Now I love the out doors, but recently I have been presented with several problems facing me and my journeys through out the Southern Oregon Wilderness. First of all there is poison oak everywhere, now if that evil and rampant plant could be harvested as a resource for any purpose, then this area would be rich for it. It is everywhere and in massive quantities! I can only really see one possibility, perhaps we could use it as some sort of weapon, just send any opposing armies bouquets of the horrible stuff, and they would be so itchy I am sure surrender would be inevitable! I did not intend to add that ranty bit, but I am still quite a bit bitter about my last encounter with that specific evil. To get back to the subject problem number two is that although I find the lakes and their settings beautiful, I have an irrational fear of dark deep water. I say irrational because I believe I have a very logical brain. I try to see all the logical angles of any argument and I am a methodical problem solver by nature. I understand fear is an emotional response that is meant to protect us from danger, fear is what motivates our fight or flight instincts to get ourselves out of the danger zone. How ever irrational fear is something else entirely. Once I am in the dark water of a lake and have no idea where the bottom is in relevance to myself I start to have this very panicy feeling and the floodgates of my imagination burst filling my logical brain with ludicrous theories of dead bodies and large underwater dwelling creatures who have a taste for swimming legs. My brother once said to me "Why does the thought of dead bodies in the lake bother you? They are dead, what are they going to do to you?" The logic of this floored me for a second and I thought , wow he is right! Then the moment of reason was over and I am still terrified of the thought. No matter how I have tried to talk myself down from this, I cant bear it and I swim for the shore as fast as my flailing doggy paddleing skills will take me there. I have no base for this fear, that I know of, other than maybe I watch too much T.V. I have never seen a dead body in the lake, not once, I also have never been chomped on by underwater monsters other than maybe a few trout nibbles. Also in a lake full of people, why would I be the one that would get munched? I have also never seen a lake monster or met or heard any credible stories of someone being lake monster food. So there is no reason for my fear, and I can tell myself that as many times as I want to, it doesn't ever seem to help.
I always use the term irrational fear because phobia seems like some kind of mental diagnosis to me and I don't feel like I live my life incapacitated in any way. I would however like to not have that choking fear feeling because going to the lake with the family is a very common fun thing to do in the summer. So I did some research oh how irrational fear forms and I found a few tips on how to treat your phobia. Now I cant remember an event in my childhood that would trigger this learned fear, and as I stated earlier I have had no current traumatic experiences either. However just because I cant trace the origin of this fear does not mean I have to live with it. I am going to give these tips a try, and if you have some fears that you could do with out you should as well!
#1. Face your Fear one step at a time. This sounds easy enough, avoidance wont eliminate the problem. perhaps familiarity with the lake and water will help me to feel less anxiety. I have heard it said before that people fear most that which they don't know. And to be honest, I don't know with out a doubt that there are no dead bodies in the lake, but if there is why is it so darn scary?
#2. Learn Some relaxation techniques. This is a good one! I have never been scared and relaxed at the same time, so this must work. Deep breathing and self affirmations are probably a great start.
#3. Challenge negative thoughts. Ok this seems like a good idea and one I haven't actually tried before. I challenge the validity of most things. Things I hear in the news, random nonsensical conspiracy theories, the weather prediction on my phone, my relation to certain pea-brained siblings (just kidding you know i love you guys!). So why not challenge a negative thought as it is about to envelope me in panic?
For more information about these tips and to learn about phobias and fear, there is a ton of stuff out there but I got my info from this site, check it out its pretty helpful. http://www.helpguide.org/mental/phobia_symptoms_types_treatment.htm
So my solution to conquering the Southern Oregon wilderness in all of its beauty has been a strict after hiking de-contamination protocol, and to buy a lovingly used, ugly canoe! I may not be able to get rid of my fear, but I can find ways around it!! Roy and I took the Canoe out on the lake on Friday for the first time. We chose Howard Prairie Lake, terrible Idea!!! Neither one of us had been there and it turns out there is enough wind there for it to be a regular area for sailing, not to mention it was huge!!! So we manage to get the canoe off of the jeep together, and get it put in to the lake. As we were navigating and rowing out of the marina dodging giant sail boats, I had a moment of panic. I thought "OMG what if I hate canoeing!" I turned to Roy and said, "this is kind of scary"
After a bit of gentle re-assuring I was calmed down and in paddle mode. As it turns out having a little bit of canoe between me and the lake does help quite a bit. So this is my first step in facing my deep dark lake fear. Next Time I go out I will work more on the relaxation and affirmetions and challenging my negative thoughts!
