Fear of (Deep) Water - Need Your Comments

[laminar]

Hi Everybody,

I need your help. I am writing a book that aims to help people overcome their fear of water or deep water and I need some input and interviews with anyone who fits the following categories:

1. You are comfortable in the water/underwater. Yet you can remember a time when you were not and can describe in great detail what changed for you.

2. You consider yourself part fish(!) and are extremely comfortable in any one or all of the following: surf, deep scuba, open water swimming, deep recreational or competitive freediving. How do you view fear in your activity? Are there things that are beyond your considerable comfort zone?

3. You may be a confident swimmer, but still have fear or anxiety about being in deep water/open water/ or water over your head. What thoughts, feelings, and ideas are contributing to that unease? How do you feel in a pool, lake, river, sea, or ocean?

4. You or someone you know overcame a fear of the water on their own or with the help of someone else. What made the difference?

Obviously, it would be great to have a discussion here, but I am also looking to interview those of you with have interesting things to say that can help other people see their own relationships to water in a new light. I believe that thread content is copyrighted, so I don't think I can use anything posted for my book. I will ideally like to conduct the interview over the phone, skype, or in the worst case scenario, by email. If you are in Vancouver, BC, I'd be happy to meet you.

Please send me a Private Email if you can help!

Many thanks,

Peter Scott
Vancouver, BC

 

[cdavis]

PM incoming

Connor

 

[Gahiel]

I was afraid of the deep water once. It was because of an unfortunate incedent that happended to me when I was quite young. I was "free diving" if that's what you could call it in about 8' of water in Nicolet bay right off of a state park. While swimming near the bottom of the bay I sway right over about 1-2' away from a huge sturgon!!:t Well I was pretty small at that age and when that thing spooked and took off it scared the crap out of me because it was about 2x my size. While I know that sturgon do not and cannot harm us aqatic apes but I suddenly had a fear of deep water. However that all changed when I finally confronted my fear and decided to go and swim anyway. I tried to relax and feel the warmth of the water surrounding me in my wetsuit. It was a September afternoon and the water was really clear. I swam all day, seeing alot of fish (carp in fact) and I came to tearms with it. Now for me I love watching underwater wildlife and as you probably guessed my fav fresh water fish is the Carprofl . Now I just love being in and around the water. Gliding through tall kelp and trying to blow bubble rings. When I finally confronted my fear I came to terms with it and now I could care less. The water is like my second home, and I coudn't feel better when im diving. idk I think that alot of people are afraid becasue they are jumping into an alien world. they don't know what fish look like, how they act and they don't know what is going to "come a get them" from the deep. I think that they sould learn a little and jump in with some friendly carp and have a good ol swim. Sorry about the long post:t but I hope I answered at least a few of your questions.

 

[naiad]

3. You may be a confident swimmer, but still have fear or anxiety about being in deep water/open water/ or water over your head. What thoughts, feelings, and ideas are contributing to that unease? How do you feel in a pool, lake, river, sea, or ocean?

Sounds like me. My main fear is that I get tired very easily, so I don't want to be stranded with nothing to hold onto. I can only manage short bursts of activity, and then I have to rest. In the pool it is not too bad, but I will only do static and dynamic near the side of the pool. I am not too sure about open water diving, I would only do it if there is a rope.

Now for me I love watching underwater wildlife and as you probably guessed my fav fresh water fish is the Carp.

Mine too. The closest I have got is putting my face in a carp tank.

Lucia

 

[kevin sheets]

Hello,
I am somewhere between a three and a one. I was in the Navy for eight years and while on ship, took up scuba diving as a hobby and later freediving / spearfishing. In fact when I got out of the Navy in 1986, I was a semi-commercial diver working in the harbor for the season in Newport RI.
Ironically, I failed a swim test for a flight crew position when I first enlisted. I was 18, scrawny, out of shape, and didn't know a damn thing about swimming except freestyle. I couldn't keep my breathing under control long either on the water or under.
What changed all that was I started hanging out with weight lifters and I became a gymn rat. I met a few guys that hand tried out for SEALs and I was interested in that. So I trained, and trained , and trained, every time the ship was in port, I was at the gymn or in the pool. As I got stronger and bigger, I became more confident and relaxed in the water as well. Scuba became a new passion, and especially catching lobsters. I did a lot of night diving ( sometimes alone) and really enjoyed the water. In the pool on base I would swim not stop 2000 yards with four different styles of stroke. I was seriously considering the SEAL tryouts, but I never did. Today, that is one of my serious regrets.
Now at 47 soon 48 years old, my training is limited by physical obstacles: I have lost a disk in my back, had at least 7 hernias (just repaired the left side for the 4th time) and I am in the process of recovering from a surgery to fix a deviated septum.
The message here is never stop the training and stay in shape. You won't be relaxed in the water if you don't have confidence in your physical ability. As you get more fit, you get more confident.
I am really looking forward to this next season, I will be able to breathe better, and I have a new gun to try out. Also, I use a kayak with a dive float,,,,,,it adds to your confidence if you are worried about getting tired or cramps.
I hope this helps.

 

[unirdna]

Ohhh... "deep" water means water over your head. Nope, I don't fear that, but holy geez does blue water creep me out. No bottom, no sides, no reference point...[shiver]...it makes my head spin.

Interview Connor for sure! Any book about fear could use a few "woooeee"'s, yeeeha"'s, and "oh-man"'s.

 

[samdive]

I don't fear deep water below me at all... but I do fear deep water above me. I have recurring nightmares about the height of the water column above me when I freedive and face the demons every time I compete or push myself further.

Personally I blame Howard Jones. The first time I went to the SETT tank, he made me sit on the ground outside at the bottom and look up at the height of a 30m water column..... it stuck in my brain

but probably not book material as I have never really got over it. I just face and and get on with it when I dive. Most of the time it works, sometimes I get panicky and try to use my NLP techniques to send the panic away....

S

 

[laminar]

Naiad - PM coming your way.

Connor- PM reply. Thanks!

Kevin- Thanks for your post. I agree that feeling physically confident in the water by virtue of your own physical prowess helps a great deal. However, I have seen muscle bound men flail in the water both in the pool and in the water - especially since water is a medium for efficiency, not brute force. Was getting fit and powerful in the gym the catalyst for becoming a better swimmer? How did you learn to swim in all 4 strokes?

Unirdna - Lots of people talk about bottomless blue water as being almost boggling to the mind. Why do you think that is? What's the deeper reason? (ha! no pun intended)

Sam- Your story reminds me of Worlds in Ibiza. It was the first time I had been diving in such clear water. I was mesmerized by the blue shafts of light going down so deep. I made a practice dive to 48m and at the bottom had the idea that I could probably see the surface, even that deep. So I looked and it was pretty bizarre. In Vancouver, I feel that I dive in a cocoon of good visibility that is separate from the surface. It's comforting. In blue water, so much easier to feel exposed. Out of sight, out of mind.

What about learning how to swim, surf or be underwater for the first time? What really helped you relax and feel safe to try new things?

Pete

 

[XyseR]

deep water. what is deep? water that is deeper then 20 feet or deeper then your hight? personally, i think i'm somewhat scared of deep-ish water, since i've never been below 20 ft. i'm scared since i know i can't just push my feet on the bottem of the floor and jump out of the water. i know i most likely will have enough air to go down pretty deep, but i just haven't came to that road in my life yet. imO: deep water is very very pretty and exiting, but i might mess around and forget i'm underwater rofl .

hope this helps!

 

[trux]

I think I am the same case as Unirdna. I have no problems as far as I can see or sense the bottom, but the feeling of great depth under the feet makes me feel strange. There may be two reasons - first you do not see what is coming to you; sudden attack of a depth monster may be somehow inherited from childhood when we feared monsters under our beds. Second reason - it is vertigo. I suffer from vertigo and feel like sucked by the depth and just about jumping, when in heights. I do not have the feeling in water as long as I can see the bottom, or know what depth is there (i.e. I have no problems with night dives), but great depth still brings some kind of fear. It is not too bad, I can control it relatively easily, but it is there.

I never tried real blue water freediving, so cannot really refer to it, but often I swim far from the shore (1km or sometimes more) and dive there. However, at these remote dives, there is always little bit of irrational fear that suddenly an abyss will emerge behind the next sand dune or rock, and will suck me in.

Another reason may be the diving in my young years - I've been often diving in the Black Sea and was looking for some deeper spots than the maximal ~15m that I could usually find. Once I swam about 2km from the shore and dove there - at about 20m I crossed the thermocline and besides the temperature shock, there was suddenly absolutely no light (in that very moment I finally understood why it is called the Black Sea - before it I always considered it pretty blue). Additionally I plunged in some mud at the bottom. The sudden darkness, cold and the mud rather freaked me out, so diving in unknown deep places with limited visibility can bring back the feeling.

 

[shoutatthesky]

Up until a couple of years ago I was freaked out about going into the ocean and did all my diving in fresh water. It may sound a bit corny but two events happened close together that radically changed my view of the ocean. First I saw the film The Big Blue and found out about Jaques Mayol and his philosophy, and then I happened to go fishing out on an island I had been fishing at many times before, except this time I took a relative of a friend with me who wanted me to bring along my mask so he could find some abalone. The day we went was calm and the water clear. Our fishing spot was a rocky point that dropped straight down about 5-6 metres and it was so clear you could see the fish swimming around. My companion got in first and had a look around. When he was finished he encouraged me to go in. I reluctantly agreed. When I got in I entered another world. I saw this place that I had been fishing at for years in a completely new way. I saw all the life - the fish, the seaweed, the clarity. Most of all I found I was not as scared as I had been expecting. A little scared and cold with no wetsuit but a changed person. From that day I stopped fishing and embraced the ocean in a new way. It was no longer the domain of darkness and fierce man eating creatures but a soup of life and a place of wonder and comfort.
I think my attitude before this time was influenced by a time when I was about 8 when I went on a day trip to the great barrier reef in Australia where I was living at the time. We went a couple of hours out from the mainland on large catamaran and went snorkeling the guide told us that the sea cucumbers shot out there inside at you and something about that freaked me out so when I got in the water I was hyperventilating through my snorkel and just basically had a really unpleasant time.
I am a bit weary of something creeping up on me from behind or below and keep looking around me whilst in deep water but when I am down deep and look up to the surface or look around me at the vastness of the ocean - nothing makes me feel so at peace.

 

[Adrian]

I used to be quite uncomfortable - or wary whenever in blue water for many years. I guess it's the feeling of not knowing what's in the water with you. If I have a mask on where I can see, it's a lot better, I feel safer. I spent several years in the Carribean and was always alert for any visiting sharks, and that feeling transferred to the Mediterranean until I became much more comfortable with my freediving skills. Now looking into those deep blue shafts is a thrill and enjoyable. Perhaps because of time spent in the water I know that there is a very slight chance of being visited by (now desired) sharks here and that may be part of the answer. However, if I would be in the Caribeean in blue water, I would also enjoy it and I think that part of the equation is that from being in the water so much these past few years I have become very confident and comfortable and these primary and irrational fears have dissolved into the beauty of the blue.

An anecdote: Sometimes the fears we have can atually be intuitions or subtle perceptions of actual and very real dangers. So if sometimes we have a "strange" feeling, don't be too quick to dismiss it as "irrational" and therefore ignorable. Carl Jung once had a patient who had a terrible fear of going to Paris. After some time he manages to "cure" or allay her fear enough for her to decide to go and visit the capital. Upon arriving she was promptly run over by a tram and died.

I'm sure many of us have had several intuitive experiences that resulted in avoiding unpleasant or potentially dangerous situations when acted upon, and conversly, when ignored resulted in situations we certainly did not want to find ourselves in.

A little fear can sometimes go a long way to saving our lives, the trick is to learn how to differentiate between intuitive feelings and plain old ingrained reactive fears.

 

[OceanMan]

As a teen, I used to be affraid of open water. Depth was not a problem. But if I could see nothing but blue open space all around me, I would get scared of being attacked by some kind of shark or monster in my back.
I remember swimming once somewhere with an underwater cliff going to about 20m depth and then open to the open sea. I had to swim very close to the cliff so that I could see the open sea, knowing that nothing would attack me from the cliff.
That stupid fear disappeared when I grew older.

 

[laminar]

What about learning how to swim, surf or be underwater for the first time? What really helped you relax and feel safe to try new things?

 

[hunlee]

hi there!
pm coming your way...
hanli