Deep water fear - kinda ruling and ruining life

iguana2005

Hello!
Wondering if anyone has undergone hypnotherapy for a deep seated phobia?
Ya see - I work at sea - on the ocean - for many years - and I love it. I love being at sea, the people, the environment etc...
I have an irrational fear of deep water. Let me explain....
I will swim happily in a shallow pool for many hours - 25m laps(depending on fitness of course) - but I have good technique etc..Use pull buoys for fitness etc....However this is only a new skill in the last 10 years. I learnt to swim as an adult.
The minute deep water is introduced I panic - real panic. I know each pool in the area and its depths. I have tried to relax doing laps in a 'real' pool but really no luck. I just panic as I leave the shallows and struggle to even finish the length - instead hanging on for dear life at the side LOL......
I have snorkelled and loved it(with someone holding my hand but loved being in 2/3M water and looking at the fishies).
I stand up paddle board regularly as well as kayak. 
However each time I go out I am anxiety riddled - even so much as the night or week before. Which is stupid as once I'm out and about i'm fine! However it does slow me down and I would like to venture further but my anxiety not skill that holds me back. It is SO FRUSTRATING. 
I don't mind being underwater - at the pool I intentionally head to the deep end to bob up an down holding onto the ladder. I do notice my buoyancy - my head is sort of underwater when i'm relaxed - i'm not as buoyant as most - i'm pretty skinny and have an athletic build. 
I'm now thinking of hypnotherapy as the fear and panic are starting to creep into my every day life. For instance I could be on deck and my brain starts to panic and thinking the worst - what happens if a wave throws me overboard, what happens if I slip overboard etc...
I am very safety conscious, wear lifejackets when I do go out on water. 

Thoughts?? Keep at it - will I ever be a water baby??

Mockba

I have had a couple of panic attacks in open water depite having competed in Triathalons for a few years.
What helped me to get over it was to get my head and breathing right by singing a song when I was in the water.
If you keep to the rhythm of the song going in your head you will be relaxed.
When you stop breathing or hold your breath you panic so the idea is to keep breathing. Singing or saying a poem will help you concentrate on your breathing.
100 Green Bottles was my Song ............
Hope this helps...

Neyite

I was the same some years ago - fine in the shallows but would panic in deeper water. What seemed to cure me was doing the Open Water dive course and doing a bit of snorkelling in between dives, pretty much solid for a week on holidays in the Mediterranean.

I'd still be apprehensive in a pool as I'm not as buoyant as I'd be in the sea and I'm aware of that but in the sea I'm fine now.

Speedwell

I'm an American who has been through (successfully through) a course of therapy for anxiety. I still have anxiety, but it is appropriate and I have tools for dealing with it properly that I did not have before therapy. That's what therapy is for; I am not necessarily suggesting you do what I did.

I did want to put to you that it is your body that is panicking (=having biological reactions suitable to dealing with an immediate physical danger), and your brain that is attempting to be a team player by making up reasons why you feel so anxious. One good workaround my therapist taught me is to imagine that the anxiety is being verbalised by an alarmed and chattering little monkey on my shoulder (a manifestation of the biological, primitive "monkey mind"). You, the functioning and thinking adult human who has better information, can tell the chattering monkey, "Thank you for alerting me to this apparent danger. I get the message. You can stand down now; I understand the situation and I am dealing with it in the best way". Or words to that effect.

A more permanent and useful tactic, that I have used myself to calm frightened people in airports, is EFT tapping. I don't believe all the woo-woo about chakras and pressure points and energies; I suspect that it works to calm down the panicky body so the mind can process the situation rationally. Whatever. It does work, and it works fast. There are plenty of free resources online if you want to explore it on your own, enough so that you don't need to buy anyone's book or seminar.

Edit: I asked around and apparently this sort of thing is more common than I expected among people who work and do sport in and on the water. (I know a lot of offshore oil rig workers, US Marines, and such.) A friend who is a decorated Marine officer said he believes it is due to the physiological effects of being in the water, and his solution was to put himself in dangerous situations in a controlled way until they no longer triggered him. But of course it was; he's a Marine.

SummerHaze

once i almost drowned, now i have a fear of deep water

iguana2005

Mockba wrote: »

I have had a couple of panic attacks in open water depite having competed in Triathalons for a few years.
What helped me to get over it was to get my head and breathing right by singing a song when I was in the water.
If you keep to the rhythm of the song going in your head you will be relaxed.
When you stop breathing or hold your breath you panic so the idea is to keep breathing. Singing or saying a poem will help you concentrate on your breathing.
100 Green Bottles was my Song ............
Hope this helps...

THis was great! I've recently started SUP-ing and in the initial minutes of finding my feet i'm singing songs..