A woman who experienced a traumatic incident as a child has lived with a severe phobia of overflowing baths for over 30 years.
Darcey Croft, 48, was just four years old when she witnessed the ceiling crash down on her mother while she was in the bath, which in turn made the water overflow.
The young girl feared the house would fall down and kill her whole family, and this trauma stuck with her for decades, leading to monthly panic attacks and nausea.
To make matters worse, Darcey nearly drowned and passed out in the bath as a teen, causing her to develop a a strong "irrational" fear around baths.
The mum-of-four, from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, also has a fear of large bodies of water lapping and overflowing.
Darcey recalled: "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.
"I ran downstairs and out the front door. I stood on my driveway thinking the world had ended.
"My mum was totally fine and she probably didn't realise the trauma of it for me but I never processed those emotions."
Another incident occurred aged 13 when Darcey was held under the water by a 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.
The specialist mental health midwife "woke up in a bath full of blood" - cementing bathrooms as a "place of trauma".
Since then, she has felt faint, dizzy and physically sick at the thought of overflowing water - although she enjoys relaxing in a bath once it has been run.
"It wasn't a fear of water - I love swimming and actually I love having a bath," Darcey explained.
"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."
Darcey, who lives with partner David Bryans, 46, and two of their four children, Madeline, 20, and Soloman, 17, never addressed her "irrational" phobia.
"I would be triggered by imagining a situation or see a picture of water lapping up," she said.
"If a bath has been running, it's 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."
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."
Darcey explained that she would experience "animalistic panic" whenever faced with a situation like that - because it takes her back in time to when she thought her house was falling down.
"That childhood dread, and thinking my mum was dead - when I panic about the bath level, it brings back those emotions," she explained.
In January, Darcey decided to do something to tackle the decades-long phobia and tried self-hypnosis, using techniques at home.
This involved recording herself reading a 'script' she wrote to hypnotise herself, which would put her in a trance to "guide through the bath overflowing".
Darcey began to associate positive feelings with that visualisation, to replace the negative ones.
"I recorded it and played it every night for a week before I went to sleep - that was enough to really reduce the phobia," she said.
"Then I would do self-hypnosis every now and again after that, if I felt I needed it."
Now, Darcey is "80 percent cured" and some days, doesn't experience any fear at all.
Reflecting on the journey, she added: "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."
Do you have an unusual phobia to share? Email nia.dalton@reachplc.com.
