Does Irrational Panic Fade with Experience?

[Ulfhedinn]

I have always lived by the quote from Mark Twain even to the point of having it on one of my dog-tags I wear around my neck.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear"

--

Since I started diving I have not felt fear but once and that was when I lost site of my wife during a white out in a crevasse. I feared for her well being as I was her dive buddy and was unsure if she would be able to handle the zero vis and high surge conditions. She did fine, was level headed and made her way to a safe place to surface after here 3/5 deco I should have known she would be fine.

The C02 buildup is very very interesting. Great info thanks.

Where am I going with all this... my wife was afraid of sharks and the open ocean. At first she was not up for scuba diving but relented much to my elation. Now she cant get enough. She told me for her its was just learning all she could about sharks (Know your enemy so you are better facing it) and more time in the water (multiple dives).

Fear is natural but like all things through experience and trial it can be controlled.

 

[TSandM]

They're already avid divers and are about to drop 6 grand on more equipment for caves. I'll have lots of experience with open water by the time I'm ready to do that!

Very wise man.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Hi,

. . ..

Did anyone else have these issues when they were starting out? I think I'm going to enjoy diving as long as I can control the irrational anxiety.

All the time & everytime for the past 15 years when I have one of these chronic episodes: Alternobaric vertigo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Difficult to maintain composure when the entire universe is spinning during a gas switch and holding a deco stop --even more treacherous when you're solo.

 

[BrotherBear]

This is pretty common.

On my first SCUBA experience, more years ago than I care to count, I was briefly convinced that I wouldn't be able to do this. As soon as I put my face in the water and started to breathe from the reg I felt a panicked sensation that went all the way to my toes! I popped my face up and told this to the instructor, he just laughed and told me to relax and try again...about half of all his beginners had this reaction and it was just hyperventilation. Like you I tried again and I was fine, and the rest, as they say, is history.
That was by no means my last "panic attack" but it taught me that when it happens I just need to take a beat or two to get hold of myself and work the problem. I expect plenty more opportunities to put this to use in my upcoming TDI Advanced Nitrox/Deco Class.

Hi,

Looking up at 70' I was suddenly overcome by a desire to breathe out of my nose and wanted to rocket to the surface.

This made me chuckle as well...I was on my third or fourth resort dive prior to getting certified when the instructor decided I was the most experienced of the group and he should bring me down first (we were diving from a boat on a descent line). He led me down to the bottom in 20 feet of water, confirmed I was OK, and went back for the remaining couple. While he was gone I looked up the line to watch. When you've never really looked at it before even 20' is a LOT of water between you and the sky...it's about the distance from the ground to the peak of my roof!! Needless to say I had a brief panic attack and thought about swimming up REALLY fast, but I held myself steady and just looked at my hands on the rope. That helped alot. When I found myself thinking 'just don't look up' I suddenly pictured a guy on a ledge with someone telling him 'don't look down!' and started laughing to myself...that broke the panic cycle for me and, again like you, the rest of the dive was wonderful.

So, like everyone else said in various ways, you sound pretty normal to me. Don't stress about stress, distract yourself when you do, move on when you're ready and don't look back.

Happy bubbles!

 

[kimbalabala]

Did anyone else have these issues when they were starting out? I think I'm going to enjoy diving as long as I can control the irrational anxiety.

I'm still in the "noob" category too - but I have to say that there's a difference between irrational anxiety and rational anxiety. I recognize that I'm a much more conservative diver than most, and I like to take things slowly and wait until I'm comfortable with my competence in a specific area before I go to the next step. If I had done what you did - as early as you did it - I would have had moments of what I would consider absolutely "rational" anxiety. I needed to give myself time to begin to believe that I could breathe under water (totally irrational when you think of it - contrary to reality - we're NOT fish). I had to give myself time to become comfortable at 30 feet before I was ok going to 60 feet. If I'd gone 90 feet that early I would have been fighting panic too. Take the time to hone your skills at 30 feet and work your way into deeper depths and overhead environments. We are programmed with some emotions that have benefits - fear and guilt are two! Pay attention to your fear - it may be warning you that you're out of your depth (lacking the knowledge or skills). Ignoring it and calling it "irrational" could result in problems that otherwise could have easily been avoided. (sorry if I am being too preachy)

 

[spectrum]

Diverzach,

You are fine, the idiots taking to to 70 and 90 feet are knuckleheads. With your meager experience your anxiety is entirely justified. Kudos for managing the situation and having an uneventful dive.

Back off on depth and gradually work your way deeper as experience and justified comfort grows.

Pete

 

[DevonDiver]

Yes and No.

No - I believe that stress reaction is ultimately a personal factor, dictated by an individual's psychological make-up.

Yes - I also believe that increased experience in a given situation can reduce the trigger of stress. The 'broadening' of comfort zones, if you like.

Doing more diving, whilst slowly and progressively increasing depth helps prevent the diver exceeding their comfort zone, whilst gradually developing their experience and familiarity with the conditions - thus preventing the onset of stress. However, if that comfort zone is breached, and does stress arise, how the diver deals (or fails to deal) with it will be dictated by the robustness of their psychological thresholds.

Where a diver is significantly stressed, under normal circumstances, on a dive there is obviously very little tolerance remaining should any problems then arise. In that respect, a dangerous and 'hair-trigger' situation exists - in which the presentation of any small problem could be enough to push them beyond their coping point and lead towards an irrational/involuntary panic reaction.

Such a reaction is life-threatening on scuba, the consequences being firmly linked to the depth at which panic arises. In an overhead environment it is potentially a death sentence.

Diving conservatively and well within your comfort zones is popular advice in scuba diving literature and lessons - for good reason. It applies regardless of experience level - everyone has a comfort zone, whether that is 60ft in open water or 600ft into a silty cave. If you push your boundaries of coping with stress, you leave very little tolerance to deal, psychologically or physically, with unforeseen problems that may arise.

Best case scenario diving versus worst case scenario diving.

A prudent diver bases their personal limitations upon the worst case scenario, rather than pushing their limits in the presumption that nothing will go wrong.

 

[MMM]

Hi there. I am fortunate in that I seldom panic...perhaps it is due to years of work that required I not panic or maybe that I'm naturally that way and so was successful in my line of work. Whatever. Quite some years ago I did a dive in an overhead environment that went bad. Others were raced to the hospital after our exit. I had remained calm throughout but came back telling my non-diver husband that I had pretty much faced one of the worst situations I could imagine and I no longer feared death. Probably overly dramatic given my experience level at the time but whatever. It worked. At the same time, while I was certified AOW, I absolutely FEARED night dives. And it sounds like you got a taste of one without any training. It was many years after my AOW cert that I finally voluntarily went night diving. Before doing so, I dived the site several times in daylight and then went out with a dive op I loved, had done hundreds of dives with and trusted implicitly. The point of telling you all this? You
will benefit from experience, practice, and your internal voice telling you when you are ready.

 

[flots am]

I live in the Ocala area and am recently certified as a basic open water diver. My first dives were in a pool and in the Rainbow River and they went fine. My final certification dives were at Troy Springs. Looking up at 70' I was suddenly overcome by a desire to breathe out of my nose and wanted to rocket to the surface. I exhaled deeply and told myself how irrational I was being and it faded. This was on the first dive there. The rest of that dive and the second dive I was fine.

The anxious feeling that "You're going to die" and the urge to bolt to the surface are completely normal, since if something goes wrong and you don't remember and follow your training you could easily die.

This isn't irrational.

The way to eliminate the feeling is by practicing your skills until they're easy, comfortable and trivial to perform on demand at any time, under any circumstances. Once you know that no matter what happens, you can safely get to the surface and stay there, the reasons for your anxiety will vanish along with the anxiety itself.

Note that "dive more" is only part of the answer. You also need to become very comfortable with the various emergency skills and your equipment.

flots.

 

[Bob DBF]

If someone holds his hand over your mouth and nose, that panicky feeling that will overcome you is cause by the CO2 buildup, not the lack of oxygen. CO2 = panic.

If someone holds his hand over my mouth and nose, I'll have that panicky feeling way before my CO2 level even starts to increase.



Bob
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I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.