Virginia Eubanks is an investigative journalist and author of, "Automating Inequality," (see that 2018 talk recorded by Forum Network). Eubanks is also an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She will be at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge for a discussion of her new memoir, "A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love, Care, and Survival," a moving story of her own efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fail us.
One night, Virginia Eubanks received the kind of news we all fear. Her beloved partner had been brutally beaten just steps from their house. In the weeks, then months and years that followed, they faced a cascade of setbacks: police disinterest, suspended health insurance, inadequate medical care, lost income, lost friends, endless paperwork, and a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, a second case. Eubanks had developed what is known as “collateral” PTSD, common among caregivers but rarely discussed.
As a reporter and an activist, Eubanks turned to reliable sources to figure out how to heal: scientists, therapists, trauma theorists, social movements. But it wasn’t until she happened on an old lifesaving manual that she found advice that actually helped. Inspired by its lessons, she took a series of classes: kayak self-rescue, winter survival, map and compass, bushwhacking, first aid, lifeguarding. She drew lessons from these experiences, her research, and interviews with everyone from neuroscientists to forest rangers. The result is a moving, hopeful, darkly funny story of two people caught in their own kind of wilderness, trying not just to survive but to truly care for each other.
