Fears, Panic, Anxiety... What Does It Do To You?

[rob.mwpropane]

I had an interesting conversation with someone yesterday about fear which I think is a fascinating concept. I figured we could have a discussion about it on here and see where people fall on the scale. For newer divers this might be good to hear that they aren't alone as some of the more experienced divers share. Where they were when they started diving, maybe what they had to work through, and where they are now all these years / dives later. Obviously this means you'll have to put the ego aside, but I'm hoping some will.

I personally fear heights. Even now that I'm writing about this I can feel anxiety creeping in just thinking about being up high, and I don't mean in a tree. I mean I've worked on 15 story buildings and water towers looking over the edge and it's almost debilitating. It's really only something I've picked up on about myself in the last few years, but it's scary for me. I'll walk through it and do what I have to do but the feeling inside is out of this world. I would "think" this is maybe what some people feel underwater, or at least a variation of it maybe getting into the water? My sons have a fear of being under too much water. When they get below say 40' they get a little uneasy and they have to force themselves to not look up. For me it's heights... watching a movie that they're climbing or looking down a cliff? I get a cold sweat and it's completely involuntary. It does not have me wanting to go climb a mountain.. but a part of me enjoys the feeling because it's something different. I don't let my fear of heights stop me, but it is there. I'd say it's a 8/10 if there was such a scale. I'd say 10/10, but I can do heights... I think someone who's really 10/10 might not be able to?

In the last few years driving fast has become a little bit of a fear of mine. Maybe getting older, fear of death? Fear of accidents and tickets? Fear of leaving my kids and wife? So I don't do it anymore.

Water has never been a fear of mine. I have dreams and always have that I can breathe underwater. Jumping into diving and actually being able to do it was right up my alley. Switching regulators and tanks, figuring out minor issues underwater, not once have I ever had the "feeling" that I wanted to bolt back to the surface or had a fear of what we're doing underwater. Lots of excitement, maybe some anxiety doing something new (like black water), but just being in the water calms that feeling down. I plan my dives and I feel good about them, always tweaking stuff, always trying to improve. 100' deep by myself on the back side of a wreck exploring or 65' deep in pitch black water in the Chesapeake Bay and I feel more at peace then in any other place in my life. I think I would live there if I could. Given, I'm still what I would consider a "new" diver just 5 years in, but fear of water just isn't in me. I really hope it never is.

So what's your fear? If you have a fear of water, even just a little, can you correlate the two if you fear something else? What causes you panic about the water? If you have years diving and started with a lot of fear where do you gauge that fear now? Has it gotten better? Was there a point in your diving where you just didn't think you were going to be able to make it and now you're a commercial tech diver who's been to Atlantis? What's been your experience?





Tl;dr - Fear is fascinating to me. It's something that I can walk through, but I can't control what causes it. I find it interesting that other people fear different things and what they do to get over them, especially water.

 

[The Chairman]

So what's your fear?

Forgetting where I put my fins???

It's my opinion that many people are effectively out of control while diving and this induces fear and ultimately, makes them stop diving.

 

[ofg-1]

What is your fear..

Annoying my wife enough that she smothers me with a pillow over my face in the middle of the night. And its touch and go on a daily basis.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Forgetting where I put my fins???

It's my opinion that many people are effectively out of control while diving and this induces fear and ultimately, makes them stop diving.

3 weeks ago I went diving (or tried to) with my wife. She was a mess, she doesn't dive often enough to get comfortable. On top of that she has a fear of water that I never really noticed before that dive. It gets the best of her and she just throws in the towel.

Annoying my wife enough that she smothers me with a pillow over my face in the middle of the night. And its touch and go on a daily basis.

My wife wanted a gun for Christmas.... scariest Christmas of my life so far!! Still not quite over it yet, lol. I would think it would have happened by now though.

 

[CycleCat]

Claustrophobia. I could probably handle some cenotes but unlikely any kind of cavern unless passageways are like 40 feet in diameter. I could wreck dive but doubtful any penetration.

Like Rob, this fear is relatively recent. I think work stress started causing claustrophobic dreams about 5 years ago that were vivid enough to affect me during the day too.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Claustrophobia. I could probably handle some cenotes but unlikely any kind of cavern unless passageways are like 40 feet in diameter. I could wreck dive but doubtful any penetration.

Like Rob, this fear is relatively recent. I think work stress started causing claustrophobic dreams about 5 years ago that were vivid enough to affect me during the day too.

I think my fear has always been there, but now I've become more aware of it in the last ~ 5 years or so. More of a self revelation realizing that it's just something that's there.

Interesting about claustrophobia. Did that prevent you from diving in the beginning? I hear a lot of people say to me "I wouldn't be able to dive, I get claustrophobic", so they just don't even do it.

 

[CycleCat]

Interesting about claustrophobia. Did that prevent you from diving in the beginning? I hear a lot of people say to me "I wouldn't be able to dive, I get claustrophobic", so they just don't even do it.

Not at all. My first dive was in the Caribbean when I was 11 and afraid of almost nothing. I've desired to be a diver ever since. Most of my diving has been in amazing visibility so not claustrophobia inducing. Put me in a murky lake with 2-foot vis and it might be a whole other story.

 

[Still Kicking]

Like you, I have a fairly severe fear of heights. Being in a tall building, or the thought of being in an exposed place, creates anxiety. Paradoxically, I love flying and always get a window seat, so it's not a rational fear at all.

Being underwater is calming for me too. I used to do some commercial diving, bottom of a well, blackwater, very tight spaces, no problem at all.

When I think back to the rare occasions when I had anxiety underwater they have were all due to overexertion and CO2 build-up. I learned to control the feeling and put the anxiety "back in the box." Literally, I visualized a box LOL. Focusing on a small item for a few seconds also helped but probably more due to stopping my activity and allowing my breathing to slow down. Now that I have learned CO2 is the issue, I can avoid the situation by moderating my activity level as needed.

I don't think CO2 retention is explained well enough in OW classes, in my experience. New divers -- who are already a little stressed and breathing hard in an unfamiliar environment -- are largely unprepared for potential onset of panic if they exert themselves during a dive. Putting more emphasis on how this occurs and how to manage it, beyond "Stop, think, act," would go a long way to building confidence and avoiding bad situations.

 

[GreggS]

I think my fear has always been there, but now I've become more aware of it in the last ~ 5 years or so. More of a self revelation realizing that it's just something that's there.

Interesting about claustrophobia. Did that prevent you from diving in the beginning? I hear a lot of people say to me "I wouldn't be able to dive, I get claustrophobic", so they just don't even do it.

I've heard that a lot from people when I talk about diving and show photos I've taken of the different places we've been and it always puzzles me. My wife is extremely claustrophobic but she dives and it hasn't affected her one bit. She will even go enter swim thrus in reefs and wrecks (as long as they aren't confining). Of course, I don't have claustrophobia so maybe that's another reason I don't see what that has to do with diving.

As for myself, just after I started diving, for some reason when I would do a boat dive in water that was either too deep or too murky to see the bottom, I would get anxious at first and be on the verge of hyperventilating. I would have to resurface almost immediately to calm myself down. After that, I would be fine. I learned that if I would stick my face in the water before descending I wouldn't have a problem on descent. Now that I have more experience, it has been a long time since I've had this problem.

 

[-JD-]

Everybody is different ... [Advance disclosure: Yes, I am probably weird.]

I have a healthy respect for heights - as in I don't want to accidentally fall, but I've joyously looked down over the edge of a 2,000' cliff in Yosemite. Jumping off into the void (bungee, glider, parachute, etc. - not done, but one the list ...) would certainly be a hurdle at first.

I have a deep, reflexive discomfort with my (naked) face under water at first - I think it is my hard-wired survival instinct. I now get over it quickly - a rational over instinctual control thing. Because I recognize it and understand it it has lost much of its power - more of a "startle" reaction now.



When I was first flying, I was out practicing at an other localish field that was unfamiliar, doing landings and takeoffs in a Cessna 152 (which isn't the very lightest thing around, but pretty close in common GA aircraft). There was a taxiway and row of hangers backed by trees perpendicular to the fairly narrow runway. As I was lined up, stable, and about to touch down (just a few feet off) I came abreast of that perpendicular and I was hit by a crosswind blast and almost instantly transported to the side off of the runway. Fortunately fresh training kicked in, I goosed the lightly loaded plane, climbed out and tried to restart my heart! All good.
But the later ongoing mental after-action report left me with (besides some insights about "reading" terrain and weather in advance) the thought that things could have gone really wrong -bang- and I could have died. I realized that I was going to die - sooner or later, and possibly notably sooner participating in elevated-risk activities. And then, I "accepted" death . I don't seek it, I strive to avoid it, I still have a strong survival instinct. But the advance acceptance of its inevitability robs much of the dread/fear/panic reaction in crisis situations and is ironically significantly pro-survival IMO.

I have tried to learn to observe, evaluate, then react. I still have stress reactions, and I'm working to be in better control, especially in the still pretty new to me, underwater environment.