Sometimes I get some really serious bouts of anxiety when I'm on a large body of water. It happened when I was on cruise last year. How do others deal with this anxiety of being surrounded by a lot of water?
Everyone, trust me, everyone who's been on a boat in their life gets this anxiety. It is perfectly normal to be scared. I suggest you learn swimming as that would boost your confidence. Good luck!
I would also suggest that you take swimming lessons. Once you learn how to swim, it greatly increases your levels of self confidence and you will start to feel less anxious and powerless over large bodies of water.
Having been over large bodies of water multiple times, I can say this is pretty common. Honestly, knowing how to swim wouldn't help me, but it may work for you. My fear comes from the idea of having to wait to be rescued, not knowing what is under the water. My fear is that if the boat goes down, I could get tired and drown, or attacked by a shark, or it could be nighttime and I freeze, or anything else scary. I think a good idea would be to stay busy. There is so much to do on a cruise, staying busy may keep your mind occupied. If I start to focus on the fact that I'm on water then I start to get anxiety. If you do start to get some anxiety, maybe a couple drinks could calm your nerves.
If you feel the anxiety while going to a cruise, one of the best ways to avoid it is to ensure that you are able to know about the emergency precautions and arrangements which the ship has and knowing these would automatically reduce the anxiety which you are having and you would be able to enjoy the cruise rather then worry about the safety. The more informed you are the lesser would be your worry as well.
As with everything else the more you expose yourself to something that makes you anxious (large bodies of water), the less anxious you will be the next time you are in a ship. Another thing you need to do is remind yourself that cruise ships actually are quite safe. A day or two on board would ease your anxiety but before then maybe you could take some meds to calm yourself?
