Most people have a fear of the unknown, even if it’s hidden deep inside of them masquerading as something else. The specific fears that we all face- spiders, heights, small spaces- tend to come from the fear of not knowing what will happen when these fears are faced. What happens when a spider bites me? What if I fall? What if I’m crushed? It’s absolutely mind-boggling, and my anxiety over the unknown has plagued my life since I was a child.

As a Pisces, most people find my aversion to open water- or water of any kind, to be frank- ironic and out of place. So many people have tried to ‘cure’ this fear and teach me how to swim, but they just can’t seem to grasp that I don’t trust the current. The waves. The water molecules to hold me afloat. You all tell me I’m overweight, so how am I supposed to trust that the water won’t break its back trying to hold me up? Explain to me that. (Or just admit to your fat-phobia, while we’re at it)

Images of my mother attempting to rescue me from a swimming pool when I was a toddler break through my mind often, my head thrust under the water repeatedly as she panicked and tried to swim with me under her arm. Dunking me. Taking my breath. Drowning me. Saving me? Now just the sight of the open water of a lake, pond, or ocean strikes deep into my core and when I watch people wade out to splash into the waves I panic- who’s there to save them? I can’t save them. I can’t swim, I can’t save them. I can’t. If the pool water goes up past my chin, I won’t go in it. The feeling of cold water pouring over my neck and back in the shower is enough to paralyze every single one of my limbs until my lips turn blue and my fingertips can barely turn the knob to stop the flow. I won’t let my niece or nephews go near bodies of water unless someone who knows how to swim is also there. What would happen if they started to struggle and needed my help? Would adrenaline kick in? Could I do it, could I save them?

When emerged under water it’s almost like there are voices whispering in my ears, sometimes sea monsters and sometimes mermaids. They tell me I’ll drown and I’ll never be like them; I’ll be a corpse instead, not invited to their underwater kingdom. Their long blue hair wraps around my waist and pulls me under while a siren song wails in my ears at a pitch a human could never decipher. I can never decipher. Whispers above ground are just as grating, the harsh breaths scraping against my eardrums until tears fill my eyes and my anger peaks. I need to know what they’re talking about. I need to know what happened. The sounds of a whispers are deafening and they make themselves known over the sounds of everything else in the room. No matter how loud a day at work is, I can hear my manager or my coworkers or even two random guests whispering and chattering above the noise, the words inaudible but the tension palpable. So many people have whispered around me, not letting me hear the details of my own life; the doctors after my grandmother died, the social workers after my father was arrested, my aunt and uncle when they decided to let me stay with them. When do I finally get to know? Why does everyone keep these secrets?

I can’t figure out how to help if no one tells me anything, but people keep things to themselves for a reason. That’s what they say, at least, but they’re covering up one of the biggest truths I’ve ever come to realize: they don’t think you, or I, can handle it. When people withhold information from you they think it’ll hurt your feelings, that it will cause more harm than good, not realizing that finding out from someone else hurts even worse. Not realizing that the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘maybes’ that play over and over again in my mind are probably one-thousand times worse than the facts they’re whispering in each other’s ears. I drown in the voices sometimes, my anxiety taking over and my throat closing up. My body rocks back and forth in the tide and lets the current take me but the thing is my mind still knows that I can’t trust the water, so I fight a silent battle that no one seems to want to see.

We’re all drowning every day, each skin cell on our bodies flaking away and the organs slowly, slowly shutting down. Maybe our bodies won’t be the ones to betray us; maybe the sun will collide with the earth, a meteor will make us out to be dinosaurs, or our best friends will hold the shotgun to our spines. No one completely understands someone else, but in times like today we need to raise our voices even more and show each other those battles that are hard to watch. We need to jump in the water. Listen to the hushed voices. Take a dive and survive together. It’s the only way to beat the unknown.