I tried (even though I didn't want to). My parents sent me to classes, I was in the "special group" during gym class for swimming, and now my wife tries to teach me everytime we find ourselves at a pool. I just hate it and it freaks me out and I can't even dunk my head for a second or stick it under the shower head. Water gets in my ears/nose/mouth/eyes and then my mouth instinctively opens and makes it worse. Just don't think it was meant to be.
Edit: my heart is racing and I'm all freaked out just thinking about it now.
I know those feels, man. *Hugs.*
Here's a post I recently wrote on the subject of my experience trying to learn in gym class:
Wish I lived in one of those spots. In my school, there was a swimming portion to our P.E. class in high school... and I absolutely hated it and still can't swim worth a damn at all because I'm hydrophobic. My plan? Just not to go into any large bodies of water since well... I cant swim and have no real desire to be anywhere close to them. Swimming is hardly an essential life skill and bar unusual circumstances can be easily avoided in most situations by just... not going near large bodies of hell and I would appreciate it it weren't a requirement even in the schools it is to actually acknowledge that fact and so people like me who just suffer from a subtype of specific phobia aren't treated fucking terrible and made to feel awesome and worthless and terrible for surprise, surprise, not being able to get past a psychological problem at the drop of a hat like it's nothing just because of some fucking stupid school requirement that doesn't acknowledge that fact at all. [/rant]
Sorry about really getting carried away there at the end. Really, really, sorry. As you can tell though this is a rather tender area from me and I just really don't like it because not everyone can learn something like that so easily and when something like this is coming and you know it won't be something you can conquer so you put off taking P.E. as long as you can to avoid it as long as possible and when you're forced to take it anyway and then see everyone else in your class swimming absolutely no problem at all and doing all kinds of laps without any effort or anything, whereas you struggle each and every time to even get anywhere close to the deep end and have your instructor just be utterly baffled by you like you're not even trying at all and like it's something you can just will yourself past, and just having to suffer through that for an entire semester... it just doesn't exactly do wonders for your confidence or self-image at all, seeing that week after week, time and time again, and you can't help but be terribly hard on yourself for something that you have no control over to begin with and shouldn't have to feel ashamed or terrible about in the first place, but you can't help but do so anyway because it's just a "basic ass thing" apparently and even your own hydrophobia starts to feel fake to you and something you should be able to just get past even when you know that's not true and not how it works at all and it just sucks. It really, really, sucks and was definitely my least favorite part of high school, since I was made to feel that way for no reason at all and no benefit at all and not nothing in return out of it.
So yeah, at least personally, not a fan. The intent is wonderful, but in no way should they actually be requirements or tied to graduation or some shit (I got lucky and was somehow passed despite never actually swimming at all). Fuck that.
Of course, I really would love how to swim, so I can stop being afraid and actually enjoy going to beach and stuff and especially since I do want to have kids one day more than anything, and if nothing else I'd want to learn for their sake. But even so, whenever I try my reaction's not all that different from your's (though you definitely seem to have it worse than me--I have no problem with shower heads and stuff like that. Real sorry to hear that's a problem for you): whenever my feet can't touch the bottom of a pool or whatever, I just start panicking until I get back to the shallow end or grab a wall or whatever. No matter how hard I tried or what I did, I just can't stop myself from panicking and getting the hell out of there.
This talk about bodies of water reminds me of another thing I haven't done that everyone else does without thinking.
I can't swim in the ocean. Like...at all.
It came from a traumatic experience a long time ago where I was pulled out to the sea by some incredibly strong riptides in the Gulf of Mexico and nearly drowned. Someone had to dive into the water to save my life.
Since that event I've been deathly afraid of the ocean even though I can swim just fine. I can't even have the water up to my ankles...if I go to the beach I have to stay exclusively in the sand away from the waves. Pools and ships are fine, though.
So for years and years I've pretty much never set my foot in the ocean at all, while for most people it's completely normal.
*Hugs you too.* ^_^
Really sorry to hear that, but so glad that you did survive and are still with us. <3 I've never had an experience like that relating to swimming thankfully, although when I was a young kid I was in the car with my mom one time when I was sucking on a hard candy or something and I ended up choking on it and my mom had to quickly stop at a gas station to get me to cough it up. To this day, not only can I not stand and am basically deathly afraid to put any type of hard candy in my mouth due to that, but it's also made me afraid to and pretty much entirely unable to swallow pills and stuff as well.
Anyway, as for my list, other than never having swum...
-Never drank alcohol
-Never smoked any type of substance
-Never learned how to ride a bike
-Never learned how to tie a tie, or laces, or any type of knot
-Never watched porn
-Never had coffee (although I had a soda addiction for a while, so I can't say I haven't had caffeine).
-Never been in a relationship
-Never been out of my country (well, my mom tells me when I was like a baby or something I was briefly in Canada with them on a trip or something, but I was a baby so I don't think that really counts).
But for something a bit more positive, I'll add this:
-If it were last year at this time, I would have also said "never donated blood" due to a vasovagal response I have to pretty much even thinking about blood and stuff (like, I'm getting light-headed and stuff just typing this). However, late last year while I was at school I managed to work up the courage to give it a try and donate blood at a blood drive, and it really wasn't that bad at all. Of course, unfortunately my vasovagal response is still as strong as ever and so it's hard for me to follow up that performance (as I found out, the actual act of taking blood really isn't that bad at all--it's the wait time before they get to me and stuff which gives me time to thin and gives my vasovagal response time to kick in that causes the problems), but I'm definitely glad I did it at least once. ^_^