I don’t know about you, but I know that I absolutely hate public speaking. Like loathe it. It gives me so much anxiety and stress by just hearing the word. I don’t know how to get over it and I don’t think I ever will overcome being scared to get up in front of crowds. I’ve done it for 20 years and still hate it. I am an open person and I’m the farthest thing from shy, but there’s something about getting up in front of people that freaks me out. To those of you who don’t get nervous, you’re blessed, but this is exactly how presenting goes for me:
You walk into your English classroom. The teacher calls attendance and starts teaching, telling you this will be just like every other class. Then the teacher says that one dreaded word: Presentation.
Your eyes almost pop out of your head and your heart stops. You can’t bare listening to the rest of her class. You’re already anticipating this said presentation. You tell yourself it’ll be okay.
When you get home from classes that day, you make yourself put that at the back of your mind. If you think about it, you’ll be anxious until it happens.
You procrastinate until the absolute last minute to work on it. You make the PowerPoint, speech, or whatever presentation you have to present perfectly fine. It isn’t the work that bothers you.
You get to class on that dreaded day. You sit, waiting for your name to be called. You debate on getting it over with or waiting to be called. You choose the latter because you can’t man up and raise your hand to go. Unfortunately, your name is called and you trudge up to the podium at the front of the classroom. All eyes are on you and your hands start to shake. You start talking so you don’t look stupid up there not saying anything.
You voice sounds shaky and you have to hold your hands tightly at your side so the class can’t see them shaking. It almost looks as if you’re seizing at the front of the classroom. You sound like you’re about to cry as you force out and stumble over the words of your speech.
When you finally finish talking, you practically sprint back to your seat so you can wallow in your self-pity. Your friend or acquaintance says you did great and couldn’t tell that you were freaking out. You can’t decide if they’re telling the truth or just trying to be nice. Again, you chose the latter.
You can’t wait to leave the classroom. A couple day later, your grades comes out. 95. Wow, you actually didn’t do that bad.
This is the exact scenario I go through with every speech I have to do. Don’t even get me started on the classes where your teacher springs it onto you that you need to present your ideas that same day. Can you not, teachers?? I’ve been through that once already this year and it scares the living hell out of me. If I could avoid presentations for the rest of my life, I would. Again, those of you who can present easily, we aren’t friends.
