Dry Suit question
Hello! I went for a dry suit introduction session recently at my local dive centre, and I had an unpleasant experience with the suit. I had my confined water dives for open water signed off recently, and I'm due to do my open water dives soon (the idea was to do some in the dry suit to kill two birds). I'm relatively new to diving, so I wanted to ask those who know more!
For context, I'm very petite, so I had the smallest suit available. The size of the suit itself felt fine, but the neck seal caused me issues immediately. After I put it around my neck, I felt faint and spaced out. I felt like I had to actively concentrate to keep my headspace normal. I ensured the latex was flat, as I know creases cause problems, and this didn't help.
My instructor said I went very red, and a bit purple, and he instructed me to speak to the main guy to check. I took it off before speaking to him, as I was having issues, and my neck was incredibly red from 20 seconds of wear.
I went to speak to the main guy, he asked me to put it on again. I put it back on and stood there, he said I was going red, and I told him I felt faint, and he said "well it has been about 45 seconds and you've not fainted, so you should be fine, it is your size suit".
I understand that the seal is supposed to be tight, otherwise it's not going to be dry. But it just didn't feel right, and I was very uncertain about it. I said this to them, and they offered me a 1 on 1 session in the water, as I was "panicked" (I wouldn't have said panicked, I just don't like the feeling of being choked).
We went to the pool, and I was told to put my suit on at the very last minute (others put theirs on earlier and walked in their suits to the pool). I put it on right by the pool, felt the same feeling again, and I entered the water. I felt relief on my neck while floating, and I managed to do a dive with the suit, thankfully, with no lightheadedness issues.
When I got out of the pool however, the feeling came back, and I had to pry my neck seal open while walking back to my stuff. I also had to have 2 men help me get the neck seal over my head as it wouldn't fit past my head with just my hands.
When I looked in the mirror later, I had a "bruise" and my face had a load of red marks (I have attached pictures for reference - terribly edited for annonymity, but hopefully you can see).
Is this normal? Most things I've read say no, and the others I went diving with did not have this issue.
I just want to check I'm not overreacting, because it has made me a bit concerned for my open water dives, and I'm considering just doing them in a normal wetsuit.