Has 5 years of cold water dipping liberated me from my fears?

Post contains casual nudity

For a long time, I had a passing curiosity about cold-water swimming, perhaps driven by the egotistical notion of getting good photos rather than enjoying a five-minute break from anxiety. I remember seeing photos by Lomokev on Flickr back in the late 2000s. Great photos, but at no point was I interested in getting in. 

Growing up I had no real connection with the water. We lived about a 20-minute drive from the beach and rarely went. I have memories of going to beaches around North Wales as a kid, but not of swimming. It wasn’t something I did. We had lessons at school but I struggled and the teachers became frustrated at my inability to comprehend how to swim. Kick your legs and move your arms. Simple, right? My undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder was the issue. I was overwhelmed by the noise of the pool. Those spaces always sound weird, and I found it disturbing. There’s the smell of chlorine and the shock of the water temperature too. Add into that mix chaotic school kids not being kind and a healthy fear of drowning or being attacked by “something” in the water due to watching Jaws. I did not enjoy failing to learn how to swim, and so my connection to the water was broken. 

Many failures and setbacks in my childhood are probably down to being unknowingly Autistic and lacking support. I was bad at sports because all school sports were based on hand-eye coordination. I could not catch a ball, but I could outrun everyone on the team. So I was bad at sports, and the school was bad at providing sports I was good at. This led me to be 30 years old and 23 stone, or 0.1460567431 metric tonnes. Being fit and adventurous was not my thing. Why go outside and face strangers calling you fat when you could stay at home with video games and the internet? Well, I met someone.

I met someone who saw more in me than I did and they gave me confidence to try new things. She inspired me to take up running and when I realised I could run, I wondered how far. So I ran a marathon. She inspired me to take up swimming and when I realised I could swim, I asked how far. So I pushed myself. Once I realised I could do something, I got into it. All it took was the right level of support, which I had never had before. She believed in me before I did, giving me the confidence to do things I never thought I could. My connection to the water had been restored thanks to my wife Sam. 

In December 2019, while my wife and I were in Amsterdam, I saw a postcard and it struck a chord with me. There was a naked man happily running towards the sea. The text said, “Liberate yourself from your worst fears.” I saw that and thought “If only I could be that confident.” Imagine what I could do if I could liberate myself from my worst fears. While I was now a person who had started to believe in myself, I wasn’t the sort of person to strip naked and run into the sea due to anxiety and overthinking.

My anxious brain defaults to “No.” “You can’t just go and run a 5k.” “You can’t just climb Mount Eryri in the dark.” “You can’t swim naked in the lakes of North Wales.” You can. You can do all these things. The world doesn’t end. Whenever that voice is saying “No”, push it aside and listen to the curious voice, that wants to know more. Follow that curiosity. Even if you keep hearing “No”, stay curious. What if a good outcome, instead of a bad one?

A few days after we returned home from that trip I saw two women casually walk into the cold industrial River Mersey in summer swim clothes, and swim off. It was January and people were doing the postcard thing on my doorstep. I wanted to try. Someone on Twitter (not yet X) put me in contact with a group and I went for my first chilly dip. The experience led me to go again, and again and again. Thanks to the support of the local swimming community I gained some confidence and became one of those annoying people who only ever talks about cold water swimming. 

I could not have become this version of myself without the support of my wife and the wonderful local swimming community here. They created a safe space for people to find themselves. At no point has anyone told me to stop wearing makeup, or wear manly shorts in a manly way rather than being my authentic non-binary self. Thanks folks.

And so, after 5 years of cold water dipping, what have I learned?

• I can do things most others can’t
• I can do things, actual things
• I can occasionally wear a thong to the beach
• I can make friends
• But I still struggle to chat to people
• I’m far less worried about how I look
• Everything takes time. Go at your own pace.
• Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you can.
• Affirmations are easy to write.
• I can now splash about in the waves in the dark
• I prefer cold water dipping to summer swims
• I can dip in a hail storm or 65 mph wind and rain
• Some people actually do wear Dryrobes for swimming rather than shopping
• I’m OK with how my bum looks

Has the past five years liberated my fears? This is what I wrote about 4 years ago when the Maritime Museum asked me to write about open water swimming. 

You’ll read a lot of articles about how open-water swimming has healed/cured/fixed/saved someone. For me it hasn’t done anything like that. I fight my anxiety and depression every day. I fight my body issues every day. I struggle to find confidence in my ability to be someone able to function, every day. I’m not cured. It does give me a reminder that I am capable of being more than what my anxious depressed brain tries to make me believe I am. Every swim I do is a battle that I overcome and I do it in front of an audience without fear. It makes me wonder what else I can do if I put my mind to it. 

Since then I’ve been photographed and interviewed for the Guardian and started 2024 by running into the sea in a thong. While my fears are not liberated, they are becoming easier to overpower. Easier, but not easy. By constantly doing this silly activity I’m reminding myself of what I can do. That belief permeates into every part of my life, not just swimming and as my Yearly Theme for 2025 says “Keep pushing.” I have wild ideas of skinny dipping on a full moon, of being a life model, or even being photographed naked by various photographers to continue to face these fears. My brain says I can’t, but maybe I can. Interestingly, the past few dips I’ve done have been anxiety-free. Slowly, with love and support, progress. I will, of course, eat these words come jellyfish season. Nope!