Fear of public speaking: am I walking cliche or what?

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You know, I got an A in my speech and drama class, I did just fine in Moot Court, I do okay in court when I'm dragged in kicking and screaming ... but I still get the willies. Does anyone EVER get over this?

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Answers

Heh, I've always had a fear of speaking. In elementary school, the teacher went around the room making every kid read a paragraph from the book we were reading. I panicked from the moment she said that we would do that.

By the time it came around to me, I was so petrified. I was scared that the other kids would laugh at me. When I tried to speak, I couldn't. My voice sounded all rough. I tried to clear my throat but it didn't work and all these kids were just looking at me. I panicked so badly that I ended up throwing up all over my desk.

My teacher let me go home early that day and she never asked me to speak again in class.

I've gotten better at it since then (I panick but without the vomiting), but I still try to avoid public speaking at all costs. I don't know if you ever get over it and I'm not willing to find out. :)

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


I swear, when I have to speak in public, you can see my heart beating in my throat. It helps if I have a podium so my hands don't tremble, and it helps even more if I am enthusiastic about what I'm saying, but it still terrifies me.

One thing that has helped, though, has been reading to the boys every night at bedtime. It's gotten me used to the sound of my voice, and I'm unafraid to try out various ways of talking, goofy accents, exaggerated intonation, etc.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


When I was younger, I was terribly shy, speechless in public. Then in high school, in a fit of insanity or masochism, I signed up for DEBATE CLASS. Before every class, tournament, or practice where I had to speak I would throw up. My rounds always started late because I had been hurling in the bathroom. This went on for an entire year.

Then I started to win.

For a couple of years after that, I wasn't throwing up, though I still got the shakes, sweaty palms, and so on.

A few years later, and I can and do now teach undergraduates, speak at conferences, testify to the CA state legislature, all without a hint of the willies. As a measure of how far I've come, I teach one hour classes off a single page of notes. When I started, only several pages of prepared material could sustain me through a five minute speech.

So I got over it. But it was a nightmare.

I'm still afraid of people seeing my writing, though.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


Y'know, I actually love reading/performing in front of people - as long as I know what I'm doing. It's the improv that always gets me nervous.

I did speech team in high school (poetry and drama) and theatre through both high school and college. I have no qualms about reading my poetry at cafes (though slams bring out my ugly competitive side and can cause me to choke up). You'd think the rush I get from going onstage would pump me up enough to slide through improvised performances, but it isn't so.

On very short notice, I agreed to do a reading of some short fiction a few months ago at a San Francisco bar. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to say when I got up there - I just knew what I was reading and was going to rely on my cold-reading skills to get me through. The reading went ok, though it would have benefitted from * some* practice, but after I finished the piece I was tempted to go on and read another companion piece. I think I mumbled on about, "Well, I was going to read this next section ....it's kinda hard to read...no, I don't think I will read it....sooo......um,..well, thank you."

Oh, it was terrible. I felt like shit about that ungraceful ending for weeks and weeks. It took a few months for me to get the guts up to go up on stage again. And, by the time I did, you better bet I had an introduction AND conclusion prepared ahead of time.

Practice, baby, practice. Read it until you know not only the words, but the rhythm by heart. That beat will carry you through once you get into it; the pattern of the sounds will chase away your fear, comforting you despite the audience. And, when you get the audience into your rhythm too, well, there's nothing like that feeling of control/ritual/shine. There's no better feedback for your writing than getting an immediate response, even if that response is "only" attentive listening silence. The attention is addictive.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


Hey everybody it's me, Big Joe! What I hate is the time leading up to the speech in which I often work myself into a tizzy over it. My theory is that this problem is the product of a fertile imagination -- we can imagine all the bad things that will happen (people laughing, mainly) and scare ourselves silly. Once the speech starts and I'm thinking about the material instead of about bombing everything usually goes well. As Mr. Petty says, "it's the waiting that's the hardest part."

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


It's just occurred to me that my fear of speaking may be well-founded. I offer for your consideration:

-- I got my period for the first time on the day of my eighth grade spelling bee. I won second place, which means I had to be on stage for a really, really long time. I don't want to talk about that event anymore.

-- When I was in a play in high school, in one scene I had to run and jump into the hero's arms, and then after a few minutes, he had to drop me. Onto my ass. Because we staged the play on the basketball court, which hurts if you fall on it, they put down a wrestling mat and hid it behind a prop (a sofa, I think). So what did he do? Missed his mark, and I missed the mat. Ow.

-- During my first oral argument in moot court in law school, the judge (my con law professor) interrupted my "May it please the court ..." to say, "I know who you are, Ms. Campbell. Now stop wasting my time and let's get on with this."

-- At the beginning of my first real life trial, my client decided to plead guilty at the last minute. I had been taught how to do a jury trial, but I had no clue how to walk someone through a plea. The judge had to call me to sidebar and whisper to me to tell me what to do.

-- A year or so ago I was in a skit in which I had to play the wronged wife in the Kelly Flynn affair. We didn't get our Air Force uniforms until the night of the skit, so I didn't know until the last minute that my blouse was about four sizes too small. (I didn't know they let ten year olds in the Air Force!) I spent an hour and a half on stage in front of a bunch of judges and lawyers, praying that my buttons would hold.

So see, my fear of public speaking is very reasonable. Bad things always happen, usually completely unrelated to the speaking part!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


Beth,

I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking. My whole body shook. I'd be trying to read my poems and the words would be jumping up and down. I couldn't read them, and that made it even worse. The more I did it though, like anything else I guess, the less frightful it became.

Always helped too when I went on stage and told everybody to go screw themselves right off the bat.

Not that I'm suggesting you do that.

No, don't do that.

Fear makes you do stupid, stupid things.

Oh, and in case I don't get the chance later, happy birthday. I just turned thirty myself. What a bummer.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


Beth -- I can completely relate.

Two things helped, especially when reading fiction. (Well, and the above practice suggestions. Of course, I like Jim's a lot. It's helpful in the, ahem, right situations.)

Remember, they're not focusing on you, nor *really* your words -- instead, they're building mental images and your words are just guiding them there. They're turning their mind's eye inward, seeing something *other than you* and your voice isn't really all that important, it's just a conduit.

I know, that probably sounds like bullshit, but most of the time, words are trigging mental images and associations in us and we're not directly focused on the voice / person speaking them. Knowing that helped me relax and not feel so much in the spotlight.

Two, do some endorphin exercises prior to speaking. (Most people are familiar with endorphins / runner's high, but don't realize they can do other things to trigger them. And endorphins are 200 times stronger than morphine.)

Deep breathing techniques, singing techniques (to loosen up the voice), laughing, sex , and/or a few other simple, quick things can help trigger your endorphins.

Here's a factoid -- when they were trying to learn how endorphins worked, there was a drug called naltrexone which they knew would stop endorphin production in the body. They tried an experiment on people who had to speak publicly -- they gave naltrexone to some, a placebo to others. Both groups were taught the endorphin triggers mentioned above. Those with the naltrexone literally couldn't go on. They couldn't talk, couldn't open their mouths, fainted at the podium, or had such bad nervous jitters, they were sick, etc. They were tested afterward and had no endorphins in thier system. The placebo group (after using their choice of technique) sailed through the public speaking. They showed a high rate of endorphins afterward.

Well, this was all probably waaaaayyyy more than you wanted to know; I pub'd a piece on this, so I tend to yammer too much about it. Hope something here was of help.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


i am a theater techie not because i am a bad actress, but because i freeze the minute i get in front of more than two people. audiences terrify me.

consequently, i don't talk in my discussion classes at college. even the english classes, where i've read the material more than once, have distinct opinions and COULD argue with the best of them. i go to contribute, i open my mouth, and nothing comes out. it's hurt my grade in more than one class, which stinks no matter which way you look at it. i'm just scared that ... i don't know what, which makes it all the worse. i have ideas, i just can't say them! it's driving me bonkers.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999


One day in Junior High I raised my hand to be first to read my science paper aloud. While reading, my heart sped up to the point I thought I was having a heart attack and my voice shook uncontrollably. I was that special I'm-in-hell mortified like only a seventh grader can be. From then on, it happened whenever I had to speak more than a few sentences outloud to the class. Routine reading aloud has always been worse for me than giving a speech; I'm not sure why. It was during my creative writing class in college that I figured out what helped me: 1)I concentrated on being proud of my work and on my desire to get my point across 2)I took many , many deep breaths before speaking, in addition to remembering to breathe WHILE speaking (it's easy to forget) 3)I practiced it aloud beforehand to get used to hearing my voice. But I still dread it if it has to be done. It's a constant mind battle...

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999


I'm sure none of you intended this, but all this talk about public speaking has caused me to have the first public speaking nightmare I've had in ages. You know, the one where you forget to put on your pants that morning ...

-- Anonymous, July 17, 1999

I get extremely nervous right before i give a speech or when I talk in class. My palms start to really sweat and i can feel my heart beat going faster and faster. I get this fuzzy feeling in my lungs which causes my voice to crack. Why do these things happen to me? Whats odd though, is that when I was a leader in a civic group I would always talk in front of the group without getting nervous. I would get those same feelings before a speech but once I started I was awlright. But now that I am back in school its returned. I thought I had overcome it.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

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