swimming pools

anytime i would go swimming, lake, pool or anywhere, i thot there were sharks and crocodiles
and thats silly cuz in lakes and especially pools (in ontario) there wouldnt possibly be sharks or any deadly animals
but i would always watch where i was going, and my brother used to always scare me and pretend to be a shark or crocodile in our pool, and i actually cried for fear that he was one!

pringlez-CAT

i used to believe that a carpool wasa car with a pool inside. Everyday i would tell my dad,"when i grow up im going to buy a carpool"

jacky

As far back as I can remember I have been afraid to be alone in a large bath tub or pool because I had this terrifing phobia that if I was alone in the bath or pool, then a shark/crocodile/snake would swim up the plug hole or out of the filter and eat me.

Jessica

My parents covered our above ground pool with black plastic every Winter. To keep us away from the pool they told us there was a monster in the pool and I believed it for years until I finally started wondering where did the monster go in the summer?

Suzanne

After watching the movie Jaws as a child I developed an increasingly irrational fear of sharks. I was convinced that sharks could survive in any bodies of water, including baths (baby sharks), spa pools (teenage sharks) and swimming pools (full-grown, eat-you-slowly-limb-by-limb sharks). To this day I don't like being in pools alone (baths ok) and swimming in the ocean terrifies me. Big Thanks to the makers of Jaws!

how to develop a phobia by watching scary movies

this happened when i was in the 5th grade in school.i happnened to be at the club with a friend and saw the notice "today is a dry day".i actually asked my friend,"why is the swimming pool closed today?".i thought they must have 'dried' out the pool due to maintenence reasons.

R-Square

I used to believe that swimming pools could only run/be built facing east-west because the water would fall out if it ran north-south. Not sure where that came from, but I know it still comes up when we are with family friends....

LJ

I used to fear the deep end of the pool when it was dark. Even though I would be swimming while it was light and knew there was nothing there. I would never go near it while it was dark and always kept an eye on it while in the shallow end.

The Jaws movies was partly to blame as well as when I was young I used to swim in a creek hole that was about four or five feet deep and could feel the frogs swimming by my feet. I think crab nipping at my toes also added to this fear.

Justynn Tyme

I used to be scared of swimming pool drains cause I used to believe that a lake monster or a shark would come out of the drain and eat me. Whenever I would swim underwater and near the pool drain, I would swim away very quickly from it or try to avoid the drain altogether. For most of my childhood, I would be afraid of the deep end because of that belief. Luckily I don't believe that anymore. :-)

Monica

When I saw signs saying "Public Footpath", "Public Swimming Pool" I thought that "Public" was the name of a private club that you had to join to use these facilities. I remember asking my parents if we were members.

Barrel O'Lard

I took my seven year old brother swimming - and thought I was being very funny by asking him if he knew what the 'no petting' sign meant. Quite cooly he said "yes, it means no shagging" Although he couldn't understand why I then started choking!

Bad Baby Sitter

when i was 6 or 7, my sister's and i were swimming at our great aunt's house. (she's the same age as my mom, so we went to her house quite often and i trusted everything she ever said) well, she told us one day to be aware of the "trail" that you get when you're older. the "trail" was when you were on your period and you weren't wearing a pad. so at the young age of 12, when i first got my period, i told my mom that i didn't want to go swimming one afternoon b/c i was afraid of the "trail". i had to explain to my rather confused mother what that was and who i had learned it from, and she gave both my aunt and me a really hard time about it!

I never left a trail...

I believed that the Kreepy Crawlie used to clean our pool, would follow me around the pool and eat me.

Mother-of-2

Our family used to watch Dr Who every Saturday and the episode about the Green Death (the one which looked like slime and would crawl over you and make you glow in the dark and then kill you) affected me for many years.

It took me years (not kidding) before I could swim over a grate on the bottom of the swimming pool without having a panic attack bc that was where the green death came from.

Ironically, I became a collegiate swimmer so I guess I got over my grate phobia at some point.

Liz

My dad told me that if I went into the pool just after eating that I would get Polio. We knew a old man that had Polio and he lost his legs ... needless to say I still wait 30 minutes after eating to go into the water.

Brian

i used to believe that sharks could somehow get into our swimming pool as babies through the 'pipes'. i believed that they could somehow lurk undetected in our pull until fully grown, when they would surge out of the shadows and attack me. (this was a result of seeing jaws as a very young kid).

erik

I used to think that a pool room was this big room full of swimming pools but I never could figure out why all the people were swimming in the dark.

Anon