When you're drowning you don't think, I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning and come and rescue me. You just scream.

The line uses the physical extremity of drowning as a metaphor for crisis—emotional, psychological, or existential. In acute distress, people often cannot craft polite, articulate requests for help or present their suffering in a socially “acceptable” way; they react with raw signals (panic, anger, incoherence, withdrawal). The quote pushes back against the expectation that those who need help will ask for it calmly or in the “right” words. Its significance lies in reframing distress as urgent and involuntary, implying that bystanders and loved ones should be attentive to unrefined cries for help rather than waiting for a composed explanation.