The Kraken Attacks
1
A seven year old girl stands on the edge of a swimming pool. She’s shivering from the cold, confused by the amplified noise and screams of other children around her, and she stares dubiously at the big, deep pool in front of her.
She’s very small. It looks very, very big and very, very deep.
An adult screams at her to hurry. The other kids in the line before her have already jumped. The rest of the class is waiting, pushing, laughing, shouting.
She has never been in the big pool before. She hesitates. She is a slow, shy, prudent little girl, usually lost in her dreams, and the stern reality of the pool is like an abyss for her.
As she is looking at it, still hesitating, she’s pushed.
There is the shock of the hitting water and the cold, the pain of the chlorine in her eyes and nose and then, a primal fear gripping her entire body as the tentacles of the Kraken pull her into increasing darkness and silence.
And then, back in the harsh light, a sharp pain, the burning of the chlorine water coming out of her, the cold rough tiles under her body, the noise, and the anger of the adults.
“Why didn’t you catch the pole?”
Why indeed?
Now the Kraken is in every drop of water, and the little girl even screams of terror when her hair is washed and water gets into her face.
Adults are angry again. She’s stupid to be scared. Other kids love the water. Her brothers and sisters love the water. They go swimming in the sea, they go on sailboats during their vacations, and she’ll never be able to do that, because she’s scared and stupid.
She still has to go to the swimming pool with her class.
A teacher takes pity on the miserable, scared little girl and spends some time with her. With just some patience and attention from him, the Kraken is pushed back a little. Just a little. The little girl can now put her head in the water, and float on her stomach, without feeling the tentacles, as long as she knows she can stand on her own two feet and breathe at any time.
2
A ten year old girl plays on the beach. It’s on France’s west coast, where big rolling waves crash on golden sand. Nobody pays attention to her. She doesn’t mind. She likes playing in the waves. She likes the way their music covers the noise of people shouting all around. She’s in her own dream world, as usual. She loves jumping into the waves, and feeling their powerful pulling and pushing. She’s careful not to go too far, but a bigger wave surprises her and sweeps her off her feet.
As soon as her feet leave the ground, the Kraken grips her. Strong salty water whips her and stings her nose and eyes as the wave tumbles her and rolls her around, and finally spits her out back on the sand, where a little trembling girl crawls to safer, drier sand and coughs seawater.
Nobody has noticed. At least, she thinks, nobody was angry with me that time.
She still plays in the waves, but the Kraken looms very close.
3
A 14 years old teenager is forced to go to the swimming pool. She hates it. She has other reasons to hate it now, besides the Kraken. She hates her body. She worries about her bathing suit not looking good. She worries about hair in some places being visible. She worries about that time of the month. She worries about looking stupid because she is very short sighted and cannot see people or things without her glasses.
She is ashamed, so ashamed of the Kraken. She’s very careful not to go too deep, and she tries to avoid the roughhousing of her playmates as much as she can.
One of them playfully holds her head under the water.
Here comes the Kraken, look! It already had one or two tentacles firmly wrapped around her, and now it’s bringing her back into darkness and silence, once again.
Maybe adults are angry again, they usually are, I don’t remember. But this time it’s mostly she herself who is ashamed and angry. She is, after all, rightfully mocked for being a weakling, a coward, scared of something that everybody else enjoys.
4
A 35 year-old woman stands in a swimming pool. That time, of her own volition! She has signed up for semi-private classes for people like her, with a water phobia: she is facing the Kraken.
It took her a long time. She wanted to, but kept procrastinating it – after all, as long as you avoid the water like the plague, the Kraken is not really a threat!
She is an adult now. And something else has changed: she’s not short-sighted anymore (thanks, Lasik!!). The shame is still there, of course, but it is an adult shame, now, one she can reason with and understand.
She is scared. She’s not even in the water and she can already sense the tentacles closing up on her. The Kraken is right there. So are the cold, the chlorine smell, and the rough slippery tiles.
A lady welcomes her and tells her “come into the water, we’ll be more comfortable to talk”, and her breathing short, her hand clenching the rail, the woman puts one foot into the water.
Surprise! It’s very warm!
The goal, says the lady, is for her to feel comfortable in the water. Warm water is ideal for that.
Then the lady explains very basic things: how to go from floating on your belly to standing up easily for exemple. How to look under the water. We wear a diving mask that covers the nose, and for the first time the woman can float and look around her.
For the second lesson, we go on our back.
Fighting the Kraken
I still remember that moment. I’ll remember it all my life. That sensation of going through the fear and falling into it, that unbelievable victory over the Kraken, the panic, the pride, and by the end of the next lesson, the ease with which I could do it… that was nothing short of a miracle.
That was one victory among many. The first was, I guess, when I signed up for the class!
Now, everytime I’m afraid of doing something – and that’s basically anytime I’m doing something – I think of this moment, and hold it like a talisman.
If I was able to do a trust fall in the tentacled lap of the Kraken, then I’m able to do anything!
Of course, it doesn’t mean the Kraken had magically disappeared.
The hard truth is, you do not “get over” something like the Kraken. You just push it back. If you don’t push it back consistently – for exemple, if you stop going to the swimming pool for a few weeks – then the Kraken advances again. It’s a constant fight. Constant, very slow and very difficult. The Kraken is still with me in the pool today, and I still feel his tentacles from time to time.
It is, overall, an overwhelming victory for me. Genuinely the thing I’m most proud of in my life. If you have a phobia of water, there is hope! You can still find the joy and freedom of dancing in that wonderful element!
Though, before you try it, or tell your traumatized friend “see she did it it’s easy”, I have to tell you a few things:
- It’s anything but easy. On my journey, I saw a lot of people with their own Kraken who gave up.
- Progress is unbearably slow. That may just be me of course, because I can only go through my fear bit by bit, some people can take much bigger steps at a time. My swimming is getting better, but incredibly slowly. Also, progress is absolutely not linear and that can be frustrating. (especially regressions, those hurt badly.)
Another frustrating detail: people who do not have a phobia or apprehension of water do not understand it and you should not listen to their well-meaning advice, but only to yourself!! Support is very appreciated and extremely welcome, but only you know what you are comfortable with. It did teach me a very good lesson about understanding and listening to other people’s fears and phobias! - I’m highly privileged. I have the time and resources necessary to take classes after classes.
- Last, but not least: I’m awfully stubborn.
Ah, you didn’t know that about me because I’m a sweet creature who wouldn’t hurt a fly, did you?
Well…. You can be both!
How stubborn am I?
Once, I was camping on a farm, and there was a very small goat who wanted to eat our dishrag more than anything else in the world. She would headbutt your knee with her little horns and bleat and come back again and again. She would run across the field as soon as you got it out and attack you. She would grab at it and pull with all her might. She would go through our stuff to find it when we were away. She had already eaten a sponge and half a sock, and we didn’t think it safe to let her have her way, so we had to fight that little goat the whole time we were camping here. She was relentless in her single-minded pursuit. She wanted to eat that smelly, disgusting dishrag and nothing would stop her.
That’s how stubborn I am. I’ll headbutt a giant terrifying Kraken and eat his socks and bleat at him relentlessly.
Not everybody is like that (believe me, it’s rather good news!!)
Victory!
So now, where am I? And what’s next?
I’m still battling my Kraken. I take swimming lessons, and I’m now at an intermediate level. I’m more comfortable when wearing flippers, I’m still more likely to choose to be close to the edge to be able to grab it at a moment’s notice, but I can swim in the middle if needed (though it’s still scary).
My backstroke is rather good, my front stroke is not bad as long as I don’t need to breathe, my breaststroke is okay when I remember to breathe only when my head is out of the water (I don’t like breaststroke anyway!).
I still need to have my nose covered by my mask. Water in the nose makes me instantly panic. But when I think of that woman, 5 years ago, paralysed from fear just to be standing next to a pool… I’m telling you, it’s a miracle!!!
What about that medal?
I decided to do the Conqueror Challenge of the Crossing of the Channel, just by swimming, to make sure I didn’t give up my swimming lesson. It took me 8 to 9 months to complete, but I did it!
What’s my goal?
Short term really, my goal is just to swim better… so I’ll keep at it and progress slowly like the water snail I am (hopefully not like a sea cucumber!!). Then maybe in a few years I’ll be able to swim more, and I could maybe think of completing a triathlon!!
For that I would need to improve considerably how I ride a bike, though!! 😀