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Thelogic
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06 Jul 2013, 7:44 pm

When I'm in the bath I feel like I'm suffocating and if I put my head under the water I start to get flashbacks and start panicking that someone could be in the room watching me...

I start to feel on edge and just want to get out as soon as I can...

I start thinking about things in my life and things that have happened to me...

is this normal for aspies? or is it related to something else?



Fnord
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06 Jul 2013, 7:55 pm

Fear of drowning is normal for people, not specifically Aspies.



Thelogic
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06 Jul 2013, 7:57 pm

It isn't a fear of drowning...
I can swim and I've never been afraid of water itself...

It's like... I get paranoid that someone is standing by the side of the bath watching me or I feel like I'm going to pass out when I'm sitting up in the bath etc



Thelibrarian
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06 Jul 2013, 8:01 pm

I hadn't thought about it in years, but I used to hate to wash my hair and face when I was growing up. I had a crazy fear that somebody was going to get me while I had my eyes closed. On one level I knew the fear was irrational, but it still made me very uncomfortable. It was one reason I used to think I was crazy before anybody had ever heard of AS.

I quit being that way a long time ago. I'm not sure if it was going into the navy right out of high school, or if it is something I simply outgrew.

Maybe you will outgrow it too.



Thelogic
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06 Jul 2013, 8:05 pm

How young was you when you had the fear?
I'm 18 now... did you still have the fear at that point?

And I have this weird thing about anything touching my neck... I have to pull tops above my chin etc



Thelibrarian
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06 Jul 2013, 8:15 pm

Thelogic wrote:
How young was you when you had the fear?
I'm 18 now... did you still have the fear at that point?

And I have this weird thing about anything touching my neck... I have to pull tops above my chin etc


The fear was one I had for as long as I can remember, though it seemed to get worse around age thirteen, when I found myself needing to wash my hair and face more. I don't recall exactly when it went away.

Of course, it may have been the Navy. When I was in boot camp we all had to shower at the same time, and in front of each other--forty-plus of us at a time. Just to show how irrational the fear was, I actually lost it sometime when I was in the Navy (I got out when I was 22), where the likelihood of seeing my fears realized was actually much greater.

Good luck.



redrobin62
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06 Jul 2013, 9:02 pm

Occasionally, I'd wake up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, look out to the living room, and panic a little from the man-sized silhouettes drawn by the moonlight. I guess that's paranoia. Creeps me out, though.