Mum suffered panic attacks for 30 years due to unusual phobia

A woman spent over 30 years suffering a crippling phobia of overflowing baths brought on by a childhood trauma – causing monthly panic attacks.

Darcey Croft, 48, was just four years old when she witnessed the ceiling crash down on her mother while she was in the bath, causing the water to overflow.

The mother-of-four feared the house would fall down, killing her whole family, and the trauma stuck with her.

Then in her early teens, she passed out in a bath and hit her head on the tap, sustaining a head wound.

This led to her developing a strong “irrational” fear around baths, and large bodies of water lapping and overflowing.

It plagued Darcey, from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, for more than 30 years, leading to panic attacks and nausea.

Until earlier this year Darcey, who is a specialist mental health midwife with training in hypnotherapy, started to try self-hypnosis to kick the phobia.

Now Darcey said she is “at least 80% cured”, and some days has no fear at all.

Darcey, who also has a baby granddaughter, said: “I remember being about four and seeing a torrent of water coming on top of my mum.

“I thought the whole house was going to fall down, in my small four-year-old head I really thought my mum was dead and I would die next.

“My mum was totally fine and she probably didn’t realise the trauma of it for me but I never processed those emotions.

“Then there were two more incidents involving water when I was a teenager and suddenly baths were considered a place of trauma for me.

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“It wasn’t a fear of water - I love swimming and actually I love having a bath.

“But the fear of overflowing or lapping water - blocked toilets, full sinks, overflowing baths, any bathroom scenarios.

“I’d have panic attacks, my heart would race, I would feel faint, dizzy and sick, all the blood would drain from my head.

“I never addressed it until recently, but I took some action and did some self-hypnosis. It seems to have worked.”

Darcey, who lives with partner David Bryans, 46, and two of their four children, Madeline, 20 and Soloman, 17, said the fear she developed was “irrational”.

She said as a four-year-old she recalled the ceiling caving in above her mother in the bath - and fearing her mother was dead.

Darcey recalled: “I ran downstairs and out the front door. I stood on my driveway thinking the world had ended.”

Another incident occurred aged 13 where she was held under the water by another classmate to the point she “felt peaceful and euphoric - on the brink of drowning”.

And a third incident a year later saw her stand up too fast to get out the bath, faint and hit her head on the tap.

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She “woke up in a bath full of blood” - cementing her fear.

Since then she has been plagued with a severe fear of running baths and overflowing water - even though she enjoys to relax in a bath once it has been run.

Darcey, who owns her own business, ISO Mum, which sells electrolyte drinks for pregnant women, said: “Despite all those events I never had any therapy or addressed them.

“But your subconscious mind retains the fear - I saw baths as a risk and considered them a place of trauma.

“My rational mind would never consider those things, but that’s how phobias work. It’s irrational.

“I would be triggered by imagining a situation or see a picture of water lapping up.

“Or if a bath has been running, its fine, but I allow myself to question how long its been running, and then convince myself it’s long enough for it to be overflowing.”

She said until recently, when her phobia was triggered, it could lead to her having panic attacks, a racing heart, and hyperventilating.

Darcey could even start to feel faint, dizzy and physically sick.

She would feel anxiety every time she left the room with the bath running for 30 years and would end up having a panic attack over it at least once a month.

Ironically, she always loved baths and swimming - but the idea of overflowing water would activate her “fight or flight response”.

Darcey said: “I actually love having a bath, a candlelit bath is amazing for relaxation.

“But sometimes I would put the bath to run, then go and do something downstairs, and when I’d realise I left the bath on, that would send me into a panic.

“I felt I couldn’t go back into the room in case the bath level had risen.”

Recalling one of her lowest moments where she didn’t keep track of the bath running, Darcey said: “I was the only one in the house.

“When I remembered the bath, I stopped dead in my tracks and the blood drained from my head.

“I was home alone so I had no option but to go and sort it out myself - so I took a deep breath and ran into the bathroom.

“The water was right near the edge - and when I saw it, I was so close to just completely blacking out.

“I felt sheer terror - there wasn’t a single rational thought in my head in that moment.”

She explained she would experience “animalistic panic” whenever faced with a situation like that - because it takes her back in time to when she was four and thought her house was falling down.

Darcey said: “That childhood dread, and thinking my mum was dead - when I panic about the bath level, it brings back those emotions.”

In January this year she decided to do something to tackle the decades-long phobia - using self-hypnosis.

Darcey, who has a medical diploma in clinical hypnotherapy, began using techniques on herself.

She said this involved recording herself reading a ‘script’ she wrote to hypnotise herself.

This, she said, would put her in “a trance” where she could “guide through the bath overflowing”.

But she would use hypnosis to associate positive feelings with that visualisation, to replace the negative ones.

She said: “I recorded it and played it every night for a week before I went to sleep - that was enough to really reduce the phobia.

“Then I would do self-hypnosis every now and again after that, if I felt I needed it.”

She said since beginning these self-hypnosis sessions, she has been “about 80% normal”.

But she said there have been moments where she has felt “100% ok” after more than three decades of the phobia.

Reflecting on the journey, she said: “The difficult thing with phobias is that it’s unconscious - you need to detach whatever emotion you’ve given that thing.

“You talk to the subconscious mind and detach from the fear response.

“Anyone experiencing a phobia, it’s a horrible state to feel mentally and physically. It isn’t a good place to be in.

“It feels fantastic to be free from that.”