PUBLIC SPEAKING! Makes me ILL!

Hi,
I have always had an intense fear of any Public Speaking and looking back it was the first clue to discovering I had Social Phobia.

You ARE REQUIRED to do public speaking in Primary School, Secondary School, College, University, Workplaces.....and even socially. Drama was never an option for me, debating groups...eh..no, 'ice-breakers' make me feel physically ill, even playing games where you have to read something out or tell something or sing or perform in front of a group is just my worst nightmare.

But yet I am 'normal', outgoing, loud and seemingly very good socially when I am not threatened with this fear. I go into 'flight' mode when others are laughing and looking forward to it or just not even thinking about it as a fearful thing. So why does my brain and my body start freaking out? (it's OK...I know the answer to this, I undestand the physicals, the emotionals, the looking into your past stuff more than you know.....it still hasn't changed it!)

Now I avoid...avoid...avoid and to do this I have to lie....this fear is making me a LIAR! And I'm not OK about that because that makes me a fake.

I tried Hypnotherapy, diazepam, cognitive therapy, books, Cds, herbal remedies, videotaping myself...you name it I've tried it. But still there remains a voice inside my head that says....'I am NEVER doing that again' (especially in front of my peer group) but my career is paralysed until I can do it and I just can't.

In large courses and groups, I can easily spot at least 1 other person freaking out and they drop out because of it. But where do they go? Have they ever been cured? I know I haven't been able to find a cure for it.

Are you one of them? Is there any light at the end of this very dark tunnel?

Jael said:

Hi,
I have always had an intense fear of any Public Speaking and looking back it was the first clue to discovering I had Social Phobia.

Click to expand...

But yet I am 'normal', outgoing, loud and seemingly very good socially when I am not threatened with this fear.

Click to expand...

people with social phobia aren't outgoing, loud, or good socially. they are the exact opposite. maybe you are just normal and have a fear of public speaking- like 99.999% of people do. the number one fear of all people is not flying, heights, spiders, etc... it is public speaking. very normal. i suggest throwing yourself into the pit and taking a speech class in college. it's hell, but it kind of helps because everyone else is scared, too, and you all have to do it if you want to get an a.a. or bachelor's degree.

My fear of public speaking began to play a big part my life during secondary school. I went to great lengths not to get in that situation..

I cannot remember exactly how it felt to stand before the class and speak, other than it was difficult. Situations like these I have managed to escape from, but I still had to be present in class of course, which made me physically ill. Stomach pains was a daily issue for me when I went to school.
I always felt nauseous, I just couldn't get rid of that feeling..

Have you ever seen the movie "Alice in Wonderland" ? Alice takes a cookie to meet her objective. Well my friend, there is a cookie for you. It's called Clonazepam. Use it an hour before making a presentation.

Ahh, presentations, my arch nemesis.
I first began to hate presenting things when I arrived at secondary school, and it's been getting worse over the years, as the presentations have become a more important part of school life, in an effort to improve our 'public speaking ability'. However, it's counterproductive for me, and the more presentations I do the worse I feel about them. Now as soon as anyone mentions the word presentation, or drama, I get this tight knot of anxiety in my stomach, and I can't think about anything else. Whilst other people are getting excited about how to make theirs more interesting, with costumes and props, I'm terrified of making a fool of myself, which will inevitably happen in my mind.

And on the day of the presentation/drama, I'm even worse. My hands start to shake and sweat profusively, as well as going really red, which I didn't even know was possible. I blush furiously, and also I can't breathe normally and have to take these quick intakes of breath.

I have done a few presentations at uni and the only way I could was by taking a beta blocker. I am anxious and constantly thinking about it for the whole week before, and when it's over I think about it over and over and tell myself that I looked stupid etc.
I'm now trying Cipramil and hopefully this will help with my social anxiety. Exposure therapy did not work for me. I've done about 6 presentations and they still scare me to death.

Yes.... I have social phobia too, and that's why I'm home schooled now.
it's really difficult for me to talk to people. I can't make any friends. I'm kind of lonely. :[ It doesn't help that I have depression too.

I can think of nothing worse than public speaking. I've avoided many presentations and even dropped classes to avoid having to do it. It's just too much for me. I can't stand the thought of standing in front of all those people and sweating so profusely that it's dripping off of me face and rolling in my eyes which in turn causes my eyes to tear up and then not only do I feel petrified but I feel entirely ashamed. Then there's the visible shaking and my throat getting so dry that I have to swallow after every sentence or else I'll get stuck in the middle of one and sound like I'm choking. And of course that goes along with a shaky voice that gets lower and lower until someone tells me to speak up. And then I can't make eye contact with anyone or that'll cause a full-blown panic attack. Of course once it's all over my body returns to normal but everyone is looking at me like I'm the weirdest thing on the planet and I feel so exhausted from the whole experience that I just want to break down and cry or go do something much more drastic. Ugh, it's all so horrible. I'd have to be drugged up to within an inch of my life to make it through a presentation nowadays. Or drunk, which I've never been in my life.

In college in the UK we have this course called "key skills" which is compulsory for everyone no matter what subjects you're studying. Anyway as part of this we had to do a presentation on anything (yeah it was a bloody waste of time). Not a lot of people took the course seriously so the presentations were staggered over many weeks because of people skipping lessons. I didnt even plan anything for mine but I wrote the teacher a fake note supposedely from another teacher (if you've done a presentation in another subject you dont have to do it), I left that in my folder for her to check over at the end of term, anyway I passed!! So she must have believed the note. Thats the kind of lengths i go to..

Do you all think public speaking should be allowed in schools? It doesn't develop any skills in my opinion...aside from worrying, anxiety, blushing...etc. I think it should be optional. So many of my teachers just assign presentations so they don't have to mark work or anything. Easier to watch 20 presentations than mark 20 homewrk assignments.

I actually dropped out of college because of public speaking

I skipped school a lot from the age of around 14 onwards because I was totally overwhelmed by depression, anxiety, social phobia and an eating disorder. When I started college at 16 I was still very unhappy, but determined to start afresh and work towards something other than self-destruction.

All it took was the threat of a five-minute speech on "something of importance to yourself" to make me lose it completely. I wrote a speech eventually, but couldn't stop picturing myself standing in front of the class stumbling over my words with their eyes all over me, judging me and mocking me. I skipped the lesson when the presentation was scheduled and from then on I fell back into old habits and spent less and less time at college. I'd dropped out within weeks.