire extinguisher rolling. And I realized I should probably let someone know. And so I started saying in a very monotone voice to no one in particular, a fire extinguisher just fell on my head.

fire extinguisher just fell on my head. And it was literally like listening to a robot. There was no affect in the voice that I heard coming out of me. The woman behind the counter ran to get help, but instead of waiting around, Sarah just set off on her walk home, which wasn't easy. Somehow her body kept veering to the right, onto people's lawns. I felt like I was underwater. I felt like everything was way too loud. But I also felt like...

I have two tiny kids. I'm in the middle of a job. Nothing can have happened to me right now because that's just not possible. I just can't make room for that at the moment. You might have guessed by now that she'd suffered a concussion, in which case you know more about Sarah's brain than she did in those first few hours after the accident. For her, it was one of those moments where you're not sure yet how serious or benign an injury might turn out to be. And if you just act casual, maybe it'll get better on its own.

But in the kitchen that night, making dinner, both her kids bouncing around, she started to experience her brain like a new appliance she wasn't used to yet and was kind of in awe of. Everything for me became scrambled. So I remember having the thought, how am I supposed to open the oven and turn it on if they're making so much noise? Wow. And I remember going, well, that's an odd thought, but I couldn't quite piece together why it was an odd thought.

And I think the moment I really had to admit something was wrong was, even though I think something was obviously wrong, was I snapped at my three-year-old in a way that I just had never snapped before. And I remember like holding these little shoulders and these eyes looking up at me.

And then I became shocked because I was like, what am I doing? I mean, I wasn't rough, but it was way beyond how I had ever been. And I remember just backing up and removing myself and going and sitting in a dark room and going like something's happened. Like, I feel like I can cut through the air with my hand like it's butter, like it's a substance. And I remember saying to my husband, David, you know, did reality always feel like this?

You know when they say the answer is located within the question? This was one of those times. Sarah called her sister, who's a doctor, and who said, yeah, it's a concussion, all the classic symptoms, oversensitivity to noise and light, confusion, wooziness. She told Sarah to just take it easy. Probably she'd be back to normal in no time. But that's not what happened. Sarah had all of those symptoms, plus fatigue, occasional nausea, and terrible migraines, on and off for the next three and a half years.

Some days she'd just lay in a dark room for hours because the headaches were too much. The light sensitivity also meant limiting her screen time, so she could barely work. She was actually in the middle of adapting the novel Little Women into a screenplay when she got hit on the head, a gig that ultimately went to Greta Gerwig instead. Also very challenging? Just hanging out with friends and family. Like in a conversation at dinner, I'd be like,

With these things going on, I haven't been able to follow what people are saying. And I was really good at faking it, but half the time I didn't know what the hell was going on. And it was scary and embarrassing. But the biggest heartbreak was not being able to care for her kids that much, especially in the first year. Couldn't take them to school, couldn't go to their events. She just became less and less involved with their lives.

And this is the story of how she made her way out of that hole, taking a path that was totally unexpected. At first, she was just marching herself around to doctor after doctor. She actually published an essay in a book of essays about all of this. This part's a good summation of the different treatments she tried, so I asked her to read it. I go to a neurofeedback specialist who tells me, after I spent an exhausting day watching balls bounce around on a computer screen, that I am in the one percentile for attention span for my age and gender.

This will haunt me for years. A nutritionist who tells me to stop eating gluten and dairy, and a chiropractor who apparently helped cure hockey player Sidney Crosby. Sidney Crosby is a hockey legend, just to say. In 2011, he was diagnosed with a concussion that famously benched him for about a year. I will later realize that almost everyone out there specializing in concussions has a rumor swirling around them that they cured Sidney Crosby.

After a while, whenever anyone starts to rave about a concussion miracle worker they know, I say, let me guess, he treated Sidney Crosby. The answer is invariably yes. ♪

Out of the tangle of advice, much of it conflicting, stuck this one common thread that Sarah should do as much as she felt like she could handle. But when she reached the point where she couldn't tolerate the stimulation or the sunlight or traffic sounds or whatever it was, then back off. Don't try to push yourself past the point where your body is telling you to quit and make sure to get lots of rest.

It's not exactly rare, this condition. It's been referred to as post-concussion syndrome. Maybe 15 or 20 percent of people with concussions develop some form of it. In fact, Sarah's friend Meredith happened to be dealing with it at the same time. They'd compare notes. Meredith always wore wraparound shades and wide-brimmed hats when she went outside.

And somewhere around year three, Sarah got almost used to her limitations. She kept detailed notes about her symptoms, when they showed up, how severe they were. And in what she calls an irrational fit of optimism, she and David decide to have a third kid, which would have been a huge load for anyone. But for Sarah, it was insurmountable. She felt just as bad as she did on day one and starts to give up on ever being recognizably herself again.

And then, one day, three and a half years in, Sarah sees Meredith, her concussion buddy, on the street. Except now, out of nowhere, Meredith's fine. No wraparound shades, no wide-broomed hat. She basically says she was cured by this doctor in Pittsburgh, Dr. Michael Collins. And the more Sarah learned about him, the more snake-oily the whole thing sounded. There's just so much debate around the science of concussions, and the cures seem so elusive. But the truth is,

And now here was this guy who was completely confident that he could fix what was wrong, that there was a method to it. Plus the way his patients quelled about him seemed cultish and weird. And besides being skeptical, Sarah, who remember is Canadian and explicitly asked me to include this, she didn't want to buy into the notion that health care in the U.S. is superior to what you could get in Canada and literally buy in. She's like, nobody should have to pay for health care. It made her feel gross. But all of that said, she had tried everything else.

Maybe a little snake oil was what she needed. So she booked an appointment and brought her friend Kate down with her to Pittsburgh to sit with her and take notes on what the doctor said so she'd remember. The trip itself was hugely taxing for her. And when the time came to see Dr. Collins, he was not what she expected. He kind of burst into the room.

In like whatever, you know, a Canadian stereotypical image of what an American is, it was like America came into the room. Like he was like really direct, didn't hold back. He was loud. He didn't have a lot of time for niceties. Like I literally felt like Kate and I were like our hair is being blown back by the sheer energy of this man. He immediately points at Kate, who's quietly taking notes in the corner.

Like, that's not going to help. I read all your husband's notes. He's taking all these notes about your symptoms. That's not going to help. And he yelled at Kate. He was like, put that pen down. You're not helping. And Kate was like, dropped her pen. And he's like talking at that volume of voice. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he's really intense guy. And I mean, he's I was used to like a lot of.

listen to your body, be gentle with yourself. And he was like, stop tracking your symptoms. You're not helping yourself by tracking your symptoms, which I was extremely good at. And I mean, he's basically like, I don't know. I don't play sports. It's what I imagine American football coaches like.

Like the first thing he had said was, we're going to have to pin our ears and go after this thing, which is like my kid's favorite expression. We're going to have to pin our ears and go after this thing. He basically told Sarah that she was thinking about her concussion as something she needed to make room for in her life, which was exactly wrong. He said, if there's one thing I need you to remember from this meeting, if you don't remember anything else...

And, you know, there was a possibility I wouldn't because Kate wasn't allowed to take notes because he yelled at her. If there's only one thing you remember from this meeting today, it's this. Run towards the danger. Run towards the danger. Anything that's traditionally triggered your symptoms, you're doing more of.

So now if you're watching TV with someone, you have to ask if it's loud enough for them because they might be keeping it lower for your concussion. You have to ask if the room is bright enough for other people because everyone's probably gotten to a habit of lower light for you and your concussion. You have to basically just take off all the band-aids. And what I was not allowed to do is, he's like, if I hear that you're having a nap ever, I will yell at you. If you have a nap in the day, I will yell at you.

And he meant it. And I was like, holy shit. Like, what if I'm trying to make breakfast for my kids, breastfeed my baby, I'm alone at home, I'm trying to get them all off to school. Like, just thinking about that gives me a migraine. I mean, what if I get a migraine if I'm overextending myself in that way and then I can't function for the rest of the day? And he just looked at me and yelled, attack, attack, attack. It was so arresting.

Remember, this was like the opposite of what every other doctor had told her. Everybody else was like, don't push past the point of your own tolerance. And Dr. Collins was like, push past the point of your own tolerance. Keep going. Sarah asked him how long it would take for her to get better. And he said, pretty straightforward case, maybe four to six weeks, which is when she became firmly convinced that he was a charlatan. But he's not a charlatan.

For all of the ear pinning and attack, attack, attack stuff, Dr. Michael Collins is a world-renowned leading expert in concussions. He's a clinical neuropsychologist, not an MD, but he helped develop a special diagnostic tool to test the severity and type of concussion. Yes, there are different types of concussions, six of them, in fact. He's worked on hundreds of research articles and important studies in the field. And the way his team approaches treatment is becoming more and more accepted, both here and in other countries.

Oh, and also? We're making progress in Sid's case, and I anticipate Sid returning to hockey and playing well in the future. He actually did treat the hockey player Sidney Crosby. This is from a press conference where Sidney is literally sitting two chairs away from him. Yesterday, actually, I assessed Sid, and I can tell you that his data is the best we've seen. It is approaching. I got in touch with Michael Collins, or Mickey to people who know him.

First and foremost, I asked him what was going on with all the yelling. I was having a tough day that day. He said he had been running hours behind schedule in some really complicated cases before seeing Sarah.

But beyond that, he says he felt like he needed to get through to her, literally loud and clear that noise and stimulation were not the enemy. Put very simply, the bash on Sarah's head injured this part of her brain that allows you to interpret motion in busy environments. So the system gets overloaded and can't manage everything that's flying at it. And the injury also caused anxiety. But here's the weird part.

Whenever Sarah felt anxiety about, like, going to a social event, that anxiety alone could also trigger her physical concussion symptoms, the brain fog, wooziness, and confusion. It's a two-way conversation. And so you run toward the danger to interrupt that conversation. You just ignore your anxiety about the symptoms, and so the anxiety and the symptoms both start to fade. You know, she had the type of concussion where...

It's not rest that gets someone better. It's about re-habituation and retraining. And so to make sure she was aware of that, because every instinct in your body when you're going through this is to back off things. And so, yeah, a part of it was I was having a busy day, but a part of it was she needed to hear it. And she needed to understand that there's only one way out, and that's through it. We actually wanted her to have symptoms. We wanted her to feel it.

And just to say, he's not yelly with every patient. And some patients have completely different kinds of concussions. Please consult a physician before treating your own concussion by going to a five-finger death punch concert. But with Sarah, he told her, we're going to put you on an intensive retraining program. Exercise, including very specific exercises to get that motion interpretation system, it's called the vestibular system, working again. And all the classic exposure therapy you just heard about.

Dr. Collins warned her that this would be very uncomfortable at first. He was not lying. I was in agony, like everything hurt. I had worse brain fog at times. It was exhausting. It made me nauseous. It gave me headaches. Take, for example, a simple visit to the grocery store.

For years, her husband had been doing most of the shopping. But now, shopping was prescribed. Just the number of things that were happening, like the bright lights, the music, needing to make decisions about what to pull off the shelf, looking at a list, which again, when you can see how much work each of those steps takes for your brain to process and execute, it is like an explosion of exhaustion and pain.

And certainly I remember being at like a kid's concert, like a kid's rock concert in the gym. A thing that even people without hypersensitivity to loud noises do not necessarily enjoy. And I just wanted to die. And it was like, it must have been such a sight because, you know, you position your face in a certain kind of way at a kid's performance. Yes. Which I was incapable of doing. ♪

Yeah, my brain was exploding a lot in those first few weeks. And then there was this moment where we'd been invited out. This is maybe two or three weeks into the treatment. David had this new colleague and his partner. And we went to a restaurant and I was bringing my breastfeeding baby into a restaurant while having to socialize with new people with noise and light. And I said yes, because I had to, because it was part of my program to say yes to these things. And I said, I'm going to do this.

And I realized halfway through the conversation that I had been following the whole conversation and that I wasn't lost and my head didn't hurt and I wasn't confused. And I expressed that to my husband on the walk home. And as I did, I started sobbing uncontrollably because I suddenly realized that

This is what it used to feel like to be in my brain. And I didn't even know how far off I was of being myself or being fully functioning. And so it was both an incredible moment of knowing, oh, I am going to get better, actually. And also real grief for the last three and a half years. And also just my lack of even having known what I'd lost. ♪

And by the end of six weeks, just like the doctor had said, she was totally cured. It honestly just felt like a veil lifting off the world. Like I'd been behind this screen that I didn't know I was behind. And my vision had adjusted to everything being a bit blurry. And then suddenly everything was clear and in technicolor and beautiful. It's been five years since Sarah recovered. And not only is she symptom-free...

She actually gained something that I never would have expected and is the entire reason I wanted you to hear this story. That whole run towards the danger thing, it's pervaded the rest of her life. Instead of being all squirrely and avoidant when a big challenge comes along, now she's like, okay, bring it on. I do all kinds of things now that I am terrified of and that I would never do. Like, I now, if I'm asked to be on stage...

It's very likely I will say yes because it's so hard for me. And I know the more I do it and the more I work with it, the better it's going to get. So I don't really avoid anything that bugs me anymore.

I am so very honored to be asked to speak here today. This is Sarah addressing graduates at the University of Toronto just a couple months ago. She told the crowd she was terrified of being on stage, even as she was on stage speaking to them. There are many things to be legitimately afraid of. Don't worry, I won't list them. She's also taken on huge projects that would have felt insurmountable to her before the concussion happened. Like the movie Women Talking, which won her an Oscar last year for her screenplay.

And that book I mentioned before, it's called Run Towards the Danger. And it's full of deeply personal, sometimes really upsetting stories from her life. And she'd always been scared to tell. And is it literally like if you're going into some sort of uncomfortable situation that you're thinking the words run towards the danger now?

I do think it sometimes, but I don't have to because it gets lobbed at me more than I say it to myself. Like, if you want to make your life a living hell, name a book run towards the danger because then any time you express reservation about anything, the person in the other corner will be like, I don't want to say it, but I don't know if you remember the title of your book. It's so annoying. Sarah says she's glad now for the concussion. Glad for a concussion.

Her whole life, she says, she kept mixing up taking care of herself with avoiding anything potentially difficult or uncomfortable. Those two things can look very much the same, but they're not. And you can miss out on a lot in life when you confuse them. So she's happy to know the difference. And all it took was a fire extinguisher falling on her head.

Sean Cole is one of the producers of our show. Coming up, what do you do when your kid doesn't just fly the coop but decides twice a week to head straight into danger? What parenting advice exists for that? That's in a minute for Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

Support for This American Life comes from BetterHelp. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities or big work projects, and you feel like you have no time for yourself, self-care non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. And get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash T-A-L. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program, Swim Towards the Shark.

Stories of people who ignore all the noise that is in all of our heads that tells us to run away from danger and instead they head straight towards it. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2. Am I doing it all right, you guys? So this is about somebody who got into an incendiary situation and then rather than pull herself out, decided, hmm, I'm just going to head further into that fire. Comedian Josh Johnson talked about what happened on stage recently. Here he is.

Did y'all see the white woman that got in trouble for saying the N-word? I know, you said which one. Okay, fair enough. Okay. I say "the" because this was "the" for me. It's like other people were saying it, people were saying it all the time, but this one was like, this one felt especially crazy, so I followed the story because it is captivating. Okay, so basically... Okay, where do I even start?

There's a thing called Tradwife. Now, Tradwife is short for traditional wife, right? Tradwife is like this content thing that they do on TikTok. It's spilled over to Instagram a little bit, and it's basically women doing, like, stuff around the house while telling women to be better women, right? It's just like, why don't you be a lady while she makes a pie or something? It's...

I don't get it. It's not for me. I'm not who watches it. But basically, there was this young white woman that was over here cooking something. It didn't look done. And maybe it was done. Maybe she's bad at it. I don't know. But it did not look done. But then she's talking about her friends. And then she says, you know, because then some of my friends out here are just like, you know, out here dating these guys. And, you know, broke ass s***.

And she says it. She says it without missing a beat. She says it like you're not going to hear it, right? So then, of course, everyone who saw this, like, it started this frenzy online, right? And so there were all these people. She did it on TikTok. There was all these people commenting, replying, what's wrong with you? What are you doing? Are you trolling? All this stuff like that, right? And then she makes another video, and she's like, look, I made a video earlier that offended a community or something, and, like...

And I've really listened to the feedback. And I'm not going to lie, I don't really give a care. Like, I don't know. So then they found her job, right? Which is crazy because you're a trad wife. Why are you working? Do you know what I mean? You're supposed to be a traditional. Why are you working at all? You can't trad wife on the side. You can't.

There's no such thing as halfway crooks. You know what I mean? You gotta be all in or all out, right? And so then they found her job. Then they got her fired from her job, right? So then everyone was like talking about how, you know, she clearly got fired even though they don't say her name. They issued a press release because why else would they do it?

And they were like, yeah, certain individual's not working here anymore. So then she starts trying to cozy up to Newsmax and One Nation News and just allow the alt-right on Twitter and everything. And she takes this spin of like, I was canceled, right? But she also just doesn't quite have the juice. You know what I mean by that? She doesn't quite have the like...

the presence and the energy of like a real racist is gonna be a newscaster. You know what I mean? Like, she just doesn't have it. Like when you're watching her, you're like, she's saying bad things and they're annoying, but I'm not angry. She just doesn't have the oomph to get me there. You know what I mean? Like, I've just never seen diet racism before, but that was it.

So then she makes more videos trying to double down harder and in these upcoming videos she just gets way worse with it, gets like even more bigoted with it. So she's tweeting the N-word all the time. She's been tweeting the N-word nonstop since she got fired, right? And now she's making videos where she's saying the F-word, right? And so she's just going after everybody just trying to prove how terrible that she is, right? And so then she starts trying to cozy up to a lot of these like especially neo-Nazis as much as she can and then, then...

a turn takes place. An incredible turn that I could not have predicted. One of the most insane things that has maybe happened so far this century, the neo-Nazis start rejecting her as a psy-op. Because they feel what I feel. They see the video and they're like, you don't mean it though. Like it's not...

It's not like coming out of your stomach, you know what I mean? Like it's not, you're not even saying it with face, you know? Like you don't, you know? Like, and so then they were like, no, no, don't trust her, okay? Don't listen to her, don't follow her. She working for the CIA, she probably a fed. They all turned on her. They started bullying her.

It was absolutely insane. It was one of those things where then she keeps trying to cozy up to him. She keeps trying to take pictures with him. She's going to events and stuff like that. And some of the ones that roll with her are rolling with her in real time. And they're making fun of how other people are making fun of her. But you can tell she's still not in yet. She's not with them hard. And she just played it. She played it poorly.

That's what happened. She could have had a real shot. She could have. But she just, she doesn't have enough of the real... You can tell she's not really racist. I know it's a weird thing to say about somebody who's been saying the N-word nonstop for a week. But you can just tell she doesn't have the fire in her. You know? That's not how you do it. That's not... You are making racist people uncomfortable. You are making...

That's not how you do it. If you really want to be somebody as a racist, if you really want to make waves as a bigot, you start out slow. You start with a bunch of slow and steady dog whistles over decades. You never say the word out right. You throw out a thug here every once in a while. Every once in a while, like on a holiday, you can get real crazy with it. You can do like an animals or something. It's like...

Get people going, you know? Plant your feet, but don't dig too deep.

And then after a while, you know, you start to ingratiate yourself. They start to be like, "Hey, she's one of us." And then they bring you in, and maybe they bring you in on a temporary basis, and they give you, like, a little guest spot every now and again, and then after a couple decades, you get a hosting gig, you know? 'Cause be honest. Like, if a week from now, Megyn Kelly said the N-word, we'd be like, "Yup." We expected that. She's been earning it over decades.

The expectation lands right on the strip perfectly. And then, then we also find out that she might be single. So you're not only not a trap wife, you're not a wife. What are you doing? Where's your man right now? She really put herself in the position where she really needs a husband like this. ♪♪

Josh Johnson, performing in Philadelphia. He's a correspondent for The Daily Show, currently on a nationwide stand-up tour. To learn when he is coming to your city, go to joshjohnsoncomedy.com. We did reach out to the woman who he told that story about. Her name is Lily Gaddis. Just to be perfectly accurate, she was never on Newsmax or One Nation News, but she did appear on similar outlets. Infowars, Candace Owens. She wrote us back right away. She said, hey, thanks for reaching out.

Yes, I've seen his bit. It's fairly accurate, except for the trad wife part. Never claimed at any time to be a trad wife. It's actually a funny bit. She signed it. Cheers, Lily. Act three, mom thinks he doth protest too much. So now a story where lots of people are running towards peril. Reporter Kamu Ololia grew up going to Kenya every year for a month or so. And so this June, he went back, like usual,

So I go into a store and do what I always do. I go to buy a SIM card. And as I'm checking out, I start hearing all these noises coming from the street. And so I step out and it's hundreds of protesters that are sprinting towards me. And they're all being chased by the police. And I realize I'm directly in the front lines of a protest. And so I have my recorder on me. And so I turned it on.

I'm seeing police on horseback chasing protesters, going around with like wooden sticks and just beating people as they rode through. And then protesters retaliating and running back and chasing the police. And then they kind of like regain their ground. So the line is like moving forward and backward. It's going back and forth. And police are shooting tear gas canisters. One of them hits a guy in the leg and he picks it up and

Drop kicks it like a soccer ball back towards the police. And these protests began a couple months ago over a proposed tax hike, right? Yeah, there were these really punitive tax hikes impacting a lot of Kenyan everyday items like cooking oil, flour, tampons, even diapers. And this is the sort of thing like the government needed the money because there's IMF loans and stuff to pay off. Yeah, it was supposed to be the solution to pay back the IMF. But then it became something more.

more than that. Yeah, it became like this huge movement where people, especially young people, were just rejecting just the status quo of the way the Kenyan government's been operating. Politicians flaunting their Rolex watches, their Bentleys. This is on social media. On social media. Yeah. While they're being asked to pay for way more for these regular everyday items. And young people make up 75% of the population is under 35. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah, and the median age in the country is around 20 years old. And this young generation, they're crossing tribal lines. In the past, tribes, they typically act like de facto political parties. And so one tribe will gain control of the country, and another tribe will be protesting. Oh, so now people from different tribes are protesting together in this way that's new. Yeah.

Yeah, these young people are united and they really just see themselves as Kenyans. So I know that you got interested in the frontline protesters who go to the part of the land which is the most dangerous. And you started talking to one of them and his mom. Who is he? So he goes by Espina. Espina is 27. He's a law student. My sister introduced me to him and she was telling me about this guy who, he's in Kibera, which is a neighborhood in Nairobi. It's one of the largest slums in all of Africa.

You really can't go anywhere in the neighborhood without seeing the places he's touched and the projects he's done. And in these protests, he's going to the front lines where most of the violence and arrests are happening. Yeah, and because it's so dangerous, before he goes out each time, he says a prayer to himself. So God, as I'm leaving this place, protect me, guide me, and be with me. Bless our country, be with my family. Bless my mother. I know she's praying with me. Amen. He's saying at the end there, bless my mother. What does his mom think of this, the fact that he goes to the front lines?

His mom does not approve. She does not want him going at all. And you put together this story about what this has done to the relationship and how they're managing with each other. Let's hear that now. In your story, the name that she asked us to call her is Anna. In the beginning, when he started going to the protests, Espina dealt with his mom by lying to her. He'd come back home from the front lines, shower the tear gas off, and drop by her house, pretending he'd been having a normal day. But he wasn't so good at keeping it a secret.

Like one day at a protest, a TV crew put a mic in front of him and started interviewing him. Anna found out. My friend called me and told me that they have seen Ospina on TV. So I was calling Ospina. I was just at the middle of finishing my interview. Then the phone was ringing. Then I just see, ah, it's mom. This woman is going to make it difficult for me.

And I was like, where are you? And he was just not telling me. Then I was like, you were on TV for the protest. And he just kept laughing. My mom is funny when she's angry. She just starts yelling. I'm like, I'm just home. Then she's like, you're lying. I've seen you on TV. Then I'm like, are you sure? Which station did you see me? I'm just home.

Then she's like, I need you to come back right now. He was laughing, telling his friends, like, oh, my mom is, like, panicked. Espina and Anna have always been close. They talk all the time and tease each other. He lives a 10-minute walk away. Sometimes he'll bring his friends to the food stand she runs. It's called Mama Chapati. She's there all day in a blue or white dress.

Espina looks just like her. And over the years, he's done other stuff she didn't approve of at first and later came around to, like soccer or football, whatever you want to call it. He was keen on football. He used to play a lot. And I didn't see any value in playing football. In fact, it was such a nuisance because he'd come back home so dirty.

Then when Espina was 14, Ana and her husband couldn't afford to send him to school for a year. Ana says he took it well. She said he understood and was very grown up about it. And then he took on odd jobs and played a lot of soccer. And she saw how happy it made him. He played so well that two soccer scouts got him a scholarship that put him back in the classroom. Ana was grateful. She grew up in a village and only got through the fifth grade and wanted more for her kids. A similar thing happened when Espina decided to clean up their neighborhood.

Kibera at the time had no roads, no streetlights, no trash collection. At first, when he told Annie he was going to pick up the trash himself, she thought he was joking. But within a few years, he was coordinating trash pickups for hundreds of houses. And she came around. Espina has so many projects going in Kibera these days. Organizing events and mentorship for kids, a greenhouse that grows and sells food, a water sanitation program.

Lots of neighbors are pinning their hopes on him. A lot of parents support him because he's helping their kids. What I try to tell him, and he never listens, and I never get across to him, is how important he is to me. He's very, very important to me. And he has...

Such a wonderful dream for our future, for the future of Kenya. So he told me about these dreams. He gave me these hopes. Up until now, Ana's liked Espina's optimism. She liked the way he's pushed her. But she's lived through years of de facto one-party rule, seen protests get ruthlessly put down and activists get killed.

And this time around, she doesn't understand where Spina's coming from. Most of the time he listens, but recently he's just been deciding that I'm just someone who's afraid all the time and I'm speaking out of fear, so he doesn't listen. Why do you feel like he thinks you're just speaking out of fear?

Yeah, I think it's just an assumption because I'm a woman and I'm a mother and men just assume that we are always talking from fear. Do you think that in this case, it is out of fear? Yes, he's right. Yeah, he's right. It's fear. Yeah.

For the first few weeks of the protests, Ana and Espina went back and forth. Her telling him not to go, him lying to her, until things reached a boiling point on June 25th. Members of parliament have today passed the controversial finance bill with key amendments. The bill will now be forwarded to President William Ruto for a send. Instead of killing the tax hikes like the protesters demanded, Kenya's parliament just made a few changes and pushed the bill through.

And in response, Espina and thousands of other protesters rushed to Parliament, stormed the building, and some set part of it on fire on live TV. I remember it felt like the whole country was watching. It got violent.

A young kid from the neighborhood came and he was buying food for me. I was out of breath and he told me, Mom, they killed someone in front of me and I saw his brains and I had to crawl out. And I'm so, so lucky to have made it out. And you could see in his eyes that he has seen things that he shouldn't see, shouldn't have seen. That must have made you really scared.

I was so scared because Ospina had said that they were going to go to parliament. And I tried calling his phone, I tried calling his phone, and his phone, I couldn't reach him. I kept getting this voice message. I was, you know, restless. My stomach hurt. I had no energy.

And I felt like something very bad is about to happen to someone that I depend on. Someone who has my hopes, who's the carrier of my hopes. Over a dozen people were killed. Anna called Espina over and over. Started asking people who passed her chapati stand if they'd seen him. Called his siblings. Called his friends. Prangie'd pick up the phone. Then...

Her daughter told her about something she saw on TV. Lillian, my daughter, came and told me that she'd seen someone who was dressed exactly like Ospina, who had been shot, and who was wearing the exact same shoes that Ospina was wearing. So I was so anxious. I couldn't, I hadn't, like, everything left me, all my life left me. I was so anxious.

because my hopes and dreams and, you know, future lies with those children. So if something happens to them, how can I continue going on? And I kept wondering how my life will be if that's actually my child. Finally, at around 9 p.m., one of Espina's friends called. Espina was okay.

Anna rushed out to meet him, and she found him in the middle of the street. The first thing I told him, like, I thank God that you are still alive. But please don't ever go back to the protest.

And he said, I have to go. And I told him, like, listen to me, I'm your parent. If something happens to you, Kenya is not losing anything. I am the person that's losing. I'm losing you. But he was adamant that he has to go back. He was like...

like high with energy explaining everything that happened with so much gusto and meanwhile I'm shaking and I'm like this child like doesn't know like what he put me through

Yeah, I mean, it just made me feel like she just doesn't understand why I'm doing whatever I'm doing. I mean, my mom is not comfortable with me being an activist because she's like just a relax of a family, you know? So I mean, that is why sometimes we don't get along. And I find it so difficult sometimes to keep on repeating it. Espina felt like, "I'm responsible and I do everything I can to get home safely." He wished his mom could see that. He went back to his place and turned off his phone.

shutting everyone out. Two days later, Espina stopped by Anna's chapati stand with some of his friends and told her they were headed to another demonstration. In front of everyone on the street, including his friends, Anna dropped to her knees. I knew that I had to do something that will make them think what has made mom go down on her knees. Maybe this is something we should rethink. Mm-hmm.

That's such a vulnerable thing to do. Some people would feel humiliated. I didn't care about shame. In fact, people were laughing. Spectators were laughing. Really? Yeah. They were laughing. They were laughing, pointing at me, telling each other, look, Mama Chapati is so afraid his kids are going to go and protest.

What did you see in his face at that moment? So, in his face I saw denial. It's like he did not want to hear me say what I wanted to say. So, yeah. I mean, it was so insane. I just had to leave. Oh, you walked out? Yeah, I just walked out. Why?

I've never seen such thing and from my understanding it's not allowed to be happening. So I was like, this is so weird. So I cannot just stay there because I don't know the best thing to do. Like I can't comfort her. I can't like explain anything, you know. Espina walked away, went to the protests. But that night, the image of his mom kneeling, begging, crying,

It weighed on his mind. That was massive because, I mean, I felt like she'd gone too low. I actually found it so difficult to sleep. I had a lot of anxiety. Then I was like, I need to take some fuel break, reflect, and make a good choice. The next day, Espino went to visit his mom. First of all, I started by apologizing for not listening.

Putting her in that situation and all the emotion to make me feel like I'm listening to her. Did you promise her anything in that moment? Yes. First, I promised just to tell her the truth, that any time I'll be going for the protest, I'll be letting her know. Then any time I felt like it was so dangerous, I will not be going. If it's bad, I'll just be there for a few moments and try to be very responsible. Did she feel like that was good enough for her?

No, not really. Do you know what else does she want to hear? She just wanted to hear, I will not go, I will never go again.

Even though Anna didn't get what she wanted, Espina would continue to go to the protests. She was satisfied. Yeah, so I just, I saw that now he's listening. I was so happy. I had to be happy. Yeah. Did you celebrate? A lot. That night, she cooked a special meal for Espina.

and her entire family. In the weeks after the Parliament protests, the president actually made some pretty big concessions, but not enough for the protesters, who still want him out. They're still on the streets, and it's gotten more intense. Amnesty International says that at least 49 people have been abducted by the government. Protesters have been disappeared, with a couple showing up dead. At first, the government denied any involvement, but now President Ruto is at least talking about possible investigations.

Espina skipped a couple of protests because they seemed too dangerous, like a planned march to the Nairobi airport. But he is having a hard time keeping all of his promises to Anna. So there are times when he disappears for a whole day.

And then when he comes back, I'm like, I know you went to the protest. And sometimes he'll admit and be like, okay, fine, I went, but I wasn't in the front lines. I was like at the very back. Do you believe that he was at the back? I don't believe it at all. Not for a second. How does it make you feel that he lies to you about going to the protest?

I'm so annoyed by that, by the lies. And I'm so afraid for him. You know, he told us that he lies to you because he doesn't want to burden you. How does that make you feel? I just keep wondering why he wants to die so early and he has so much to do. Why? So here they both are.

He's not going to change, and she's not going to feel better about it. So he keeps heading off into danger, and she keeps hoping for the best. And the protests just continue. His story was produced by Emmanuel Jochi, with additional reporting by Henry Larson. Vincho and Chogu translated what Anna was saying. Additional translation by Happiness Balugu.

To hunt down the creature on the spot. It's full of danger whose eyes. Tell the story of the sharp, sharpest procedure. With the 20-bonded sword.

Our program is produced today by Sean Cole. The people of it together today, Sheila Kudvia-Bennett, Michael Kamate, Aviva de Kornfeld, Seth Lynn, Tobin Lowe, Catherine Raimondo, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Shipp, Ike Shrees, Kanda Raja, Christopher Sertala, Matt Tierney, and Diane Wu. Our managing editors, Sara Abdur-Rahman. Our senior editors, David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor, Lisa Manuel-Berry. Special thanks today to Virginia Smith, Elizabeth Kalamari, Beth Mosteller, Sammy Koslow, Nathan Zasler, John Letty, Irangu Houghton, and Amnesty International Kenya.

Ernest Cornell, at the Kenyon Human Rights Coalition, Joshua Chengwani, Thea Amon, and Amanda Sperber.

We're going to have to pin our ears and go after this thing.

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life. So one morning, Amina wakes up, checks the date, and realizes, oh, it is her ex-boyfriend's birthday. And it all just, him rushing back to me,

Oh my God. The letter. He had probably just received it. It's a love letter that you wrote years ago from a past self to her now ex-boyfriend. And she does not remember what is in it. That's next week on the podcast or in your local public radio station.

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