Overcoming Fears and Phobias

I spent most of my childhood living in a big northern city miles away from the sea, so I didn’t learn about my fear of open water until well into my 30’s. It was only when I agreed to a surfing lesson and I saw a HUGE wave (at least a foot high!) bearing down on me and I realised I was scared and not in a fun, happy, adrenaline-y type of way.

My mind was blank, my throat was dry, and my heart was beating so loud that it drowned out the voice of my instructor telling me to turn my face away from the oncoming wave. All I could see (and taste) was white water and with that came the image of being swept out to sea and being eaten by seagulls. It didn’t occur to me that I was only waist deep in water and strapped to a very large, very buoyant surfboard. I was scared.  

Now fearing open water wasn’t likely to have a huge impact on my life and I could probably have ignored it and gone another 30 odd years without it becoming too much of a problem. It would have been really easy to shelve it, but there was a part of me that didn’t want to be scared. I wanted to leap carefree into lakes and dive and swim in the sea, I want to surf and swim and paddle. I love being outdoors and I didn’t want there to be any restrictions, so I felt it was important to do something about this.

As you know, I am a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. A huge part of my work is about practicing what I preach, I feel it is really important to put myself in my patients’ shoes and tackle my fears and try uncomfortable things. I wouldn’t ask a patient to do something that I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself. So, by putting myself through my therapeutic paces, I would feel better about myself and my fears, but it would also help me to understand my patients better and give me new insights into the work I do.

So, I made a plan.

Knowing what I know about anxiety, I realised I needed to think about a Graded Exposure approach to my predicament. This is one of the evidence-based ways to tackle fears and phobias. The idea is that you take regular and repeated steps to face your fears, staying with the anxious feelings for long enough to watch them reduce or pass altogether and work towards facing increasingly more uncomfortable things at each step.  It can be tricky to break your fears down into steps, so sometimes you need a bit of creative license, for example, I wasn’t able to get to the seaside regularly to face my fears there, so I had to consider other options and it might be similar for you.   

I decided a good place to start was a Stand-Up Paddleboard lesson. My logic was that a lake would be less scary than the sea. Initially, the dark and murky depths promised a whole new world of terrifying possibilities. I knelt on the board, trying to stand but couldn’t stop my knees from shaking, this made the board shake beneath me and made my nerves even worse. I was convinced I was going to fall in and get dragged into the deep by something enormous and terrifying. Eventually though, after falling in a few times and finding out that nothing bad happened, my nerves and shaky knees started to ease, and I actually started to enjoy myself. I tried it again as often as I could, and each time feeling less anxious than before. Already I was getting first hand evidence that Graded Exposure works! This was a great start and as winter rolled around, I needed to continue momentum but also be safe from the bad weather. When I was offered the opportunity to try swimming lessons (in a heated indoor pool), I jumped at the chance. This wasn’t a step I was particularly scared about, but it wasn’t going to do any harm to my goals to become a stronger swimmer. After 8 weeks, I was a slightly less rubbish swimmer, but I was feeling good.   

The next achievable step was to take a dip in a local reservoir. I stood on the bank, nervous. I kept telling myself I’d be fine, but it was hard to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. I shuffled my way in deeper and deeper until I was in up to my shoulders. I quickly noticed my butterflies fly away, I became more aware of what was going on around me and just the sense of being enveloped in the cold water. Being present, in the moment really made a difference to how I was feeling and just like before, it wasn’t long before I started to enjoy myself. A couple more tries of this, and the butterflies were gone for good. Another tick for Graded Exposure!

From this I knew I had to take a leap of faith. I had loved the freedom of the paddleboard so I took the plunge and ordered one, a thick wetsuit and the very best life jacket I could afford (safety first!). I continued with a Graded Exposure plan and organised to go out with a friend, she has more experience than me, so this really helped, and it was fun to go out together. Not long after, I was ready for a solo adventure, and I went to the Lake District by myself. I had a wonderful time.  

Since then, I haven’t looked back. I have been out many times in the last few years and each time I am more confident than before. I have found a new hobby, developed a new stress management technique (there’s nothing better than leaving your stresses on the bank and paddling away from them) and I have more confidence than ever in Graded Exposure.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that that my fear was small in comparison to some people’s issues with phobias and I don’t wish to make light of this. My intention here is to tell a story about Graded Exposure and how it can work in the hope it can help other people understand and take their own steps towards facing their fears. It’s not always easy though, and if you think you’d benefit from some help to move forwards, please reach out for some support with the Well Minds PTS team.