Turning Anxiety Into Empowerment

By Kaitlin

As a child, I was always referred to as the “quiet kid.” When I moved to a new school in third grade, an apparently integral part of an elementary school student’s social experience, I felt like I missed out on the lifelong friendships everyone around me seemed to have. 

At the time, being considered shy was so humiliating to me. I envied my peers that would shout on the bus and make plans for the weekends, while all I did was watch from a distance. Anytime I would try to step outside of my comfort zone and speak to others, I could hear the quiver of my voice reverberate in my skull and feel my cheeks flush red. I just felt like a fool for trying. 

As I got older, I became okay with being quiet. In high school, I had two solid friends. I was happy with the extremely close-knit group dynamic. However, one thing I dreaded in college, more than making friends—I always somehow knew I would thrive in college more than in high school—was the idea of public speaking. Always loving writing, video editing and creative things of the sorts, I knew I wanted to major in communication. My only issue was, I suffered in the crucial communicating to strangers category. 

The day I gave my first speech in Communication 125 on the dangers of excessive caffeine use—if you know me, this is quite ironic—I somehow “crushed it,” as I would say in the shaky, adrenaline-rushed text I sent to my mom afterward. 

I did not expect to feel confident in front of people at all. For the majority of my adolescence, I took on the role of “shy” kid, and now, I presented myself in a way that was, well, empowered and poised. 

So, as college progressed, I continued to present in class with manageable nerves. I want to emphasize the word, “manageable,” because there is a clear and noticeable difference between jitters and full-on anxiety. Unfortunately, I would soon be struck by the latter.

I write this as a junior having just finished a completely remote Fall semester. Going without face-to-face communication with peers for nine months, I felt a bit wary about my final presentations this past semester. However, I talked myself through it knowing that nothing could go wrong in the comfort of my own college home. 

As I awaited my turn for my final presentation in my Communication Sales and Marketing class—a course I loved and felt comfortable in—my heart began racing. I tried taking deep breaths, feeling confused by the nerves more than anything. To my dismay, the fear began to choke me. I struggled to breathe, my cheeks went numb, my hands felt weightless, and all I could hear in my head was, “you cannot do this.”

I kept shutting off my screen, turning to my roommate and pleading for help with my wide eyes. She told me it was going to be okay, and I wished I could believe her.

Unless you are actively experiencing them, anxiety and panic attacks are an indescribable feeling. To me, the constant voice in my head telling me I simply cannot do whatever it is I need to, regardless of the actual severity of the task, is the worst part. 

I got through my presentation and hugged the carpet once it was over, but I felt empty. I experienced no post-presentation rush, just a disappointing feeling that I experienced such a panic. 

For a while, the anxiety lingered. Otherwise manageable or even mundane tasks became a heart-pounding, throat-closing chore. Overall, I was angry. For a period of time, I loved public speaking and socializing with semi-strangers. What happened to me?

Nine months of isolation did that to me. A year of fear and tragedy and no clear lights at the end of an ambiguous tunnel did that to me. 

I speak about this spell of anxiety as if it’s in the past. Sadly, it isn’t. I still deal with it to this day. However, I will talk about it in the past tense, because at some point, my anxiety will be manageable again. 

I believe that you have to tell yourself positive white lies sometimes, so you’re forced to make them realities.