Waterford graduate journeys through life and near death
By Alexandrea Dahlstrom
SNL Staff
She goes by the name “Skinny” – a pint-sized world traveler who loves adventures, simple lifestyle and painting among many other things. She got the unusual nickname at the age of 15 and the moniker stuck with her into her adulthood.
“Skinny” is Krystina Kohler, a Waterford high school graduate who has made a lifestyle out of traveling.
“I’ve always been interested in Asian studies,” Kohler said. “I don’t really know why.”
Kohler joined Amnesty International as a junior in high school and began writing letters for the Freedom Writers program. Her high school offered a Mandarin Chinese class after school via satellite. Many students joined in the beginning Kohler said, but in the end, she was the only student left.
Accidental Japan
Kohler’s first solo journey was to Japan in 2005. She was an international studies major at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, went to support a friend.
“My friend really wanted to study abroad but was nervous to do it alone. I told him I would apply with him. Unfortunately, he was not accepted. The next thing I knew I was on a plane to Japan,” Kohler recalled.
Kohler attended Kamsai Gaidai University in the city of Hirakata, which is a part of Osaka Prefecture. She studied the Japanese language, culture, architecture and art history.
Tragedy strikes
“I never knew I could be so devastated,” Kohler said of her loss.
Her dear friend and karate club partner, Justin McAllister, was killed in a motorcycle crash in November of 2005, shortly after Kohler returned home from Japan.
“Everything I did reminded me of Justin,” said Kohler.
Kohler said she was grief stricken over her loss. Not sure of what to do next, she decided she would look into some volunteering. Her boyfriend, a pre-med student, was about to study abroad to Ecuador.
“I felt I needed to create new memories,” Kohler said.
She would graduate with a 3.5 grade point average and earn her bachelor’s in international studies with a minor in Asian studies.
Death closes in
Though Kohler had finished school she thought this would be a good opportunity to travel while her boyfriend went to school.
Kohler decided to volunteer for the Remar Foundation in Quito, Ecuador. According to Kohler, The Evangelical Christian organization was created to help children that were orphaned, whose parents were incarcerated or who were abused and had amnesty from their parents. Kohler signed on and again found herself in a situation where language would be a barrier.
“I just didn’t know Spanish in a Spanish speaking country,” she said. “But I still wanted to help.”
Kohler was unknowingly hired on as an English teacher. Kohler quickly lost control of the class, as she could not communicate with the children.
“The teacher was gone for maybe two minutes,” Kohler said, “and when she came back all hell had broken loose. Kids were running around screaming, the lights were turned off and I was completely overwhelmed.”
Instead she became the assistant and “gave lots of hugs and played a lot of soccer” she said.
“Those kids gave me so much more than I could ever give them,” she explained. “They accepted me right away and all I could do was hug them. Tell them they were loved – make sure they knew they were amazing.”
It was October of 2006 and Kohler was headed back to her and her boyfriend’s hostel, which was run by a petite woman in her 70s. In the dark of the night, Kohler heard loud footsteps outside her door. Thinking it was just some other young guests she was not alarmed. All of a sudden her bedroom door slammed open and she said she naively still thought someone had the wrong room.
Three men and one young woman entered the room. She quickly noticed that one man had a knife and another had a gun. Frozen in fear she could not react.
“They began yelling at me in Spanish and I did not know what they were telling me,” Kohler said. “My boyfriend was trying to translate but the men did not like this and began to pistol whip him in the head.”
Kohler said she was beyond terrified. The men tied up their wrists and feet and wrapped their heads in blankets. Kohler said she could hear them ransacking her room and could tell by the tone of their voices they were getting increasingly angry.
“My boyfriend said they were mad we didn’t have more valuables. He tried to explain to them that he was a student and I was just volunteering. They didn’t seem to believe us and hit him again,” Kohler said.
The men left the room, leaving the young woman to watch the couple. Kohler’s boyfriend began to explain in Spanish that the woman had to loosen Kohler’s hands. Her hands had turned a deep shade of purple from poor circulation and she recalled the pain being unbearable.
The woman, who seemed uncomfortable throughout the whole ordeal, took pity and loosened both of their restraints. She told them not to tell the men and then quickly left the room.
After what seemed like hours but Kohler said was only about 45 minutes, they were sure the intruders had left. Her boyfriend was able to free himself and then free Kohler. They immediately went to look for the caretaker of the hostel and found the fragile woman tied up with her shirt over her head and bruises all over her ribs and body. They untied the woman and called the police.
“The rest is kind of a blur,” Kohler said. “The next thing I knew there were swarms of people and police, but no one was really doing anything.”
Kohler soon realized that many of the neighbors knew what was going on that night but none of them interfered. One neighbor even drove to her house, saw the strange cars, turned around and didn’t return until the cars where gone.
No one called the police.
PTSD and agoraphobia
After the incident, Kohler felt a change. Once confident and strong, she now felt weak and afraid, she said. She never returned to the orphanage. She never left the hostel.
Kohler stayed in Quito for two more weeks and began to get very ill.
“My body is really reactive to my emotions,” she said.
Kohler and her boyfriend decided it would be best if she returned home early. She just could not stay somewhere she no longer felt safe. Emotional and crying she left Ecuador.
After returning home, Kohler’s anxiety did not fade. She had trouble sleeping and eating, and contemplated smoking sativa weed in an attempt to improve her condition. Later, she was diagnosed with agoraphobia and post-traumatic stress disorder. People would often take some sort of medication to help handle this, from cannabis imbibed through smoking accessories to classic medication options, for such conditions due to their overbearing nature. He could have resorted to a different method of consuming cannabis altogether, like looking for edibles or the best CBD oil available on the internet. But Kohler decided to try other methods of recovery.
Kohler got a job at 9 Lives Boutique in Lake Geneva and met Kate Cole-Buffington and her husband, David Mitchell. They needed a dog sitter (they had four dogs) while they traveled to India where they had a home. Kohler accepted. She was comforted by the fact she had a Rottweiler and pit bull sleeping next to her each night. She’d read some useful tips on how to care for dogs online, particularly at night when they could experience anxiety or separation issues. This in fact helped her as well as she said she finally began to heal.
Pet sitting to Pondicherry
When the couple returned from India Kohler asked them if she could stay in their home in Pondicherry, India. They agreed. Kohler decided to go the trip alone and face her fears.
“I decided I needed to travel and be forced to leave the house,” she said. “I wanted to feel uncomfortable and deal with my anxieties. I knew if I was in India alone, I would have to leave to get food and be forced to talk to people.”
When Kohler arrived in India, the country did not welcome her warmly. Her flights were “messed up” and she found herself in a small airport in India with no transportation, no rupees and no one she knew.
Two men in a rickshaw approached her. They said they could take her to where she needed to go. Kohler, without any other options agreed.
The men brought Kohler to a bus stop on a dark and dusty little road somewhere in India she said. The men told her she could get on a bus here and it would take her to her house, but they needed $20 for the ride. She simply said she did not have that much. She only had about $500 for her entire stay.
Kohler said. “This is exactly what I came to get away from and here I am in the exact same situation moments after I arrived.”
As they argued, to Kohler’s relief, a bus did arrive. She quickly gave the men $10 anyway and hopped on the bus. She arrived at the house and slept for two days.
Unfortunately, Kohler’s plan to “get over her anxieties” was not playing out as she hoped.
“My plan failed. I didn’t leave the house for three days. I lived off of tap water and the granola bars I had in my bag,” Kohler said.
The lady who cleaned the house, Vni, began to worry about Kohler never leaving. Vni told Kohler she would be taking her out. Vni took Kohler to an ashram or a spiritual place in India. Kohler said she spent many days at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram reading spiritual text and meditating. Her confidence grew and she started to venture out.
One night, her neighbor invited her to the ashram for a movie night. The movie would show at dusk and Kohler was late.
“I ran out of the house and through the streets of India. Dust around me and the warm air hitting me and I just kept running.” Kohler said. “I felt I made a break through.”
After spending three weeks in Pondicherry, Kohler traveled to the Sadhana Forest in Auroville, India, where she worked on a reforestation project for two months.
Across the pond
When Kohler returned to Wisconsin in early 2010, she got a job at Broadway Paper and pondered her next move.
“I found myself back into a routine and felt I wasn’t experiencing life. I had reverse culture shock and felt I was missing all the beauty and excitement life had to offer,” Kohler said.
Kohler applied and was accepted to University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies to participate in an intensive one-year Master’s program that focused on the political economy of violence, conflict and development.
Kohler still experienced bouts of anxiety and stress along with occasional panic attacks. “I think that it is a condition that often nudges its way into your life at any time, stressful or not,” she said. “The trick is to let yourself feel the panic to its very limits, repeat a mantra to ground yourself, and then move on with your day.”
The mantra Kohler used all throughout her year in London was an African proverb, “A calm sea does not make a skillful sailor.”
Home again
Kohler returned to Milwaukee in September.
“Right now, I’m thinking of spending a few weeks or months volunteering at a reforestation project in Anse-a-Pitre, Haiti,” she said. “Plans could easily change, though, as I have a tendency to fly by the seat of my pants. Knowing me, it will be something that involves a lot of travel.”
“Life is too precious, and the world too small, to not turn your years into adventures, learning what your character really is when submerged in a new, uncomfortable situation.”
