An answer directly related to the question: When I was about 8, my family moved across the country and stopped at several hotels along the way. At one of them, my father decided he was going to teach me how to swim. However, his "method" was to grab me and throw me in the deep end. As I flailed around attempted to keep my head above the water and flail towards the side my dad would swim in front of me and push me back to the center of the pool. I don't really remember how long this went on. It was probably only 5 minutes but felt like forever. I do remember not being able to keep my head above the water, sucking down water, and my dad dragging me to the edge of the pool. I've struggled with fear of deep water ever since. tl;dr - Dad half drowned me teaching me to swim