Overcoming fear of water and learning to swim in adulthood

[NervousSwimmer]

Not really aibu but after tips and advice. Had a fear of water since a bad experience as a child. Now learning to swim all these years later but really struggling to get past the fear and relax to actually be able to try. Started adult lessons and can manage ok with floats but go into complete panic and can't manage at all without them. Looking for advice from people who can swim or have learnt as adults. How do you transition from floats to no floats if you don't believe you'll stay up?

My Mum can't swim and I realised hates to have water on her face either splashed or anywere near it and this seems quite common with non-swimmers. Because of this, when my DS were learning I would get them to dunk their faces and wear goggles to look around underwater - it seemed to help.

Yes I would start by making sure you are ok under water in the bath. Fully submerge for short bursts until it feels comfortable.
Another thing you could try is regular aqua aerobic classes so the pool starts to feel less foreign.
If you are having lessons does the instructor have any ideas to help?

I had a massive phobia as a child/teen/young adult. I'd do anything to get out of swimming at school and even the smell of chlorine would make me feel panicky.

When I became a student nurse I was given accommodation in closed down children's hospital where the pool was still maintained. It was only thigh deep all over. Some of my lovely colleagues taught me in the pool, late at night with no one around. I had a ring, but I could reach the floor with fingertips if I felt scared. I can't remember how long it took me to learn, but it gave me enough confidence to start proper adult lessons a few years later. Then I moved to improvers classes.

Since then I've taught quite a few older friends to swim.

I'm happy to help anyone if they live in my area and are terrified.

@NervousSwimmer

You can do it! Good for you for even trying to conquer your fear.

My SIL is from Kenya and not much swimming done where he grew up. And when he did try it once, someone threw him in the pool...thereby terrifying him for life.
At 41 yrs old he conquered his fear! We rented accommodation for our family for my son's wedding. There was a small heated swimming pool in the back garden. SIL decided he wanted to try to learn to swim. I absolutely hate having water in my nose and eyes so I use a face mask. I let SIL try dunking his head in the water with the face mask on...he was standing in the swallow end..about a metre deep and just leaned over frontwards and was able to look in the water. He was thrilled. From there, he sat on the steps and held on to the side and then let his body naturally float. Once he realised that he had some control and wasn't going to sink, it wasn't long before he was swimming all over that pool under the water with his body completely submerged! The smile on his face when he came up from under the water was priceless! Everyone was very excited because it isn't every day, if ever, that you get to witness someone conquering a genuine terrifying fear.
I suggest you try using a face mask in the bathtub whilst sitting up and just leaning over to stick your face in a bit., if you have one available to you. Once you're comfortable with that, see if you can relax enough to let you arms float, then try with your legs.

I wouldn't do lessons until you are completely comfortable in the water at a pool. It is so much easier to swim under water and have fun, than to try and learn fancy swimming strokes. They are difficult to coordinate and aren't even necessary to enjoy swimming! Im assuming you're not going to go out for the Olympics swimming team, so just enjoy the feeling of being weightless under water and also enjoy the unbelievable quietness...it's another world under there!
Later, if you feel like it, you can take lessons to learn the fancy strokes.

You can do this@NervousSwimmer I drowned as a toddler, so I had to overcome my fear...and I did!
I've spent zillion of hours enjoying the water...not trying to win an Olympic medal...just playing around and having fun!
The nice thing about a face mask is that you can even attach a snorkel and practically never have to come up for air. I used to swim laps at the pool nonstop for 30 minutes at a time without every coming up for air..just using the snorkel.
Good luck! You've got this!

The way I learned as child was by spending a lot of time in the water but in my depth. No pressure to swim at all. Just being used to getting wet, water in the face and the felling if the water resistance. I agree with pp. Doing aquaarobics or similar which is in the water but with no pressure to actually swim. It should be fun and distracting and should help build those swimming muscles.

Me again
@NervousSwimmer
Ive attached photos of the snorkel and face mask I started out with and then my latest that some genuis invented an all-in-one unit that is amazing!
Another nice thing about the face masks is that you can keep your eyes open at all times.

Well done for starting lessons if you have a fear of the water. Sounds as if you have taken the biggest step already. Your instructor should be able to help you with that. I am having adult lessons and the instructor suggest different things to each person, depending on their needs. With some the instructor goes from using a float to using a noodle, so the swimmer is using arms and legs but being kept up in the water. They then know that they can do the actions needed before taking the noodle away. When starting back stroke at one point i went from floating on my back with a float, to floating on my back with a float. At first you think you will sink, but by relaxing with the float and then letting it go i stayed floating for a short while. If you are in the shallow end you can always stand up. I didn't have a fear of water but felt uncomfortable going out of my depth I ended up going in the corner of the pool at the deep end and trying to push myself down so my feet were on the floor - took me three goes to get down to the floor and i bounced back up. It made me less worried because i realised it was harder to get to the bottom than i thought. Don't expect too much too soon - i had been going for a quite a while before i went to the deep end. You will get more confident the more you are in the water. We had a session treading water the other day - not sure if being able to do that would make you feel more comfortable.

If you have a phobia of water then CBT might help. You’d be looking at basically doing a graded exposure type of thing.

Or you can do what an elderly relative of mine did. She had a phobia of water but learned to swim at the age of 70 when she was on holiday because she thought the swimming instructor was so hot that she became very invested in learning

You should learn front crawl and breaststroke properly in case you need to get out of a sticky situation like a powerful current

Yes@NervousSwimmer definitely learn how to do the breaststroke and front crawl like @EtiennePalmiere has said...you never know when you might need to do them...you could use them to save someone's life, also.

You stay in the part of the pool where you can always stand up. We were members of a private gym with a pool that was only 1.2m deep the entire length of the pool. That means at any point you can stand up. Same with a standard swimming pool the shallow end is shallow enough for an adult to stand.

A positive attitude also helps so reverse your thinking instead of internally saying I can't start saying I can do this. Look around you, people are swimming why would you be different? My Mum would never go out of he depth until she was 60, she finally had swimming lessons and was like a fish after that.

Is the instructor in the pool with you rather than on the side? I think it helps if they are right there with you plus go between lessons to practise what you have learned. You can do this.