Social Anxiety and Speaking Competitions

I was 14 when the panic attacks started, and almost all of them hit me at school. Looking back, the trigger was social anxiety. I never cared about being the popular girl, but at some point I noticed I wasn't even enjoying the company of my closest friends anymore. By then I guessed I'd been dealing with this for maybe five years, though I couldn't point to a single reason for it.

My mother always said I'd been a shy child. My younger sister was the opposite: she did well in her classes, on the field, and with people. For me, shyness turned into avoidance. I stayed away from friends and never let new relationships start, convinced that anyone who got close would eventually laugh at me.

There was one exception, a best friend who stuck with me. Then her father took a job in another city, she switched schools, and whatever buffer she'd given me disappeared. After that I stopped speaking in public altogether. I wouldn't even approach a clerk in a department store to ask a question. I felt like I was just taking up space, no friends, nothing that felt like living.

Writing was the one thing I had, but it's something you do alone. When college was supposed to begin, I simply didn't go. I skipped weeks of classes because I was terrified my classmates would mock me. I kept telling my parents I was sick and stayed home. They had no idea how bad the anxiety had gotten, so they let me. Meanwhile I watched my sister keep succeeding at everything, and I decided I was useless.

The longer I stayed away, the more certain I was that I'd never go. Then one afternoon in a department store I walked straight into my childhood best friend. She told me she was enrolled at the very college I'd been avoiding, and that we could have been together the whole time.

That conversation was what moved me. I went to college. Not long after, I learned about Freshman Hazing Day, when the seniors tease the new students, and I ended up in a spot where I had to speak in front of a group. My voice shook. I wanted to disappear without saying anything. Then I passed out.

My department head and professor gave me first aid, and she turned out to be exactly the person I needed. She saw the anxiety for what it was, and instead of brushing it off she started working with me on building confidence. She'd noticed I could write, so she asked me to put together an essay on the idea that failures are stepping stones to success.

The piece came out well and she was thrilled with it. Then she raised the stakes: she wanted me to give a public talk at the following week's student assembly, as a way to confront the speaking itself. Her instructions were to stand in front of a mirror and rehearse out loud, and to keep reminding myself that whatever the audience thought was not mine to carry. Practicing that way, I slowly felt steadier, and the thought of being around other people stopped feeling like a threat.

When the day came, I held myself together and delivered it. The room clapped, and that applause changed the direction of my life.

From there I kept putting myself in front of people, more often, and eventually I started entering speaking competitions. Every time, the old fear showed up first, the belief that my disorder would stop me. But doing the thing anyway kept proving the fear wrong. That's what I want readers to take from this: you can't think your way past anxiety, you have to actually test it by taking the risk. Build positive affirmations into the process. Start the day with thoughts that give you some footing, pick a goal, and keep going. - Charlie