I would like to share my own experience as I can relate with the topic.
When in class four, a young school going me whose milk teeth hadn’t even started falling had an experience which haunted him for the next 2 decades.
Our school organized a trip to a water park & a formal announcement was made in the class. All the students naturally jumped out of excitement.
I had no idea about what a water park is, yet just to follow the crowd I also faked the excitement as to not be indifferent. When I informed about this to my parents, they agreed to it.
And the D-day. Probably the first time I didn’t feel bad about getting up at 6am as I had to reach school in time & the bus was scheduled to leave at 7am sharp. Reaching school in time wasn’t an issue as it was 5 minutes away from my place.(yet I remember often being punished for being late)
All the other students also reached well in time because they were as excited as me. Each one of us took our seats & the bus was ready to leave. We waved hands to our parents who had come to drop us.
After a smooth journey, we finally reached our destination. Now I was well aware of where I am & what kind of activities I will be doing. All the instructions were given by both parents & teachers. Dressed up in the appropriate costume, I followed my bench partner.
It seemed to me like an entrance where the partner dived. So I did the same. What a foolish thing I did!
I didn’t have an iota of idea that the place where I dived in was 6 ft high & the partner knew to swim & I didn’t. For a few seconds I didn’t even hope to reach home alive. Luckily my hands while trying to push & pull water, got onto something made of steel which I used to pull myself out of it.
The suffocation traumatized me like forever. Terrified of the experience, when I starting running back, I was stopped by a classmate & I narrated what happened. He asked me “Who asked you to dive from there? It’s for swimmers.” He told me to go to the shallow area which was for those who can’t swim.
Felt much relieved that my trip wasn’t spoiled to the extent of what I expected. I went again in water at the right place & played with fellow classmates there. Gathering some strength I enjoyed rest of the day & returned home.
This created a fear of water in me for a very long time. Although I went to waterparks twice after that, I always remembered this incident & narrated to my college friends just for laughs even though the fear of drowning was real.
Just like each & every single thing has a life, so does the fear. Till last year I dreaded even the thought of swimming. But then I gave it a thought & decided to learn swimming as it is never too late to learn anything.
Fear which stayed with me for 20 years took just 10 days to go away. I didn’t master swimming but at least the fear of drowning is no more & I can save myself in case of mishap. My experience taught me that the only way to overcome fear is to face it.
