I’m terrified of water. I’m not just aquaphobic, I’m also aquaphobic by proxy. I can’t watch – or even think of – other people struggling in water without breaking out in a sweat in which I could, ironically, drown. (Incidentally, I’m just as frightened of ironic drownings.) Whenever a soap starlet or Hollywood hero finds themselves in deeper water than the writers can pen them out of, I hide behind the nearest opaque object until someone informs me that the coast is clear – and in sight.

It’s not a mystery to me why I’m so panicked by bodies of water deeper than a sparrow’s sample. I still carry the scars of being badly scalded as a toddler, after which I was never quite so keen to go near the potentially-hot liquidy stuff. As I grew up, and it became less cute when I clung to people in terror any time I neared a pool, I suppose I began to internalise it and the fear just reinforced itself. It’s not easy to avoid coming into contact with water – the damn stuff gets everywhere – but I tried my best and, for the most part of quite a smelly adolescence, succeeded.

I’ve never been particularly risk averse. I’ve jumped out of a rickety plane for charity, self-pierced countless body parts with not-quite-clean-enough sewing needles and frequented student flats that even bleach wouldn’t cure. So it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea to continue with this challenge when I first realised that aquatics would be involved. I even signed up for a 2013 triathlon before my foot had touched a verruca-soaked tile. I’m not normally known for my self-belief – but maybe this time I should have dialled back the confidence a little.

Think of your own worst fear then and imagine the pride of deciding to stare down its steely barrel. Now project yourself forward six months when the time actually arrives to hold that tarantula / board that plane / shake hands with that one-man band. Pride is quick to desert, isn’t it? Terror, however, is not such a fickle friend.

And so it was with sheer panic that I clambered out of my car and into Boclair Academy’s sports department on a suitably miserable Monday night for my first proper swimming lesson. I say first proper swimming lesson because, of course, I was forced to don a one-piece monstrosity and flail around the shallow end during the most self-conscious years of my life in high school. Now, however, no poorly–forged notes or faked panic attacks would allow me to slope off to the nearest classroom, book in hand. No, this was my deep end cliché – and it was time for me to throw myself into it.

Luckily for me, and for my challenge, my lovely mum, Rose, decided to accompany me, never having learned to swim herself. This was fortunate because, on setting one jelly-shoed foot into the school, I was ready to leave and, had my mum not been there to counsel me otherwise, I would have been out of there quicker than I could say ‘glug-glug-glug’.

We opted for those particular lessons partly due to scheduling but also on advice from the organisers, Splash Time. As their quietest class – with only three other adults present – held in a school pool (so no sylphlike sirens or graceful pensioners putting me to shame), the Monday evening sessions are perfectly set up for those of us who look on the sea as a devious foe rather than a calming vista. The swimming coach, Clare, stays in the water beside the beginners (well, beside me since I’ve yet to let go of her hand) and, while the lessons move at a reasonable pace, there’s always an opt-out if your courage wanes.

Three lessons in and I’m starting to notice some progress: not in my technique as such, but in my confidence. Up until last week, I was convinced that I didn’t float. There had never been any evidence to suggest otherwise. Any time water and I had done battle, water had won. Maybe it was fear weighing me down – or maybe science just needs a rest sometimes – but since deciding that I wasn’t going to let a little thing like submergence in and suffocation by water stop me, I’ve finally found buoyancy. I can put my head fully under water now too, which makes showering a whole lot easier.

In short, it’s been a good start. I didn’t expect to overcome a lifelong fear of drowning in three lessons – and I haven’t. But I’m learning how to cope with the terror when it does descend and simultaneously figuring out the best collaboration of arms and legs to keep my panicked nose-holes somewhere vaguely close to the surface at all times. Managing 16 lengths of the pool in September surrounded by real triathletes seems more ridiculous an idea than ever but, for now, I’ll just keep trying not to sink and hope that I’ll swim in the end.

Paula.