Long ago I took scuba classes. In a YMCA pool. The instructor did every unthinkable thing to try to freak you out the worst. Making you tread water your hands over your head for 10 minutes (you pretty much drown). Covering your goggles with foil. Covering your snorkel with his hand or pouring water down it while you were breathing in. Cutting off your air tank at the bottom of the pool (combined with the foil goggles). Grabbing your head and holding you under just as you were coming up for air. Grabbing you from below and pulling you down like a drowning man would. Every fear you could possible have, he exploited.
He weeded the marginal swimmers and scary cats out the first week. One punched him in the face. The end test was a mega drown ordeal. I got the point, he was a good instructor and he did not want you to die. The fears he exploited are at the level of basic, primal survival. It takes some time before you learn how to think your way through it and resist the panic. But it can be learned.
I don’t know if it would work the same to you, but in my case I have a problem with my eyes and salt water, they burn so much I can barely keep them open. That’s a bit of a problem when diving so one thing I started doing was, before getting to the dive site, scoop up some sea water and splash it in my eyes. Hurts like a mother but I realized that the first time water gets in my eyes is the one that stings the most, after that I don’t know if I get desensitized or just used to the pain but it doesn’t bother me that much. So I can jump in and if water gets in my eyes it doesn’t nearly blind me for a minute or so while I’m actually diving. It makes for a more pleasant experience.
So… for you, perhaps you could try to get some water up your nose in advance, bite the bullet before swimming and then you can enjoy it better. Of course this may not work at all with you.
Add99, your diving instructor deserves to be depth charged. It’s one thing to teach students how to deal with an emergency, but terrorizing them and driving them away is another. By the way you told it he was traumatizing people into never giving SCUBA diving a try again.
As an adult that hadn’t swum for years, I found that I was uncomfortable submerging my face. One thing that helped me was to swim in very well-lit pools; ideally pools outside on a bright summer day. A clean pool that you could see through to the bottom really helped fight the claustrophobic feeling. This might also help with the cold-pool issue.
In my case I did just ‘swim through’ the fear. It took a week or two of swimming 4 or 5 times a week. It sounds like your case may be a bit more severe and adult lessons would help. And it will really help to eliminate any distractions. As others have said, get nose plugs that work, goggles that work, and a suit and pool combination that is warm enough for you to focus on relaxing.
BTW, at my particular YMCA they have two pools: a cold lap pool and a bath-warm play pool. The play pool is wide enough and deep enough for adults to comfortably swim. If you could find something like this, it would be a great place to start.
Sorry if someone else covered this and I missed it, but lap pools tend to be cold to balance the body heat you build up while exercising. Just like most people would prefer to run on a cool day rather than a warm day. Unfortunately, there is a lot of standing around when you take swimming lessons and a cold pool doesn’t help.
OP, I have your exact problem. I am terrified of going underwater without holding my nose.
Unfortunately my solution is not going to help you - I just don’t do it. 
Yes I can’t swim like a normal person, but somehow life goes on.
The only time this actually became a problem was when I was doing my open water PADI certificate. They made us go underwater with all our gear, TAKE OFF OUR MASKS, and swim in a circle (guided by the instructor) before putting the masks back on again.
I was so scared. The first time I couldn’t even take the mask off - I was frozen in the grips of sheer panic. It took me a full minute to work up the courage to take the mask off, and then it took every fiber of my being to concentrate on exhaling a little at a time without going completely nuts. I couldn’t even move - my instructor basically dragged me around in a circle before letting me put the mask back on. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers. Hardest part of my open water by far.
There’s good advice upthread, but I’d point out that, if you’re swimming laps instead of just goofing around with your face under water, being bad at the “exhale through your nose” technique isn’t such a big deal, since you’ll always be exhaling a strong, steady stream: the objective won’t be to apply a little outward pressure while maintaining an air reserve, but rather to void your lungs completely in anticipation of your next inhalation. Unless you forget to exhale, there’s really no way for water to sneak in.
Possibly stupid question, but why can’t you just swim the way you mention swimming? That’s how I’ve usually done it, though I don’t really swim all that often…
You can combine this practice with other pleasurable activities as well.
Furthermore, if you can find one that’s un- or lightly-chlorinated, even better.
I don’t have nose issues, but I hate opening my eyes underwater in an ordinary pool, it hurts like poison. But I have no problems in the kids pool, which is much warmer, and doesn’t seem to use chlorine (that I can tell - I think it’s salted or something).
I did a little experiment in the bathroom sink a while back actually - it’s really amazing the difference just a couple of degrees can make in eye comfort. And FWIW my experience with salt was the opposite of Ale’s - a couple of spoonfuls of salt splashed into the water seemed to actually help, rather than hurt.
I have the same problem. And it’s dangerous. You don’t want to panic underwater. What has helped me is a neti pot. You basically deliberately fill your sinuses. I’m getting used to it, and now at least my throat doesn’t automatically close off when I get water up my nose. It’s what I imagine water boarding feels like (or similar).
Well, it probably isn’t fast enough to swim laps with other lap swimmers. Also, I don’t think I’m getting the benefit I want to get to my legs and all for cross-training (and helping out my weak-ass parts that keep getting me injured) swimming the way I do.
I couldn’t stand it when I was a kid. If I got may face wet, I’d immediately need towel.
After a while, my parents got a swimming pool. I learned how to swim by dog-paddling, because I still hated getting water on my face. But after a few months I just decided enough was enough and started getting my face wet on purpose. It didn’t take long for me to get completely used to it.
This goes into the whole “you’re worried about something you don’t even know about” thing I mentioned earlier. It seems clear to be you have never really been exposed to a public lap pool environment. MOST swimmers at the pool are not Michael Phelps. MOST are little old grannies who go at a snail’s pace, or people recuperating from inuries that make swimming the only or best exercise they can do, and are not especially good at it. Especially during daytime hours. From 3pm to 6pm you might get high school teams – they are in their own designated lanes (or their own designated pool if the facility is big enough).
At the minimum lanes are divided up by speed (Fast, medium, slow), you choose the slow lane, problem solved.
You seem like you’ve built up swimming as this experience in your mind where everyone but you is 0% body fat high speed competitive swimmer, who will immediately point, laugh, and eject you from the facility if you aren’t up to their standards. Most people at the pool are just regular people, with average athletic ability, with the average amount of sag and wrinkles, trying to improve their lot, just like you.
I know, but it’s a very slow stroke and works my arms almost exclusively when what I need is my legs. I don’t think I’d get ejected, but if I’m going to haul into a swimsuit and drive somewhere and get in ickily cold water I want to be getting the most out of it.
Okay, so I understand we can resurrect zombies now? Because it’s been a year and I finally got a membership at the city gym with the pool and had my first private swimming lesson today.
You know, I’d meant to follow all the great advice I got in this thread, I really did. And some kind people sent me very detailed PMs that they’d evidently worked hard on! And I had meant to do that, you know, sometime.
So today I figured out why I hadn’t gotten around to it - seems that while I wasn’t looking this whole face-in-water thing has grown to a full fledged phobia! Because I got in the water, okay, and then the teacher said, “Okay, now let’s just bob under the water, you can hold your nose for now if you need to” and I went “one, two, three”… and couldn’t do it. I was very quietly freaking out for, like, thirty minutes - I couldn’t even try! And, by the way, once you start hyperventilating it does not get easier to, say, go underwater while specifically breathing out.
My teacher is I think more accustomed to training triathletes and such, but she was awesome. “So I see there’s a little fear here.” And, you know what? I did it. I did it holding my nose, and then I did it without holding my nose. And then I did it while holding on to the wall and kicking with my feet and going as long as I could until I ran out of breath, which was terrifying. And then I tried to learn how to breathe by rolling my head out of the water, but I’m still working on that because my throat was so tight with the whole “all-consuming terror” thing that I couldn’t actually get air into my lungs. But I’m working on that.
So I’m damned proud of myself, and absolutely exhaustedly bone tired and I have to work until 9 and teach a class this evening. Plus I promised to practice this week and I don’t know if I’m going to have to start all over getting back into the idea of it or not. But so help me, I did put my damned head in the water.
Yeah! You rock!!!
w00t!!!
Great job.
May I suggest that next time you try just putting your face partway in the water and just relax. Just hang out and get used to it. In other words relax. This should help your breathing.
Yay! That’s outstanding! Good onya.
I’m glad you’re taking classes - it’s what I was going to recommend before I checked the date on the thread. I tooks some swimming classes as an adult (I already knew how to swim, but wanted to conquer some of my own fears) and it was seriously one of the best things I could’ve done to improve my swimming. The best thing my instructor told me: “Slow down. You’re not going to drown here. If you feel panicky, just stop and put your feet down.” Excellent advice.
I’ve never mastered the art of not getting water up my nose (especially on the breast stroke). I’ve just dealt with it, I guess.
I’m proud of you too, Zsofia. Keep it up. And slow down and put your feet down!
Congratulations 
You would absolutely love my aquatherapy sessions then. 1 hour long 
Start out at the shallow end, walking back and forth about 15 times, using different types of movements to work different muscles.
Then a series while holding to the edge at the shallow end of squats and sort of ballet barre movements [well that is what they remind me of]
Then using pool noodles and float belts off to the deep end using legs only for propulsion, interspersed with different types of leg movements like gentle scissors forward/backward and out to the sides.
Believe me, it is a lot of exercise crammed into one hour. Worth every penny of my co-pay. I think if I didn’t have insurance it would run something like $250 an hour [combining pool fee and therapist fee] I get 36 sessions per year. I would go every day if they would authorize it 
I would kill for a pool of the right size so I could do it on my own without the therapist. I think if we won a small enough lottery I would have a little pool building put up in the pasture just for this, so I could swim every day. Maybe with removable windows or sliding doors so that it could be just screen in the summer.