In one of my previous essays, I has discussed about the symptoms, treatments and psychological theories of phobias and fears, as well as encouraged people to confront and overcome the fears in their hearts. To be honest, it’s easier said than done. Personally, I had a fear that I still fail to face and tackle down until today – the fear of water. No matter how many times I attempted to learn swimming, I couldn’t stay in the water for more than ten minutes. My scare of water didn’t come from the frightening stories that my parents told me to keep me away from rivers, lakes and any other dangerous places when I was a little child. It came from an unforgettable real-life experience.
When I was in the eighth grade, my school scheduled free swimming period for students every summer. Basically, we could stay in water and do whatever we want. Every one of us had received three-hour safety training and basic first aid instructions before we could even get close to the swimming pool. The school arranged about ten teachers around to watch over us, and the whole pool was kept really shallow to ensure our safety. The summer swimming had seven-year history in my school, and before my friend and I stepped into the pool, there was not any proceeding accident, not even a tiny one. Every message I got from the school was that we were safe and we could enjoy the fine weather and cool water, so even if I didn’t know how to swim, I was willing to get into the water and learn. However, the tragedy still happened. Because there were too many students scrambled into the pool that day, the water level raised to an unexpected height. No one noticed the potential danger. After staying for a while, I went to buy some drink for me and my friend and left her alone in the pool. When I came back from the nearby convenience store, I found my friend floating in the water in a strange way. The students around her were so concentrated on their own entertainment that surprisingly, no one found her stayed face-down, unmoved for a while. I felt something went wrong immediately, and approached her as quickly as I could. I shook her violently, but she didn’t respond to me – she never could. My shocking behavior drew teachers’ and other students’ attention. Some students started to scream, then two teachers dragged me away from my friend’s body. Out of the protection for me, I was not allowed to be involved in the following investigation and lawsuit, so I never know what happened to my friend and why she died in the swimming pool with so many people’s presence. Soon after, I transferred to another school because of my parents’ concern. I never had the chance to talk with my friend’s parents about the last day of their daughter’s life.
Today, so many years after the accident, I could barely remember my friend’s face. But the feelings at the moment when I found her death never faded away. However, even though I felt deeply sorry for my friend, I was not troubled by the tragedy throughout my teenage life. What troubled me was that I couldn’t help thinking of her once I approached a swimming pool, a stream, or a little lake. Deep sense of fear struck me even when I walked on a bridge crossing over a river. During the swimming class later on, I felt difficult to breathe and kept thinking about the threat of drowning if I stayed in the water for a period of time. The stress once brought me leg cramp on the class. After that, my parents forbidden me from learning swimming. Now as an adult, I feel ashamed to be so afraid of water and still not capable of swimming.
Fear is one of the most complicated and stressful human emotions. Sometimes you believe you have conquered it, but similar situation still trigger your unpleasant memory and a fear response event though the present situation does not truly warrant the need to be afraid. Maybe some of us are just not as courageous as we pretend to be, and there are some physical or emotional traumas we can never get over.