Disgust by water

[Sammy]

I have a problem concerning water. I basically don't like it. By that I don't mean I hate taking showers, in fact I love them and baths too, what I mean is I don't like rivers, lakes, the sea, even pools. I haven't gone swimming for about 6 years now. The mere thought of dipping my hand in a lake makes me squirm.

The ironic part is when I was camping with the scouts, we had to gather water from a nearby lake. We didn't need a lot of it so we were using plastic water bottles. Frankly I had a feeling like I was going to throw up, because to fill the bottle you had to submerge it completely meaning my hand had to touch the water. All I kept saying in my head was don't faint over and over again. I was scared and I don't know of what. I was so disgusted by the fact that my hand touched the lake water I kept the hand away from my body the whole trip back to camp (which was about 10 minutes away). When we got back the first thing I did was wash my hand which is in my opinion pretty ironic. The lake water was crystal clean but still I felt the need to wash the invisible dirt from my hands.

I love the sight of water, but I admire it from afar. If I get to close I get the urge to back away unless I mentally prepared myself to get closer. I'm not saying that I freak out every time I'm near a large body of water, I just don't feel comfortable. I tend to not show fear around people so I just pretend that I don't like the water because it's full of germs or polluted or in the case of pools, people pee in them.

Some people don't know about this...well only 2 people know this, my best friend and the scoutmaster. I don't want to tell some people because either I'm ashamed, I know they'd make fun of me or they could use it against me.

Some friends from scouts made fun of me that I'm a man because I didn't want to go swimming with them so they thought that I don't want to dress into my swimming suit because then they could "see" that I'm not a woman (which I am), the other thing being I'm light skinned and I sunburn easily, literally, 20 minutes in the sun and I'm already red. I could tell them they're wrong and make them stop but it's easier to deny a roomer that you know is a lie than to tell the truth and be pitied. I don't like sympathy. The rumor didn't hurt me at all so I didn't see a point in proving them wrong.

The only thing that bothers me is the fact I don't know why I dislike water so much. Could it be something from the past like a traumatic experience that I buried in my subconsciousness or something else?

[AutumnMaidens]

This could very well be because of a traumatic experience you had in a past life. Did nothing happen in this life? It sounds to me like you have a phobia for the germs in the water rather than water itself. I have this too, I can't go to the beach or swim in lakes, any water that doesn't come from the tap makes me nervous.
Do you feel nervous on boats? I don't anymore and I can now walk barefoot on the beach and not jump away everytime water comes near me.

For me I think it might have to do with my past life also because nothing particulair traumatic happened in this life that would explain it.

[Kei Kawazu]

maybe its like an extension of germophobia.

[Sammy]

Could be Autumn, at first I thought it was just a phobia of water but now that you mention it, it could a fear of germs, nothing traumatic happened to me in this life that is related to water, at least not that I know of, but there is a lot of my childhood that I don't remember. And my parents seem oblivious to my phobia so they sure don't know, I just avoid the water so they don't really know I don't like water.
I don't feel anxious on boats, I've spent a total of about 48 hours on one for a pre-graduation trip to Greece and didn't panic at all, I just had a "I don't care" attitude.

Perhaps Kei, I'll have to check into it further and thank you both