Anxiety- my experience

Chapter 3- Life is good before it gets ugly

Fast forward to year 9. Imagine a happy, confident girl. Lots of friends. Going to parties. Giving her opinion at every chance she gets, whether that opinion was asked for or not. Standing up for herself, and for others, certain she can do anything she puts her mind to. This was me, aged 14. Happy go lucky. Ready to take on the world. Until I actually needed to be...

As cliched as it sounds, the day started like any other. Boring school. We were doing speeches in English as part of our GCSE and i was worried, but no more concerned than any of my friends were. I know, that's not exactly a dramatic, life changing, catastrophic start. After all, everyone does presentations.

People were called to present one by one. I was relatively calm. But then the teacher called my name. I was ready, I could absolutely do this, and be brilliant. At least, that's what I had been thinking a few seconds earlier. But now, I was frozen. Everything blurred out of focus and I could not move. People around me were speaking but it was like I was under water, the muffled voices were impossible to interpret. And still, I couldn't move. But perhaps more worryingly, I couldn't speak. I wanted nothing more than to run and hide, to get away from the 30 pairs of piercing eyes, but my body didn't feel like mine. In contrast, I also wanted nothing more than to do the speech. Neither of these feelings won over, and I remained there, mute. Realising I would not be speaking, the teacher called on someone else. As relieved as I felt to have attention diverted, I was mortified. With no idea what had just happened, silent tears rolled down my cheeks, which somehow brought me back to reality. I knew I had messed up and I just desperately hoped it would never happen again.

And it didn't. At least, it didn't until the next time I tried to do that same presentation, you know, because I needed the qualification. In the end it took 4 attempts, no audience except the teacher and a mixture of bribes and threats from my parents. I don't know whether I was proud to have finally done it, or so traumatised by the whole experience that I haven't felt comfortable in that sort of environment since.

Although this incident haunted me, and all thoughts of my future, I assumed it was a one off and continued to be the center of attention within my friendship group and in drama lessons. Thinking back, it seems strange that I had so much confidence, and that I could perform anything on stage without a second thought, but the moment I had to be myself in front of a small audience, I couldn't. So maybe, and this is a thought as I sit here writing this, my anxiety was based in a lack of self belief. On the stage, one is not themselves, but during a presentation in school, or at any point in life, there is no veneer to hide behind. It is just you, and that leaves you vulnerable.