I used to have aquaphobia. The idea of being inside any large body of water terrified me. I think it all started from a near-drowning childhood experience I had. I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I was in a pool with my father and brother. I still vividly remember myself sinking in the water and looking at the surface with the sun’s reflection on it and thinking that I was going to die, but then my father or brother snatched me out (I still don’t know to whom I owe my life). I didn’t think much of the incident afterward. It just surprises me how I still have that picture in my head of the water surface and thinking that I was going to die. It took me many years to make a connection between my aquaphobia and that incident. I never thought it traumatized me.
I was terrified of water, but I loved swimming, so much so that I was ready to bottle up my fear to do it. I learned to swim when I was 10. I was at a friend’s house, where they had a pool, and I was swimming in the sun shelf with younger kids. All those my age already knew how to swim and were swimming in the deeper side. The mother of one of my friends told me that I’m too old to swim in the sun shelf, so she decided to teach me how to swim. The whole time I was following her instructions, I was too afraid to let go of the pool coping. She told me that I can’t swim with one hand and that I need to let go of it, so I did. After a while, she pointed out something I hadn’t realized: I made it to the deep water on my own! I couldn’t believe I did it! My friends were delighted with my accomplishment because then I could join them on pool floats and we can have water battles. I haven’t realized floats would be a leap for me until I jumped into one and fell in the water. I was terrified and reached out for my friend to pull me out, but she was too busy laughing at me. I was ready to cry, so she helped me out. I never touched multi-person floats again until many years later.
The next time I went to a pool was exactly a decade later. My friend’s mother taught me how to swim, but she didn’t teach me how to overcome my aquaphobia. So even though I knew how to swim, I was too scared to try and kept wearing my swim ring and holding onto the coping the whole time. It wasn’t until 6 years later that I overcame my aquaphobia, thanks to my friend. She asked me to float in the water, to just let myself go. It just took that for me to realize that I’m not going to drown and that water isn’t as evil as I thought. Once I realized that and swam all over the pool with no swim ring, I almost happy cried. I couldn’t believe I overcame my aquaphobia!
My only problem right now is jumping into the pool. I’ve never been that scared to do something in my life. It literally took me over 10 minutes to do it. Every time I thought I mustered enough courage and ran to jump, I’d stop just as I reached the edge of the pool. It’s too frightening for me! I realized I’m not afraid of drowning when it comes to that, because all my friends would be waiting for me in the water to help me out once I jumped. I’m actually afraid of the impact: the water piercing my nose and ears. I think I won’t be that scared if I was geared up for the impact.
I also used to have telephone phobia. Answering the phone terrified me. I would never pick up if it’s an unknown number. And I would be very awkward while speaking on it, because I’d be nervous I would say the wrong thing or not know how to respond and just mumble something (now I’m worried about giving the wrong response because I can’t hear what the other person is saying).
I don’t remember how it exactly started. I probably answered incorrectly once and said something really embarrassing that I was forever afraid of repeating it. I remember, though, that I didn’t have it before college. I was so normal, I would call back after a missed call!
I couldn’t tell anyone that I was afraid and I’m not sure if they noticed. I myself wasn’t sure why I was afraid, until I looked it up and it turned out to be a thing. Even if I did tell people, I don’t think they would’ve understood. “Telephone phobia? What? Why would you be afraid to speak on the phone?” And then I got older and needed to use the phone more often. Eventually, I realized that there is a pattern to it. Once I learned how to respond to different questions and expressions, it got easier, and I became less afraid.
I also learned how the conversation will go, so I would either practice beforehand or just call and hope for the best.
However (and there’s always a “however”), I’m still afraid of talking to members of my extended family, because I don’t know how the conversation will go, and that makes me very uncomfortable. It’s very difficult for me to hold conversations with people I’m not close with or I don’t know much about, and this would be on the phone, when I’m already nervous and awkward. I don’t want to sound like a kid who only answers questions and doesn’t ask any of her own.
So I can’t say I totally overcame this fear. It’s still there, but it’s not as bad as it used to be.
I also had taste phobia. This was pretty bad. I would never eat anything new. So I never went to restaurants because why would I pay for food I might not like? It wasn’t until my friend forced me, basically, to go to a restaurant that I actually started eating out. It was the same friend who helped me overcome my aquaphobia and a huge part of my OCD. Yeah, I’m forever grateful to her.
She invited me to go to a Chinese restaurant, but I was like, “Are you kidding me? I would never eat Chinese food!” (Now it’s my favorite cuisine) I’m not sure why my idea of Chinese food had to do with frogs. For me, Chinese food was frogs. So I thought, “What’s my friend thinking?” Yeah, I had a lot to learn. I agreed to go eventually, and I loved it! It was like a new door has opened for me. And ever since then I didn’t mind trying food from all over the world, unless it didn’t look appealing. For example, I wouldn’t eat squid or octopus. I even became braver than most people when it comes to trying new restaurants.
But I would be terrified if I had to eat homemade food made by someone I know is a bad cook, because when it comes to food, I really can’t pretend I like it. My face would immediately betray me.
P.S. To give you an idea of how afraid I was, I used “terrified” four times in the post.
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