Diving with a phobia - am I mad?

Weidii

Hey all,

I'm back in college now and I saved up over the summer to join the scuba club. I'm really looking foreward to it as my college course is leaning towards marine biology so I'm sure it'll be useful in the future.

The only problem is I have a (silly) phobia of objects submerged in the ocean. If I see a photo of a shipwreck, a submarine, the underside of a boat or even a rope connected to a buoy I can feel my heart beating faster and that "must get away from it as quickly as possible" panicky feeling that anyone with a phobia will be familiar with.

I really don't want this to hold me back from doing scuba, as I love water sports and I'm a very confident swimmer. I suppose I'm just looking for advice - has anyone else gone sub-aqua with a phobia? Am I totally mad doing this sport since I have a phobia specific to it?

Thanks.

seadeuce

Have a read of the following:


Anxiety, Phobias and Panic Attacks

Normally, fear and anxiety can he helpful, helping us to avoid dangerous situations, making us alert and giving us the motivation to deal with problems. However, if the feelings become too strong or go for too long, they can stop us from doing the things we want to and can make our lives miserable.
Anxiety in the mind causes worried feelings, tiredness, loss of concentration, irritability and insomnia.
It affects the body by producing irregular heartbeat, sweating, tense muscles and pain, heavy rapid breathing, dizziness, faintness, indigestion and diarrhea.

These symptoms are often mistaken by anxious people for evidence of serious physical illness and their worry about this can make the symptoms even worse. Sudden unexpected surges of anxiety are called panic, and usually lead to the person having to quickly get out of whatever situation they happen to be in. Panic occurring at depth can lead to near-drowning and lung over-expansion injuries and death.

The normal anxiety induced by the undersea environment is complicated by an over-awareness of the potential but definite dangers, causing a phobic anxiety state in susceptible people. A vicious circle results and the diver may then develop an actual phobia to descent into the water. Some "dragooned" divers experience this while learning to dive but other stronger motivating factors temporarily override their fear. Anxiety is a normal human feeling. We all experience it when faced with situations we find threatening or difficult.

An over-reactive anxiety state usually occurs in response to some inadvertent mishap, such as a mask flooding with water-causing the diver to panic unnecessarily and behave irrationally. Most often this results in emergency ascents with the attendant dangers, frantic grabs for air supplies, and lack of concern for the safety of others. This is seen more often in those divers who have an above normal neuroticism gradient.

Phobias

A phobia is a fear of particular situations or things that are not dangerous and which most people do not find troublesome. A person with a phobia has intense symptoms of anxiety, as described above. But they only arise from time to time in the particular situations that frighten them. At other times they don't feel anxious. If you have a phobia of dogs, you will feel OK if there are no dogs around, if you are scared of heights, you feel OK at ground level, and if you can't face social situations, you will feel calm when there are no people around.

A phobia will lead the sufferer to avoid situations in which they know they will be anxious, but this will actually make the phobia worse as time goes on. It can also mean that the person's life becomes increasingly dominated by the precautions they have to take to avoid the situation they fear. Sufferers usually know that there is no real danger, they may feel silly about their fear but they are still unable to control it. A phobia is more likely to go away if it has started after a distressing or traumatic event.

About one in every ten people will have troublesome anxiety or phobias at some point in their lives. However, most will never ask for treatment. Some divers have true claustrophobia, preventing their immersion into water or even into a recompression chamber. This syndrome may only surface during certain times of stress and diminished visibility, such as in murky water, night diving or during prolonged diving. There is no one cure for it, but there are various treatments, such as Exposure therapy <http://www.sonic.net/~fredd/treat.html&gt; , a behavioral technique that exposes you to the situation you fear most -- being in enclosed spaces. The two most popular forms of this therapy are 'slow desensitization' and 'flooding'. Flooding is a rapid and more intense form of desensitization without any relaxation techniques. Rather you are exposed directly to what you most fear until the anxiety subsides. Such direct exposure can be imagined or an actual confrontation with the phobic trigger. This would seem to be a dangerous method of treatment in the underwater milieu.

An agoraphobic reaction - often called "blue orb or dome syndrome <http://www.scuba-doc.com/bluorb.htm>", it also is seen when a diver loses contact with the bottom and the surface and becomes spatially disoriented.

Sensory deprivation can also cause illusions, particularly when there is impaired visibility. Anxiety associated with this environment can cause heightened suggestibility and result in mistaking fish, other divers and objects for sharks.

Recent studies are beginning to suggest that episodes of panic or near-panic may explain many recreational diving accidents and possibly throw light on the cause of some diving fatalities. There is also evidence that individuals who have a high level of underlying anxiety are more likely to have greater responses when exposed to stresses, and hence, this sub-group of the diving population is at an increased level of risk. In a recent national survey, more than half of divers reported experiencing at least one panic or near-panic episode. Panic attacks are often spurred by something that a non-diver would deem serious -- entanglement, an equipment malfunction or being startled by some unexpected sea creature. The attacks can lead to irrational and dangerous behavior. If divers and instructors knew more about the phenomenon they could screen out people who might be susceptible to life-threatening panic attacks.

The panic attacks are not restricted to beginning divers; sometimes experienced scuba divers with hundreds of logged dives experience panic for no apparent reason. It is thought that in such cases the panic occurs because divers lose sight of familiar objects, become disoriented and experience a form of sensory deprivation. This problem has been labeled the "blue orb syndrome." However, among inexperienced divers, there is usually an objective basis (e.g., loss of air or a shark) behind the panic response.

Panic response is when a diver behaves irrationally. The diver’s attention narrows and he loses the ability to sort out his options. If, for example, a problem develops with the regulator, the restricted air flow could prompt the diver to ascend rapidly enough to cause an air embolism (bubble) in the bloodstream, which can be fatal. This would be considered a panic response if the diver had other safe options, such as access to a pony bottle (an emergency air supply), or was diving with other divers who could share their air supply, allowing a gradual ascent.

There are some obvious diving activities which tend to lead to panic episodes, such as the stresses of equipment malfunctioning, dangerous marine life (e.g., sharks), loss of orientation during a cave, ice or wreck dive, and so on. Diving with faulty or inappropriate equipment or performing high-risk dives has greater potential for panic episodes; these problems can be prevented or minimized with appropriate training and cautionary actions.

There is a psychological concept known as "trait anxiety" that is regarded as a stable or enduring feature of personality, whereas state anxiety is situational or transitory. In this regard, it can be accurately predicted that individuals who score high on trait anxiety are more likely to have increased state anxiety and panic during scuba activities and are at potentially greater risk than those scoring in the normal range. These people probably should not dive because it has been found that interventions such as biofeedback, hypnosis, imagery and relaxation have not been effective in reducing the anxiety responses associated with the panic attacks. Psychological research has shown that hypnosis is effective in relaxing scuba divers, but it can also have the undesired effect of increasing heat loss in divers. Relaxation can lead to increased anxiety and panic attacks in some "high anxious" individuals (this phenomenon is known as relaxation-induced-anxiety, or RIA). Individuals with a history of high anxiety and panic episodes should probably be identified and counseled during scuba training classes about the potential risks.

Advice About Diving

Whether or not a person with anxiety, phobias and panic attacks should be certified as 'fit to dive' should be decided on the merits of each case, the type of drugs required, the response to medication, and the length of time free of anxiety and phobic problems. Identification of individuals who score high on trait anxiety are more likely to have increased state anxiety and panic during scuba activities and are at potentially greater risk than those scoring in the normal range. Most probably should not dive but if allowed to dive should be carefully monitored and fully informed of their risks.Decision-making ability, responsibility to other divers should be taken into consideration. Prospective divers should in all cases provide full disclosure of their condition and medications to the dive instructor and certifying agency - bearing in mind the safety of buddies, dive instructors, divemasters and other individuals who are always affected by diving incidents.

The above was taken from Scuba Doc's online site


It may help you to better understand the situation you find yourself in, and maybe to devise a strategy to combat it.

Best of luck

Seadeuce

Fratton Fred

take it a step at a time and see how you get on. There are plenty of scary things underwater at first, you just need to push your boundaries little by little and after a while you come to accept things that would previously have scared the crap out of you.

uasal2000

Sometimes I think scuba is all about controlling your fear. The most dangerous thing you can do in scuba is panic.

I'm with Fred here, take it slow, see if this fear is something you can manage, your not going to get thrown directly onto a shipwreck on your first dive, you'll generally dive in a few feet of water. You will simulate panic situations in a safe environment progressively and will need to deal with one before you move on to the next.

You will and your instructor will be able to judge if you are able to manage your fear by the end of your openwater course.

Weidii

uasal2000 wrote: »

Sometimes I think scuba is all about controlling your fear. The most dangerous thing you can do in scuba is panic.

I'm with Fred here, take it slow, see if this fear is something you can manage, your not going to get thrown directly onto a shipwreck on your first dive, you'll generally dive in a few feet of water. You will simulate panic situations in a safe environment progressively and will need to deal with one before you move on to the next.

I hope I can get a handle on it eventually, I just know that I've panicked while snorkelling over the stupidest things. I'm fine with big fish etc, it's stupid things that set me off.

Thanks for the advice, I'll definately give the scuba a go and try to get over the phobia! I'm sure I'll love it.