So....as you are all blithely aware of, since I posted two entries about this very subject not long ago, I am (or...used to be I suppose) a swimmer. Have been all my life. But today I was just thinking, and there's a reason for this (but isn't there always a reason? I mean really....), what's my biggest fear?
As a swimmer it's kind of odd to share this but...the biggest fear, or one of the biggest fears, I have is...drowning. That's right. I'm a swimmer that's afraid of water. Now...what brought about this thinking you may ask?
Well....clubs are starting at school tomorrow and, since I attend school on one of the biggest island chain-nations in the world, tomorrow is my first scuba club meeting. I'll be certified soon and in a couple of months time I will inevitably find myself on a boat heading out to the middle of the ocean somewhere to go scuba diving, my heart pound-pound-pounding away in my ears.
I guess drowning isn't my biggest fear. For some reason, ever since I was about...twelve or thirteen I guess, I've always been super aware of my breathing habits and for some reason there seems to be something wrong with my...breathing.
It's probably nothing and just me getting all worked up over something that's not even there (ever googled your symptoms when you're sick? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about), but I swear there is something wrong. I don't seem to...breathe like normal people. I've tried talking to my mom about it, but she swears that nothing is wrong with me and if she took me to a doctor about it, she would have to take me to a psychiatrist afterwards because I'm making it all up in my head. My breathing either catches in my throat or my heart starts pounding a lot for some reason and I can't catch my breath and it's....terrifying.
To give Mom credit, she did take me seriously one time when I told her and we figured that it was caffeine that was doing it to me. So I cut caffeine out of my diet. It actually helped and I no longer have prolonged periods where it feels like I could pass out onto the floor because I can barely breathe for no reason. Now it's just short periods of time, maybe two or three minutes, several times a day, every day, where I feel like breathing is getting a little difficult. I'm not even doing strenuous activities! It usually happens on the bus in the morning and there's nothing I can do to control it, but at least I'm not letting it control me. I've developed methods of dealing with it and it's not as scary anymore.
Some days it's worse than others, like a few weeks back when I was walking around my city with THC I was having a little problem breathing. I took care of it and he didn't know. If you were talking to me when one of these "attacks" happened, you probably wouldn't notice. I try to keep talking normally because it also helps to get my breathing back under control.
So now that we've taken the looong way around the point (again) let me conclude what all of this is trying to tell you. Every time I would get into the pool I would have a little "asthma attack" (or two or three) and I powered through it. Swimming was a great way of dealing with my breathing, although sometimes I must admit I stopped swimming and feigned a cramp to catch my breath, and now that I'm not doing that anymore, I have to face my fear every day, although I face it anyway just climbing stairs, without swimming being a crutch.
Again, my point: don't let your fears, as irrational as they may be, stop you from doing the things you want to do. Eventually I might have to ask for help with my breathing if it gets REALLY bad, and you shouldn't be scared of asking for help either. I know that teenagers in high school (like I'm assuming most of you are, like me) are afraid of asking questions because we don't want to sound stupid in front of our peers, but if we need help we need to learn to ask for it. I really want to do scuba diving club and I'm trying my hardest not to worry about the breathing problems I may or may not have (I've noticed that if I don't think about it it doesn't happen as much). I'm just going to focus on the joy of what I'm doing. And I hope you don't let anything stop you from doing what you really want to do either.
Thanks for reading lovelies! XOXO
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