Open Water
You know, reading yesterdays post I’m beginning to question the wisdom of my little joke “It involves a guy in my bed”. I’m not sure the punch line was clear enough for my liking. The “guy” is me. Get it?
Recently I’ve decided upon a way to describe my water phobia, which is always tough to explain to anyone who doesn’t have it. My phobia is that I can’t get into a large body of water unless someone else in the water too. It doesn’t matter who it is, so long as they are in the water. This means I cannot get into a swimming pool, lake, ocean, river, or canal by myself. Even being alone in a Jacuzzi would make me nervous, although I can tough that one out with relative ease. But when I try to tell people about this phobia, they automatically assume that I’m afraid of drowning. I had one friend in particular (I won’t mention his name, but it rhymes with Dark Kelvin) who suggested I go for a swim overboard his boat and when I told him I couldn’t do it unless he got in the water, kept insisting that he’d be right there if anything went wrong, and despite my efforts to explain to him that I wasn’t afraid of drowning, kept insisting that he would “be right there”.
But he’s not the only one, and for a long time I haven’t been able to describe to anyone what exactly the phobia feels like when I experience it. Until now! It occurred to me that there was one other time I’ve experienced that feeling, and it’s one that lots of people can relate to. Not everyone, but most. Here goes…
Have you ever been in bed at night and straightened your legs out to where they dangle off the end of the bed, and gotten that creepy feeling like something could grab your feet? Then you put the covers over them, but that isn’t good enough? So you have to bend your knees or adjust so that your feet are not just on the bed but covered as well? You know that *feeling*? It’s totally irrational. After all, you know that nothing is in the room. If you really believed something was in there, you wouldn’t suddenly feel secure just because your feet were covered. But having your feet covered *somehow* gives you a feeling of security?
Well, that creepy feeling is exactly what I feel when I’m in water by myself, except magnified times about 20. And it goes away when there’s someone else in there with me just like covering your feet with the blanket helps you feel secure in bed. I can’t explain why, but it just works. And it has nothing to do with drowning.
Ah, I’m glad I got that off my chest. That’s been puzzling me for a long time.
I so can’t wait until I’m done putting my place together. Unfortunately, my dining room table is too big for the place, so after I find some now O-rings for it (the original ones seem to have disappeared) I’m going to sell that sucker and get a smaller one. But everything else is cool. My patio bar was destroyed by the movers, but I’m not too worried about it. It was too big for the balcony anyway. When I’m done putting the place together, I’m going to light the fireplace, dim the lights, and play a happy tune on the guitar. I’ll sing to Desi; she loves just sitting next to me while I play. I’ve decided that I’ll marry the first woman who is as excited to see me when I come home every day as Desi is. Of course, I would just hope the woman doesn’t also claw the front door whenever I leave the house.
Recently I’ve decided upon a way to describe my water phobia, which is always tough to explain to anyone who doesn’t have it. My phobia is that I can’t get into a large body of water unless someone else in the water too. It doesn’t matter who it is, so long as they are in the water. This means I cannot get into a swimming pool, lake, ocean, river, or canal by myself. Even being alone in a Jacuzzi would make me nervous, although I can tough that one out with relative ease. But when I try to tell people about this phobia, they automatically assume that I’m afraid of drowning. I had one friend in particular (I won’t mention his name, but it rhymes with Dark Kelvin) who suggested I go for a swim overboard his boat and when I told him I couldn’t do it unless he got in the water, kept insisting that he’d be right there if anything went wrong, and despite my efforts to explain to him that I wasn’t afraid of drowning, kept insisting that he would “be right there”.
But he’s not the only one, and for a long time I haven’t been able to describe to anyone what exactly the phobia feels like when I experience it. Until now! It occurred to me that there was one other time I’ve experienced that feeling, and it’s one that lots of people can relate to. Not everyone, but most. Here goes…
Have you ever been in bed at night and straightened your legs out to where they dangle off the end of the bed, and gotten that creepy feeling like something could grab your feet? Then you put the covers over them, but that isn’t good enough? So you have to bend your knees or adjust so that your feet are not just on the bed but covered as well? You know that *feeling*? It’s totally irrational. After all, you know that nothing is in the room. If you really believed something was in there, you wouldn’t suddenly feel secure just because your feet were covered. But having your feet covered *somehow* gives you a feeling of security?
Well, that creepy feeling is exactly what I feel when I’m in water by myself, except magnified times about 20. And it goes away when there’s someone else in there with me just like covering your feet with the blanket helps you feel secure in bed. I can’t explain why, but it just works. And it has nothing to do with drowning.
Ah, I’m glad I got that off my chest. That’s been puzzling me for a long time.
I so can’t wait until I’m done putting my place together. Unfortunately, my dining room table is too big for the place, so after I find some now O-rings for it (the original ones seem to have disappeared) I’m going to sell that sucker and get a smaller one. But everything else is cool. My patio bar was destroyed by the movers, but I’m not too worried about it. It was too big for the balcony anyway. When I’m done putting the place together, I’m going to light the fireplace, dim the lights, and play a happy tune on the guitar. I’ll sing to Desi; she loves just sitting next to me while I play. I’ve decided that I’ll marry the first woman who is as excited to see me when I come home every day as Desi is. Of course, I would just hope the woman doesn’t also claw the front door whenever I leave the house.