Hello and a warm welcome to the Ablehere community! It’s very nice to meet you. I have read your message. We probably haven’t been through exactly the same things, but I can certainly relate to what you are and have been experiencing. Just know that you are never alone.
Ever since I started primary school, I have been dealing with shyness and social anxiety. I am now 20 years old and I have developed and become much more confident the past few years, but I still feel uncomfortable in some situations. When I was a child, I had a slight speech impediment. People didn’t always understand me perfectly and I think this was the biggest reason why I was so afraid of talking in public. I kept myself to myself and tried to avoid social gatherings as much as possible. Every day I said to myself, “Something is wrong with me. I am not good for anything”.
When I was 15, I joined the Swedish association for blind and visually impaired youth. Three years later, I became the President of the local association here in the south west of Sweden. Now I am in the national board. This work has definitely contributed to my increased self-confidence and I have developed my ability to communicate with different kind of people.
I didn’t have a very good time in school and I just wished I had someone to laugh with, to have fun with and to share things with. I was hoping that things would change when I started a new school about four years ago, but it just got worse. All they talked about was parties, how drunk they had been and what embarrassing things they had done. That didn’t interest me at all. At the beginning I tried to ask or tell them things just to get to know them better, but with no success, so I decided to just ignore them.
I continued to do my best in school and got good results in most subjects. The hardest subjects were the ones in which participation in group discussions was required.
Sometimes it’s very challenging to take part in a conversation if many people are talking all at once. Many times I know what I want to say, but if I start at the same time as someone else, I automatically stop and let them talk. Then when it’s silent again, I have often forgotten what I was trying to say earlier.
I guess the best thing I can do is continue to practise.
This is much longer than I expected. I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I am here if you want to talk.
Please take care. Huge hugs!
Julia
