Are You Attracted to Water?

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Very. They had to keep a fence around our pool when we had one. I mean like even when I got in my teens.

I can take or leave water. I've left it for the last seven or so years.

I enjoy being in water. You can flop around like a jellyfish, and I was pretty good at swimming.

But getting in and out of the pool was a major hassle. You need to get in and out of the swimming costumes, and dry yourself, and I don't think I like swimming enough to justify it. And you don't really get anywhere swimming, you're just stuck in a pool. If I lived in a city with clean canals going everywhere, and a lax attitude towards partial nudity, I'd swim everywhere like a shot. My eyesight continually deteriorates, and I can't wear my glasses or contact lenses when swimming. Unless I can find some prescription goggles or get lazer-eye-surgery, I won't be swimming anytime soon.

I don't regret learning how to swim - it could save my life if a boat trip goes askew.

Here's something funny funny said about autistics and water.

I have a very strong connection with water, ever since I was a little girl. I love water, in all of its forms.

I don't know if this fit into liking water in general or not. But I do love the sport of free diving. I started doing it when I was 8 years old and was doing 3 minute breath holds and diving down to 50 feet. I was doing this up until I was 16 when we sold are house by the lake. I haven't done it again in over 20 years and now that I've learned about my aspergers and the need for pressure on the body. I've gotten back into it again and have been doing for the last 2 years now. When I first started doing it again. I could barely hold my breath for more then 30 seconds. Now I can do 4 minutes hold. swam 75 meters underwater and just this last summer, I dove 62 feet to the bottom of the river.

So do autistics and water go hand and hand? I am not really an expert on that one. But I will tell you this. free diving is the closes thing you can get to flying without pixiedust or a jetpack, and the pressure you feel on your body when you dive deep feels sooo good.

When I dived, or when I was swimming in a race - everything else fell away, my focus was totally in the moment, and nothing else mattered nor intruded. All the cares and hurts ceased to exist. There was just me and the water and the moment of being totally in the present moment, where nothing else mattered. How special that was. One day I was scuba diving for shell fish and a huge - I mean huge - ray swam directly above me over my head - what a magical sight! I can't do these things now, though the memories of such moments are as fresh and clear as the moment they happened. I also had an encounter with a great white shark, which circled and began to try and tip the small 14' wooden boat I was in - (we had an outboard motor and took off at a great rate, that's for sure!) - but what a moment, to see a creature like that, so close up!

Somewhere deep inside our brains is a lizard brain.
Somewhere deep inside the lizard brain is a fish brain.

So, we like laying in the sun and swimming. Makes perfect sense.

The animals in the ocean are a bonus on top of the experience of being immersed in water.

- I've played with a curious octopus who had settled in a broken vase amongst the sea grass
- Sailed and windsurfed with dolphins – just recently fell off my windsurfer and found myself in the middle of a pod of dolphins. They must have surfed under my board. I got back on the board and we raced together for a couple of minutes.
- Snorkeled, turned around and was looking at a manta ray just a meter away
- Dived through huge schools of fish and watched in amazement at the fish highways developing in a coral reef at certain times of day
- A circling school of barracudas in front of a drop off is another unforgettable moment
- Beyond sharks, orcas make for an impressive sight. On one occasion my windsurfer was going one way, and a 1.5 meter dorsal fin was passing in the opposite direction. I certainly made sure I was not on a collision course.
- I could watch rays and turtles fly by all day
- ...

What I find depressing is the extent to which many marine ecosystems have degraded over the last four decades. I don't dare to check out recent Youtube clips from some of the places that used to be underwater miracles. For most people it seems that everything below the surface of the ocean is out of sight, out of mind.

I adore water, and sometimes I have to play with it.