It Isn't Always The Quiet Ones!

Lighthearted but truthful account of my own experiences as an individual who is painfully shy.

It Isn't Always The Quiet Ones!

"Silence is golden." 

At least that's what they say isn't it? However, this isn't necessarily something I hold to be true. For me, silence - my silence - is a problem I have lived with for years.
Ever since I can remember I have been told I was quiet. Shy, anxious, maybe even slightly introverted, and it isn't that I don't like company or am antisocial at all - I actually love being able to chat to people and enjoy their company. However I still struggle to do so. It is also not a case of having nothing to say, quite the opposite in fact. I constantly have thoughts and opinions buzzing around in my head, sometimes to the point that I wish I could actually shut my brain off for just a minute, to get some peace and quiet. No, my problem is that I am simply insanely socially anxious.

Awkward, nervous, call it what you will, all I know is that I can be completely confident in my thoughts or opinions until I have to voice them to either someone I don't know extremely well, or more than one person. I then begin to trip over my words, muddle my thoughts in my head, or just flush red and turn mute altogether. My friends, family, and others who know me well enough are pretty used to this by now, and don't really seem to notice it anymore but it still inhibits me almost everyday at some point, and has been an issue ever since I can remember.

Many have commented on it since I was a young age, but they labelled it cute or sweet as I was only small. I feel I was treated as though I was some little princess in a children's book, bound by the unfortunate spell of a malignant witch, and withstanding the attempts of several to coax her to speak. Perhaps they thought it may only take the correct - magic? - word or phrase to lift the enchantment. However, this was clearly not the case and as I grew older it became more of a problem. Every teacher I have had since primary one has remarked in some way that I was too quiet. Some were nicer and more understanding about it, saying simply that I needed to have more confidence in my work and opinions because they were of a respectable quality. Others said that I should assert myself, speak up and let myself be heard more, but one in particular took a real dislike to me and stated that I was "eerily silent during listening and talking activities" making me seem as though I was plotting against them all, striving to find out their secrets and use them against them like some evil little witch. This apparently gave her justified cause to eject me from the ability group in which I had been placed as a result of previous assessments. I thought this to be a little unfair given that I was six years old and placed in a primary two class full of people I didn't know, and expected to present to the class. However, perhaps she was right, perhaps the age of six really is when a child can be marked out as "evil".
From then on I did not appear to become anymore outgoing, as illustrated a few years on when my primary five class were issued with a Scottish poem for Burns Day and each of us was asked to learn it as best we could for the following week. We then had to recite it to the class and whoever the teacher thought could remember it the best was selected to recite it to the whole school at assembly. I went home and learned it every night until then, but when it actually came to my turn in class I quickly mumbled the first few lines before pretending to forget the rest simply so I didn't have to do it. Even that short period of time I spent in front of my classmates was enough to make me feel physically ill, both clammy and warm at the same time but also shivery as if I had a fever. I can vividly recall the moment I sat back down in my chair. I was exhausted, like I hadn't slept in days. The thought of speaking in front of my own class was enough to make me feel nauseous and anxious for days beforehand, so the idea of reciting to the school was unthinkable to me.

Similar kinds of events followed me throughout school life until most teachers just settled for the odd answer from me in class to bring me out of my shell a little which, as much as I silently hated them for it at the time, did actually help a bit. It still does worry me somewhat though, that the act of simply requesting to go to the toilet in class can make me so worked up that the words require to be rehearsed in my head a few times over before actually being said and regardless of having improved a lot since my primary school days, the amount of time I must spend a day focusing on instances as trivial as these is maddening. Despite being aware of how irrational these thoughts and concerns are, I still allow them to constantly pre-occupy a (sometimes larger than I'd care to admit) percentage of my brain, and distract me from enjoying everyday life.

I do have a few ideas as to what could have caused me to be such a self-conscious individual, but I won't pretend to understand how that side of things works. I do wish I could just magically conjure up the cure for any crippling case of low self-esteem, or a way to pull my confidence levels up out of the minus area but I just simply don't think it can be done. I have tried time and time again to rationalise with myself and try to think what I honestly suppose will happen if I was to strike up a conversation with somebody, or maybe ask to borrow a pen, etc but despite not having any logical response, I still can't make myself do it. I have actually been in several situations where I've sat for a good fifteen to twenty minutes needing help with something, and been unable to ask because in my head it "wasn't the right time".

This is honestly the first time I have ever tried to word any of these ridiculous thoughts and it seems almost laughable to have them stated out loud. Well, not out loud - I couldn't quite manage that - but it's a start.

By Elise Robertson