The big bathtub
Sep. 7th, 2008 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingLast summer, when L & E & I went snorkeling at worn-down-by-tourists Hanauama Bay, I had some claustrophobia and quit after the first few minutes in the water. I hadn't had any problem in the past. I'm not notably claustrophobic, but I have always had a fear of suffocation. Suffocation-in-drowning, especially. Well, I got pushed into a pool before I could swim.
A milder case of the same sort of fear crawled over me in the heavy steam, yesterday when I dunked under the bath water. We have a long enough tub that I can do this now. It's a delight to be able to get shoulders all the way into the hot water and still keep most of the rest of me under, too. It was just fear, not brain-numbing, paralyzing phobia, so I stayed that way for a while and listened to the weirdly hollow sound of my breathing until I got used to it.
And thought about Hawaii, because that still puzzles me. I'm fairly sure that it was the combination of unfamiliar gear (rented) and awareness of how long it had been since I'd been swimming at all, let alone in the ocean. The bay isn't as nice as other places. It wasn't deep enough to straighten up in, and at the same time, the bottom was murky and uneven with coarse reef and rock.
A bath should feel like a haven. It was strange to be mostly submerged, and afraid, but it wasn't strange to be afraid, and making myself understand what I was afraid of. As I said, different from phobia. When I'm somewhere high (like on a ladder or a table) what I experience is a different thing. D & I are both afraid of heights, and not in the same way. I am also afraid of crossing bridges. I'm not afraid of the motion of falling (or impact). It's simply that I freeze up when I'm up high. I have to force myself to move; it's really a struggle sometimes.
As I've grown older, I seem to have gotten more cautious and more afraid. I think of horrible outcomes, almost always. I wonder if this is a natural process, a common one.
A milder case of the same sort of fear crawled over me in the heavy steam, yesterday when I dunked under the bath water. We have a long enough tub that I can do this now. It's a delight to be able to get shoulders all the way into the hot water and still keep most of the rest of me under, too. It was just fear, not brain-numbing, paralyzing phobia, so I stayed that way for a while and listened to the weirdly hollow sound of my breathing until I got used to it.
And thought about Hawaii, because that still puzzles me. I'm fairly sure that it was the combination of unfamiliar gear (rented) and awareness of how long it had been since I'd been swimming at all, let alone in the ocean. The bay isn't as nice as other places. It wasn't deep enough to straighten up in, and at the same time, the bottom was murky and uneven with coarse reef and rock.
A bath should feel like a haven. It was strange to be mostly submerged, and afraid, but it wasn't strange to be afraid, and making myself understand what I was afraid of. As I said, different from phobia. When I'm somewhere high (like on a ladder or a table) what I experience is a different thing. D & I are both afraid of heights, and not in the same way. I am also afraid of crossing bridges. I'm not afraid of the motion of falling (or impact). It's simply that I freeze up when I'm up high. I have to force myself to move; it's really a struggle sometimes.
As I've grown older, I seem to have gotten more cautious and more afraid. I think of horrible outcomes, almost always. I wonder if this is a natural process, a common one.