Coming clean. About drains.
I’ve written a few posts on here about one of my worst fears. Paralyzing. Terrifying. Totally crippling.
Also incredibly dumb.
We have this lovely, huge garden tub in the master bath. You’ve seen it in my belly pics on here. It has whirlpool jets and a dispenser for bubble bath – it’s next to an iced window. It’s perfect. I look at it every day.
In total fear.
It has a drain. And I can’t get in it because of that.
Yeah. :/
Now, the shower has a drain. But I can avoid it (and I do) and it’s not underwater. There is something about drains and being underwater that just, omg, getting chills just writing about it. I have had this fear since I was a little girl. I used to have my mom place cups upside down on the tub drain so I could get in. I can’t go near those flappy drain things on the sides of a pool.
One summer at 18 I got the bright idea of being a lifeguard at the local pool –
::let’s all stop to giggle here::
and practiced in a pool where the drain was far on the other side. I didn’t have to see it or go near it. But the one I was supposed to qualify in? I jumped in, started swimming, glanced down, and saw 3 HUGE GRATE DRAINS ON THE BOTTOM LIKE 15 FEET AWAY.
And I literally screamed and jumped out of the pool.
It makes me sad to have such a horrible fear of something so – inhuman? It’s just there. A piece of metal with holes.
I long for the day I can get in the tub and soak – fear free. Where my toes can brush against the drain without me totally losing it and having to get out. Where I can get in a pool and not have to scout out each drain first and then spend the whole time avoiding them. Where reaching my hand in to the sink to unplug it doesn’t cause me to seize up.
But I have no idea how to do it.
Is anyone else deathly afraid of something like this? Has anyone gotten over it?
10 Comments
Ruby
March 10, 2012 at 12:59 am
Hypnotherapy! I had one session w/ a hypnotherapist for my wasp phobia & it reduced it to manageable proportions, and I had great help from a hypnotherapist when I was 17 & suffering from an ED. Have you tried hypnobabies for the pregnancy/twins anxiety? Hehe, as you can tell – I’d say try hypnotherapy!
Jocelyn
March 9, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Oh my goodness, I HATE drains also! I’ve never known of someone else with this fear. I can’t enjoy taking a bath, because I am focused the whole time on not letting my feet touch the drain. When I 39 weeks pregnant, I got my birthing tub ready so I could practice labor positions, and that was the first time I really enjoyed a hot bath – because the tub had no drain :).
Laura
March 9, 2012 at 6:44 pm
I just happened to stumble upon your blog this evening from Pioneer Woman Cooks and oh my goodness. I never, ever thought I would meet anyone who shares this phobia with me. I experience the exact same feelings towards the flappy things in pools, the grates at the bottom (oh holy mother…) and anything related. Reading your post gives me shivers! Everyone mocks me for this phobia too! Haha. So nice to know I’m not alone in it though!!
Allison
March 9, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I used to be scared of needles – like for vaccines. Terrified to the point that it took five nurses to hold me down for necessary vaccines. I’d get fillings w/o Novocain. I had this fear that the needles would somehow break off or would get my bone. But I really wanted to donate blood. It was really important to me. So I just did it. The blood bank was fairly crowded and I would look insane if I flipped out, so I sucked it all in, told myself I’m an adult, and did it. Ever since then, I’ve been fine. Still scared, but no more so than the next person – nobody likes needles. My advice is to just jump in – just keep in touch with your logical side and do it. It’ll be easier and easier each time. And let me tell you – whirlpool soaks are so fabulous when pregnant.
Stacey
March 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
so im kinda scared of drains too. but cause they are gross. all the hair and ick that goes down them. im getting sick thinking about it. i have hubs clean the tops of the drains in the sink for me. what im extremely paralyzing afraid of though is anything dead. bugs, pets, funerals. Its bad. I know. and its not a fear of “death”. its afraid of cold. stiff. non-moving. okay gotta stop. my heart is racing and im already shaking 🙁
Alyssa
March 9, 2012 at 10:04 am
Absolutely no judgement, just curious, but did something happen to make you so afraid?
Diana
March 9, 2012 at 3:09 pm
All I can think of is when I was like in first grade, I watched Ghostbusters and something came out of the drain. Then growing up there were all those pool warnings on the news – the ones where they used the doll to show how you could get stuck to a drain and your insides ripped out. Pretty sure that did me in permanently. :/
Kendra
March 9, 2012 at 9:48 am
Throat cultures. I. Hate. Them. I have always been afraid of them. As a kid they would make me sit on my hands and the nurse would practically have me in a head lock. The annoying thing was, I NEVER had strep! Not until I was in my twenties. All those torturous throat cultures for no good reason. Want to know the saddest part? When I had to go to the doctor last summer with a sore throat I begged them to not give me a throat culture. I’m 30.
Anne-Marie
March 9, 2012 at 9:47 am
My friend is afraid of crickets, to the point where, when she saw one in my mom’s house in Arizona, she screamed and jumped up onto the island in the kitchen. I’d never even seen her jump that high. When I picked it up to put it outside, I thought she was going to pass out from hyperventilating/crying.
Caitlin MidAtlantic
March 9, 2012 at 9:34 am
I am terrified of bones. Can’t clean a chicken fear of bones. Have never eaten BBQ ribs fear of bones. I am about to be the mom of two – surely one of them will break something at some point. And at that point? I will stop functioning entirely.
I have a friend who is absolutely terrified of buttons. You know the little round things that hold your pants up? Yeah. She wear a lot of draw-string.
Comments are closed.