I am 25 years old and I was fine all my life until shortly after my 20th birthday.I was at work and a co-worker made me blush over something silly which wasn't a big deal but then some of the other girls started making fun of the fact that my face was red. Suddenly I started to feel extremely nervous, my lips started quivering, and my heart started beating harder than it ever had.

I then became anxious of going to work the next day. I worried so much about it that of course the next day it happened again. And again my co-workers teased me thinking it was cute and not understanding what I was feeling. I quit that job.

This fear worked itself into all aspects of my life and has caused me to turn down basically any situation where the attention might be drawn to myself. And cause me to not have fun in a situation that would have been great a few years earlier.I can't even play a board game because I only think about how my hand might start shaking on my turn and I am sure that everyone is watching me for the same thing.

At another job I had everyone had to have their lunch together in a lunchroom. I would spend my whole lunch break freaking out that someone might want me to say something. One day I lifted my hand off the table and there was literaly a puddle of sweat where my hand had been.

I always seemed to have 2 sides...sometimes shy and sometimes outgoing.

In 7th grade, I signed up to read the morning announcements over the PA system. I was not at all anxious before hand as I had never had any real bad experiences in this way. As I began reading the daily news, I started hearing my voice reverberate through the entire school. It really caught me off guard and my voice began to shake and I could hardly croak out the rest of the messages. But croak I did and it was a totally humiliating experience which I have never gotten over. From that day on, I was never the same...always having way too much anxiety over any oral presentation. I never have had as bad an experience as that day, but still it haunts...I am now 45 years old and have recently gotten a teaching job and it is very difficult for me to handle the public speaking parts.