Forced Conformity/Socialization, My Experiences

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I previously posted this story on Aspergia as an example of how my parents tried to force me to conform, or at least appear normal. I'd like to pass it on here.

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The trouble began when I was young, I don’t know why, it just did. It was like things were fine one day, and it all collapsed the next. I’ll never figure it out, if there is a reason, but I know in my heart I was hurt by it, and the damages were long reaching.

I lived in a fairly normal home, with a big backyard, there were many times I played in that yard, happily, without a care, the way it should be. One day, that all changed, the yard went away when a swimming pool was put in. I missed the yard, no more place to play. For some strange reason, I was very uncomfortable around the water, but nobody seemed to care. There were occasional attempts to get me to swim, but they seldom went anywhere. Sometimes, they’d try to make me stay outside and get suntanned, or occasionally getting me to soak my feet in the water, but these were few and far between, and I was allowed to be me.

A year or so after the pool came along, we moved to a new home, with no pool. I really enjoyed my backyard, but this didn’t last long, a new pool was dug. There were again, a few attempts of to get me to swim, but I was left alone. When this was going on, there were no problems, I lived my life, other people lived theirs, and there were no problems.

It was the summer after 5th grade the real problems started. It began with my brother, fresh out of school on his way to the military, stopped in for a visit. One evening, while he was in the pool swimming, my mother told me he wanted to talk to me, so I went outside. He asked me if I was interested in swimming, and I said no. He then started rambling about how I had to learn, and even attempted offering me something, not specifying what, if I would do it. I still refused and went in. Later that night, I saw him an my mother talking in the kitchen, she immediately sent me to bed with him saying “You’re going in the wa-wa(his slang term for water) tomorrow” while grinning ear to ear. I couldn’t sleep, finally falling asleep around 4am or so.

The next morning, I got up, and everything seemed fine. Nothing was mentioned, so I thought maybe they had come to their senses. That afternoon, I was told by my brother it was “wa-wa time,” meaning I had to get into the pool. I refused, and he and I got into a big shouting match, I tried talking to my mother, she said things like “Andrew says you have to,” and even dug out a hand-me-down bathing suit for me to wear in the pool. She and my sister decided to go shopping while Andrew attempted to make me swim, with my mother telling me right before she left “if you’re not in that pool when I get back I’m going to spank you.” I couldn’t believe this, my own mother was blatantly turning against me and siding with my brother, who had in the past abused me. I wanted to believe she had been somehow talked into it and it wasn’t really her idea, but I don’t know for sure.

That afternoon was absolute hell for me. My first time in the pool was not a positive experience. It consisted primarily of my brother yelling at me and threatening me, dragging me into the deep end and attempting to sink me, and my already having a fear of the water to begin with didn’t make it any better. We argued with him screaming at me because I didn’t want to put my face in the water, telling me I needed to swim “to survive,” and saying things like “sissies and mama’s boys don’t swim.” This experience basically showed me I was justified for not wanting to be in the water. Afterwards, I thought this was over, but I was wrong, it was only beginning.

After my brother left, my summers became very unhappy. Whenever my sister decided to get in the pool, my mother’s new rule was I had to swim too, meaning, since I couldn’t swim or float, I would just wade in the shallow end. My sister learned to love this, because it gave her so much control over me. Whenever I was doing something I liked, my sister would decide it was time to swim so I would have to drop what I was doing. Sometimes it would be 2 or 3 times a day. Neither of them, nor my dad, cared how I felt about this. My mother would even say things like “in school when they find out you can’t swim, they’ll take you and throw you in the pool.” I knew this wasn’t true, because at the one school I attended which had a pool, my not knowing how to swim was not unknown nor did I try to hide it, and nobody cared. It was never an issue with anyone, nor would it ever have been, and even if it had, it was nobody else’s business but my own.

Other popular excuses for forced swimming were such things as “You have to get some sun on those legs,” or “you need to get exercise.” Others related to safety, which I also knew weren’t true because there were many instances in which my sister would get upset and storm into the house because I wouldn’t do anything she told me to do, I was required to stay outside, in the pool, alone, unsupervised. Part of my indoctrination to the world of swimming included being forced to read books about swimming repeatedly, all of which had a section on pool safety which stated people shouldn’t be left alone in the pool at all, and non-swimmers should be supervised when around the pool.

I was glad this summer was over, because once school started, swimming was over for a while. Of course, another summer would come, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. One evening, while nobody was around, my mother asked me if I wanted to have a swimming party for my 6th grade class, I said no, but the next day, learned from my teacher I was having one! This really hurt, because I was asked and my feelings were totally ignored. To me, this said that to my family, my feelings, opinions, desires, etc., meant absolutely nothing. Any other member of the family’s feelings would have been respected, but not mine. I didn’t swim that day, and it really irritated my parents. I won a small battle against my parents quest to turn me into a swimmer, but it was the only one. This was another summer of forced swimming at the hands of my sister, being fed the same excuses about swimming being important, suntans, etc. Another miserable summer.

The next summer was more of the same with a twist, another brother taught me to float. I hoped that once I learned to float, that would be the end of it, it wasn’t. There was more forced spending time in the pool, and organized swimming lessons. I was promised it would only be 8 lessons, and that once I had learned to swim, I would have a choice from that day forward. Both of these were lies of course, I ended up taking 16 lessons, and was still mandated to swim whenever my sister did. In fact, I had to swim when I “wasn’t doing anything,” and the only activity that was considered “doing anything” was swimming. My sister really loved the control it gave her over me, and of course, made my life miserable.

That was also the summer I had found a new interest I wanted to explore, electronics. I had begun a summer project of building a Heathkit, which I was really enjoying and learning a lot from. Every time I would go to work on it, it would be time to go swimming. I never understood why this was, what kind of parent would object to their child wanting to learn a new skill, one that could possibly provide a good income one day? I was told such things as “You need to balance yourself out,” “You need to get exercise,” and the weird one, “You need to get some sun on those legs.” At one point, I was even told “All that your brothers and sister ever had was brains, I don’t want you to have brains, I want you to have big muscles and a suntan.”

The most ludicrous of the lies was “I want you to swim so you’ll get big muscles and be able to knock them flat.” When I did have a fight with someone in school, my mother screamed at me for fighting in school, and when I told her she said this, she just looked at me like I was crazy. Another popular lie was “girls won’t like you if you don’t swim,” and “If you would swim, you would have more friends.” I wasn’t going to let people use me for a pool, that isn’t the way I am.

The next summer was even worse, I was punished for the whole summer, no music, radio, TV, etc., all I was allowed to do was wait for my sister to decide it’s time to go swimming, and I had to swim too. This really hurt me very much, spending a summer as my sister’s slave. She enjoyed having a slave, reminding me “You’re bad so you can only do what I say.” I spent my time being depressed, being my sister’s slave wasn’t the kind of life I wanted, I just wanted to be me. Whatever they attempted to achieve punishing me didn’t work, I knew it was all phony, just an excuse to get my swimming. They felt that denying me everything but swimming would make me love swimming, but it didn’t work, it only increased my hatred of it.

Basically, I had spent 4 summers being my sister’s slave, losing my activities, my life, etc. How does this benefit me? Denying me a chance to learn a skill like electronics, does that help me? What about my sister, does teaching her she has a slave help her?

It used to be we could live our own lives, but after swimming, that was taken away from me, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever gotten it back. Why forcing it on me was so important made no sense to me at all, in fact, the brother who was determined to force me to swim, and who started all of this, didn’t learn to swim until he was 17! My mother loves to remind me of this, but won’t answer the question “if he had a choice, why didn’t I?” Nobody ever interfered in what he, or anyone else in my family wanted to do, only me.

Today, I still don’t understand what the issue with swimming was. It wasn’t about exercise, because even though I engaged in other physical activities, I was told “Only swimming is exercise.” As for safety, making someone who doesn’t know how to swim stay in a pool alone with no supervision is not at all safe. Both of my parents are not sports fans, when I tried using this to get them to stop the mandated swimming, I was told “Swimming is not a sport.” Now, they still spread rumors of how I loved swimming and swam before I could walk, when the truth is I never went into a swimming pool until I was 11, didn’t learn to swim until I was 13, and hated it.

What I don’t understand the most is why it still bothers me. The last swimming incident was around 17 years ago or so, and I thought I had buried it all, but it’s recently returned to the surface. Would getting my parents to accept me as a non-swimmer make a difference, and if so how? If it wouldn’t make a difference, what do I do to deal with this, or will I ever deal with it? Will it just consume me until nothing is left? Everyday it haunts me, and I’m not sure how much more I can take, something has to give.

Sounds like you really had it tough. People can be so fustrating and illogical.

My closest experience to this is with my relatives on my mum's side. They still even now buy me pink clothes, give me girly objects and try to take me shopping- despite the fact that the colour I hate is pink and I'll never be a girly-girl. They always praised my sister's dress sense and hair style- but didnt even notice when I got new clothes (apparently this was because my sister was always getting new clothes but I didnt. This made no sense to me, surely as a person who didnt get new clothes a lot it'd be more noticable when I did?)

You seem to have a lot of unresolved issues with this. Things like that can affect you for a long time and because you have such strong memories of it, it's not likely to ever completely fade away. Maybe you need to write your parents/sister/brother a letter telling them exactly how they made you feel during this time- even if you never send it.

I'd say the closest thing to that would be how my mom takes me clothes-shopping, even though I hate shopping, ESPECIALLY clothes-shopping. But I have to. (No offense.) But there's another similar thing that also happened. I used to play the trombone, so I got signed up for 6th grade band. I'm currently scheming of how I'm going to get out of band.

Mich

I still can't swim. I've been pushed under three times ("Sink or swim" - I sank) and stuck in lessons three times. Not by my parents fortunately. Always at camp, which was a torturous adventure in itself. I went because it was equestrian camp and I had a long time interest in horses as a child. I could not understand what swimming had to do with horses at all.
My senior year in high school swimming class was mandatory. It was really funny to everyone that I couldn't swim and splashing terrified me since I do not like water on my face. The last straw was when the teacher forced me to get in the deep end and I freaked out. That was when I decided it was time to discuss it with my mother, who showed up at the school and had words with several people. I was not made to partcipate again.
Having words with school staff was pretty much my mother's past time my entire life. :\

I guess you live in california or australia. It all seems very 'Brady Bunch' with 'Marsha' and 'Greg' given the job of supervising you, ugh. Just think - if you'd been born in a colder climate, none of this would have happened!

I like swimming and the beach in summer, I find water and floating, particularly, very relaxing, I swim enough not to drown, but I don't do the 'underwater' breathing ugh, I hate getting water up my nose.

Swimming lessons were compulsory when I went to primary school (they worry about children drowning). You had to crowd onto a noisy school bus, get taken to a strange-smelling 'baths' and taught to swim for ohhh about an hour, this happened once a week for about 3 months I think.

well, on the issue in general- I think that if any new experience can be sucessful if you go about it in the right way... and here is an example of how that is not the case...
I do not make my son do many things that he does not like- I do make him try at least once and then if he does not like it- he does not have to try it again...
for example swimming- this is the first year he liked it....
but- I figured out why he did not like swimming and made a solution to it.... he like to take a bath ( so I knew it was not the water)
he did not like the tempature of the water.... he is hyposensative to changes in temp...
anyway, I bought him a wet suit- we live in pa. he did not like the feel of the wetsuit, and it took time to get him to put it on ( another story in itself) but once he was in the water with the wetsuit - and he felt the deep pressure from the suit and he also realized he was not cold- he has been in the pool ever since- I have never forced him in the water.... I made it a game/ I am so sorry to hear that you were treated like that..
some people just don't get it.
Michele

I too hate the feel of water getting splashed on my face. I also hate getting water my nose. It burns my olfactory bulb like someone went after it with a red hot piece of metal. I had to take swimming lessons taught at the local rec dept for two years, 1991 and 1992. I hated taking those lessons. The water temprature in the pool was 72 degrees, but I thought it was 32 degrees. I would get in and shiver my rear end off.

When I was twelve, my parents decided that they wanted me to sound like everybody else who grew up in the Vancouver area. They spent that whole summer telling me not to talk through my nose. I can tell you one thing. I'm glad I didn't lose my Accent.

I hate cold wetness. The people I know think its funny to drag me into the water - but there's something about the cold and the wet that I can't stand. If the weather is unbearably hot and the water in the pool has warmed up, I can get in, but really dislike putting my head under. I own a pool (it was an accident - truly). It is truly wierd, owning a pool and disliking it as much as I do. On the plus side however, after disliking water (for similar reasons I imagine) my son decided that since we owned a pool he was going to use it. He loves it now. No one threw him in, no one forced him in - I have a feeling that was what made the difference. He decided to explore it in his own time. My father used to throw me into deep (for me) water with lots of creepy seaweed to catch my legs. I can't say I learned to swim - I think I learned to levitate. I am surrounded by beaches and pools - our entire culture is built on it. My son and I go to the beach and have a terrible time. The winds too windy, the sand feels sandy, the water is cold and wet, the sun is too sunny.... quite a dreadful team by aussie standards!

There have been some great replies to my original post, thanks.

Like a few others here, I also didn't like getting water splashed in my face, putting my face in the water, or cold wetness in general. That may have contributed to it, but I know other things were involved.

I can still remember when the first pool was being dug and thinking "I'm not going in it." I don't know why I thought this, I just did. Something in my head told me that it wasn't for me. For the most part, my wish came true and I was never forced into it. I was occasionally forced to sit on the side with my feet in the water and once was forced to the stairs of the pool, but I never went all the way in.

The big positive about my not swimming, when it was being tolerated, was it allowed me to separate from my siblings and do my own thing. They liked to go out by the pool and I didn't, so when they did that, I had my own time to do with what I wanted. They weren't ridiculing me or trying to interfere with what I wanted to do, I could just be me and do my own thing in peace.

I also remember my sister complaining all the time about all the stupid things I liked to do, like playing stupid games, reading stupid magazines, listening to stupid music, trying to write stupid stories, watching stupid movies and TV shows, and the list goes on. Why these things bothered her I'll never know, since I could do them in my own room with the door shut, so it didn't have any effect on her at all. Forced swimming gave her the chance to do something about it I guess.

One thing I didn't mention was during forced swimming, my mother would frequently get a camera and take pictures of me in the pool. She still uses them as proof of how much I loved swimming. If they couldn't make me be "normal," they'd at least convince the world I was "normal."

Maybe a cooler climate might have helped. I'm not from Australia or California, but I do live in the United States, in the south where it's warm or hot most of the year. One can never tell.

I nearly drowned twice so am very leery of going in the water so I sympathise about your being forced into the pool so much. Sounds like emotional abuse to me and that your parents weren't very bright people.

Didn't they know that going out in the sun too much causes skin cancer in later life and premature aging?

I detest swimming, hate getting water in my face.

I did learn to swim when I was a kid and I'm glad that I know how because it could one day save me from drowning, but you'll never willingly get me in a swimming pool.

Sounds like you really went through a hard time. I can understand wanting your kids to learn to swim, but forcing a child is never going to be a good method of achieving that.

One of my parents was a p****, the other knew how to handle s**t. Then, when i was young, the one who knew how to handle s**t died. So i ROLLED over my parents like a f*****g tank when it came to being myself.

I like swimming leasurely, but I hate it when I am forced to swim.

In what I'm about to write I dont meen any offence to PrisonerSix

Your Family sounds horrible.



Thats a very stupid rule. What does your family gain by making you wade in the shallow end?



Your family sound like very shallow people if they consider you having a suntan is more important than you being happy.



Your family are stupid for doing that, if they are trying to make you swim they should at least give you proper supervision, not just your power crazy sister.



Your mum must be horible if she does something like that on your birthday.



Your family sound like a bunch of ignorant idiots if they would prefer you were exactly like everyone else.



Liars



A stupid parent that would rather you were stupid and normal than unique and smart. since when has there been a well paid job that requires you to know how to swim?



Shallow and stupid.



Why didnt you have a choice? Your brother was only interested in teaching you how to swim because it ment he could boss you around.



Of course swimming is a sport!

Again, I'm sorry if i've offended you PrisonerSix, but thats the only way to put it.

I have had similar experiences, though no where near as bad as yours.

They are as follows:

Every sunday I have to go to swimming lessons even though i'm 14 and already know how to swim, the only excuse I get is "It's good exersize"

and...

I used to have to go to this group called the "scouts" which goes camping and things, even though I found it boring and got bullied by the other people who went there.

Last edited by SOK on 06 Jul 2005, 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I understand wanting kids to learn too, but there was more to it than that in my case. If it were about safety, I think once I learned, that would have been the end of it and it would no longer have been an issue, but that wasn't the case. Even after I learned, they still forced it on me.

It was very hard for me and to this day, I don't know why it happened and still have problems because of it. I still think it was a way to make me become or at least appear "normal" to others. The taking pictures of me in the pool and the bragging to others about how much I loved to swim and how I started swimming before I could even walk is proof of this to me. The going behind my back and arranging a swimming party for my class even after I said I didn't want to is proof of this too.

It's interesting to me my original post is still generating responses a year after I wrote it.

I don't know why I wanted nothing to do with swimming. I never had an experience like that nor saw one, so that isn't it. I just had this feeling I shouldn't do it, so I resisted. I also felt the same way about getting suntanned. At the time(1979-1982), the effects of overexposure to the sun weren't widely publicized, so I don't know if they knew or not. I just knew I wasn't interested in getting suntanned and didn't think it was a big deal if I was tanned or not.

I always feared others would find out I had a pool, and would try to be my friends just so they could come over and swim. I did actually want to find friends, but I wanted them to be my friends because of what I was not what I had. My parents tried to convince me I was crazy for thinking that way, but I didn't give that up. I always had trouble making friends as it was, I didn't want to have to worry who my real friends were.

You are right, what they did was abuse. Between the lying, excuses, and to some extent, brainwashing, it was abuse and it still haunts me at times.