My friend is dealing with fear that surfaces during certain types of activities. I was wondering if anyone on this board had experienced such a thing or had any advice to offer.
Here’s what happens:
As best I can describe it, she becomes overcome with irrational fear when attempting fairly ordinary physical activities that many people learn at an early age. For example, she recently started taking swimming lessons (she is in her early 30s), but she becomes very nervous when she is away from the wall of the pool (which is 4 feet deep throughout). The fear is enough to prevent her from trying simple things like learning to float (even with someone holding her).
She also becomes exceptionally fearful during activities that require one to balance and involve some risk of falling down – such as learning to rollerblade, ski, or ride a bicycle. Sometimes very simple activities trigger this also. At one point she became very nervous about getting into a low hanging hammock. The idea of doing a somersault on a padded mat is frightening. Using a treadmill (the first time) required a good amount of bravery on her part.
She is not uncoordinated (she dances very well), works out regularly, and is in good shape. She is very outgoing in social situations, and is surprisingly nonchalant about some things that would be frightening to others – for example, riding on the back of a motorcycle.
Its very puzzling to me, and frustrating for her, since her fears are major obstacles to her enjoyment of a number of activities.
Any similar experiences/advice? More background info can be provided if needed.
Is this a crippling anxiety or an unpleasant sense of incompetence? When I taught adult beginners to ride horses, I always found they were wildly hard on themselves because they well underestimated the anxiety that not being in control produces – and failed to grok that fear is a natural and healthy response to being only partially in control of a large animal. Likewise it is normal and totally sane to be scared of the ocean, or any body of water when you can’t swim. The trick is not to push down or eliminate the fear, but to understand that the fear comes from not knowing how to react - by working on fundamental skills she will learn that she does know how to react, and the fear will become healthy caution. It takes time, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Does she trust her instructor? Has she had any bad experience with an instructor pushing too hard? If she has no instructor, she should get one, one experienced in teaching adults. You can’t teach yourself good fundamentals by flailing about. Nothing worse than developing bad, defensive habits, that will only have to be (laboriously) unlearned.
I experience exactly the same fears, and seem to have a similar personality, and question some assumptions that are often made. Firstly, that the fears are totally irrational. They involve things which could be dangerous. Is she just more sensible than everyone else and more aware of the potential risks? Is her mental risk/benefit analysis telling her that the risk isn’t worth it?
I tried many times to learn to swim from a young age, and actually managed to do so in my 30s, and float reliably. Having done that, I don’t think I’ve been in the water since. Now late 50s. I hate it. I can find no attraction at all to swimming. In Australia, that is considered weird by many, but when you talk beyond the physical sporty types, you find it is quite common. I also finally learned to ride a bike and did so for a few years, but never enjoyed it or lost the fear of overbalancing.
The problem that I have identified is that there is an assumption among those who love physical activities, that they are ‘normal’ and the rest of us aren’t. I am fit, do regular aerobics, walking and so on. Sports and the balance type activities just don’t appeal at all. But I really admire the skill and love watching others do them.
I am not sure that her fear is actually terribly irrational nor that the activities you describe are actually ‘fairly ordinary’. That is only the viewpoint from within the subculture who love them.
I have several of those phobias. I never learned to swim much beyond dog-paddling along the shallow end of the pool. Also, I never learned to ride a bike or a skateboard. I guess being the only person in control of the thing I am riding overwhelms me and I fall off. Same with swimming; I can’t bring myself to attempt to float on my own, plus I’m afraid of getting water in my eyes, ears and nose. I think the swimming thing comes from when a friend of mine drowned when I was 5, and my mom wouldn’t let me near a pool for a long time after that. From that incident I suppose I got the subconscious message that “pool or ocean = death” and I avoided the water rather than think rationally and try to learn to swim to save my own life.
As far as the riding stuff, I still can’t ride a bike, but I’ve gotten on a horse once or twice, both times terrified that the horse would somehow get spooked and throw me or run off with me hanging on for dear life. I mean, I see it all the time on TV and the movies, so it must happen often in real life, right? :rolleyes: I am finally getting over my fear of driving, and have taken a couple of lessons with an instructor in a car with two steering wheels, one for me, the other for the instructor in case I screw up and need to be rescued. I still need practice, though. I’m taking it one step at a time.
If there is no obvious reason for her to be frightened, she might want to first find out if there is some physical reason for her fears. The common thread in your description appears to be situations involving dynamic balance, which is not the same thing as coordination.
Right off the top of my head, it is possible to have a condition involving the inner ear which makes dynamic balance difficult and triggers a feeling of dizziness or even of falling when one is not falling. There are of course other possibilities. But my own tendency is to suggest that people rule out physical possibilities before they get all analytical about their feelings.
I am not dissimilar myself. I have never learned to swim, partly because I really dislike water, and partly because the nature of bobbing around in the water really, well… frightens me, I suppose. Though it’s been so long that I was in water deeper than a bath that I can’t really say for sure anymore.
When I was a kid I couldn’t do all the climbing and balancing and hanging from monkey-bars that my friends did, as I had an overpowering fear of heights, and a terrible sense of balance.
Having said that, I have done tumbles onto mats, and was always okay on swings and see-saws.
I remember we had to try abseiling at our school camp, and I piked out on that one too, the only person who did, to my shame.
In the end, though, most of those abilities wouldn’t have served to be useful in any part of my life that I can see, so it’s no great loss.
There’s lots of self-help books that could help with phobias/fears such as this. This is a pretty good book I personally used a while back to combat some irrational fears of my own and they worked quite a bit.
Maybe growing up surrounded by the Great Lakes, hundreds of inland lakes and everyone has a backyard swimming pool, I am surprised more people from Michigan haven’t won Gold Medals in swimming.
BrandonR thanks for the book link. I like perusing books like this.
Well bully for you. I think it may be possible that you’re projecting a little self-righteousness on this person. Maybe they DO have an “irrational” fear, maybe they’re just DIFFERENT from you. You consider swimming and rollerblading and biking “normal” but … that’s just your experience. I can ride a bike OK but didn’t learn until I was a teenager. Never took swimming lessons, enjoy paddling around, but no force on earth could make me duck my head under water without holding my nose, never mind opening my eyes underwater. I have really bad knees that will dislocate easily, so anything that causes me to be unsteady on my feet is something I go out of my way NOT to do. I do have a mild fear of heights but in humans that’s more normal than not – has to do with our ancestors living in trees and having a healthy respect for being up off the ground. It never once occurred to me that these preferences and sense of caution would be called phobias or considered irrational. They’re not irrational to ME.
I’m afraid of activities where I have to balance, particularly ones like rollerblading or skiing where ankles are important for maintaining balance. It’s an entirely rational fear in my case, though.
I’m a klutz, and have sprained my ankles repeatedly. If you sprain your ankles repeatedly, the tendons supposedly don’t go back to being as tight as they were before the injuries, and your ankles are permanently weakened.
I know I can’t ice skate (I’ve tried) because my ankles aren’t up to it. I assume from the fact that I can’t ice skate that I’d have trouble rollerblading or skiing. I can roller skate, but not rollerblade.
I would say a fear is irrational when it is way out of proportion to the amount of danger involved.
There are a number of activities that involve substantial risk of injury. Heights and speed are almost universally scary because there is a definite chance of actually dying or suffering serious injury. Deep water SHOULD be scary to a poor swimmer.
However, being overcome with anxiety in a 4 foot deep pool is an irrational fear because there is zero danger yet the person is experiencing all the terror that someone in a life or death situation would be feeling. Sheer terror to the point where someone dares not move a muscle is out of proportion to the actual small risk of skinned knees, bruises, etc. that may result from falling on roller skates and is, therefore, irrational.
Especially considering the fact that the person involved shows no nervousness about sitting on the back of a speeding motorcycle – something that could in fact easily kill her – I think it is clear there is something else at work besides a healthy respect for the danger of these various activities.
I second the suggestion to check for physical issues, like the inner ear thing. If she does have something messing up her sensation of balance, that would explain a lot. Then she could find out if whatever it is can be treated, and go ahead with these activities or not, knowing any limitations. Maybe she won’t turn out to have a balance problem, which would at least give her a basis for confidence that she’s as well equipped as anyone to learn these things.
I do think it’s a little easier to learn this type of stuff when you’re a kid, before you’re aware of your own mortality.