It Makes Me Tremble - An Essay about Stage Fright | Tutor Dunya D's Column

It Makes Me Tremble - An Essay about Stage Fright

Shy people can’t explain why they’re shy.

It’s not really that others are intimidating. It’s a state of being that just is, a quiet fear that burns and stings regardless of the actions of others.

It’s a fear of feeling stupider, inferior, less worthy than others in a system that only exists within oneself, and that has nothing to do with how others perceive us.

I’ve been battling shyness for ages. I’ve gone through plenty of ups and downs, but one particular event stands out on my self-liberation path:

My love for writing has deep roots.

I was fairly good at it back when I was 16 years old and attending the Eastern European equivalent of a language-focused magnet school. In my reading-oriented literature class, we spent most of the time analyzing famous works of fiction.

But once in a while, we’d get an essay writing task, and I couldn’t be happier. For me, essays were the easy way to bump my grade up. Writing simply came naturally to me.

This time was no different until, a few days later, my teacher told me that she liked my essay so much she wanted me to read it in front of the class. I felt the blood in my veins freeze. I knew there was no way this would end well: I was good at writing, but public speaking was a nightmare!

I was sure I was going to mess it up.

However, there was nothing I could do but get out there, face my 23 classmates, take a deep breath, and begin reading.

In the beginning, it seemed alright. But as time went on, I felt a growing unease in the depths of my stomach. Instead of the fellow teens I spent my days with, I felt 23 pairs of unblinking, unforgiving eyes on me, judging every word I said, the way I stood, the way I spoke, the way I breathed.

I hated it.

With each passing moment, my throat tightened more.

The words I was reading suddenly made no sense.

They hated it, hated me, for sure.

I just wanted to run away from there. But, instead of sprinting home, I just stopped.

I closed my eyes and just breathed for a moment.

I swallowed my rapidly emerging tears.

And I reminded myself there wasn’t a malevolent jury in front of me – just 23 of my peers, each of them insecure and self-conscious in one way or another.

I could hear my heart like it was thumping on my eardrums, and my shaking knees felt like giving out.

“I’m super nervous and I know it makes no sense but I can’t control it” – I managed to say, lips still quivering.

To my utter astonishment, “Yeah, that’s ok”, “no worries”, and “Why? It’s good!” was all I heard from a few corners of the classroom.

Nina, a close friend, showed her support with a raised fist.

The class clown simply shouted, “Stop stalling! I wanna hear how it ends!” and I couldn’t help but smile.

Some of these people liked me and appreciated what I did. Others were, at worst, indifferent. Most simply enjoyed the fact they didn’t have to do anything for the rest of the lesson.

I took a few more breaths to steady my heart rate and continued reading where I left off.

Instead of looking down and wishing it’d just end, I looked up at the faces of my listeners and basked in the support that radiated from them.

That day, I learned that my shyness comes from within. I figured out that my insecurities lied to me. It wasn’t my audience that was judging me – I was my own harshest critic.

I felt my environment turn from horror to wholesome in a matter of minutes, but the truth is, it was only my perception that changed.

Back when I was 16 and felt my legs shake from stage fright, I learned that people are sometimes kinder to us than we are to ourselves.

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