If I had a prior life, I definitely died at the hands (fins?) of a shark. This wasn’t a calm nip and slow exsanguination in warm, tropical waters. This was hard-core, shark-leaping-out-of-the-water, National Geographic-type attack. Epic. There’s no other explanation for my deeply subconscious deeply irrational fear of sharks.
When I was nine, my swim team occasionally practiced at the local high school. I was convinced this pool was home to a shark.
“But Helena,” you say, smugly, from your perch in the future wherein you know for certain that I did not die in a freak shark-related incident in a west Texan pool, “wouldn’t the pool water be clear? Wouldn’t you be able to see a shark?”
Yes, the pool water was clear. No matter. This shark was a ghost. An invisible ghost. I swam my face off to avoid him, all the while knowing that it was futile. Sharks had millennia of evolution on their side – they were designed to cut through the water and kill me. When it was time, it was time.
By eleven, I’d developed a reverse-psychology-esque defense mechanism. I started telling everyone that I was planning on becoming a marine biologist and sprouting pro-shark propaganda.
Did you know that more people are killed annual by bumblebees than sharks?
I wouldn’t get much closer to studying marine biology than a trip to the San Antonio Sea World.
I’m not sure where this fear devolved into a full blown phobia. I don’t swim anymore. I can’t submerge my head in water without my heart rate increasing notably. Yep, I’m kind of a nutcase.
Fear of ocean water doesn’t much impact my life in Chicago, so I’ve made no real effort to overcome it. It’s become another of my charming personal quirks. I’m not much of a beach person anyway.
For me, it was an orca whale. Otherwise, same exact story. You never know what hidden corners of the pool those beasts could be hiding in.
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Orcas are pretty evil, too.
I was also convinced as a kid that a great white shark was going to get me, but growing up three miles from the Pacific it seemed feasible and I just figured they would get in the sewer or something and end up in a pool!
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So… your fear was a lot more rational
My rat phobia is less rational…they run away from big scary humans. Even less rational is Jason’s centipede phobia. He sees one, he screams in falsetto and I laugh before smushing it. Fear be damned! But sharks, man. They can f@$ you up.
Rats are pretty gross, though…
My fear has always been storms, the kind with loud thunder and blinding lightning.
A lot of people, including the bf, like storms. Not me. Hate them! “Storms are dangerous!” I say, “They destroy things and KILL people!”
The response: “But they look cool.”
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My mother is a storm-person. We’d have CRAZY electrical storms in Texas and she’d shut off all the lights and gather us in the living room to watch.