Unless you knew me before college you would probably never guess that I am shy, timid, scared, introverted, etc. Maybe I´m not your stereotypical shy person, who would stereotypically be afraid to talk to anyone except a few select people, but let me give you a brief history of my own, unique shyness.
My earliest memory would probably be in Enrichment when I was about 8. It was the special advanced class for special advanced students in my elementary school. I had to talk to the rest of the class about something, I think about what it would be like for a man to be a woman or a woman to be a man, I don´t know which. Anyway I was talking and my teacher interrupted me and told me to stop talking in ¨that baby voice¨. I hadn´t realized that was how I was talking, but I went to tell my mom about it after school and she said yes, you do talk like that and you should stop. I´m not sure what made me talk like that, probably a weird mechanism for dealing with speaking in front of others, but that would be the first time that my mom basically tried to change my shyness rather than accepting it and helping me deal with it in a less forceful way. This seems to go against my dad´s belief that I do things when I´m ready too, like when I walked all day long for the first time on my 1st birthday. I hadn´t walked before that, but that day I decided in my little 1 year old brain that that day was the day.
Anyway, then we enter middle school, my least favorite years ever. I remember having to present arguments in a debate, again in my Gifted Support class for gifted students, about the Nuremberg Trials and whether or not ex Nazis deserved the death penalty. Afterwards I was at my locker and some asshole Dan Slater came up to me and said ¨I saw you in the debate, you couldnt keep still haha, like this¨ and he proceeded to make fun of me for nervously shifting around while presenting. I didn´t say anything to him but my face burned and I wanted to cry. It´s hard enough to get up and speak when you are shy, and then to have someone make fun of you about it afterwards almost erases any progress you may have made in the area of public speaking. This would happen again in High School, when Ariel Martino said how much I sucked at debates after one in my Advanced Placement US History class. I don´t know if she meant for me to hear it or not, but either way that was like a hot punch in the ass. Thanks for that Ariel, I really appreciate it.
Also in middle school, I found a way to not have to talk to anyone, by reading books during the times when everyone else was talking to each other. I was known as the quiet one, and more rambuctious classmates enjoyed themselves in telling me disgusting things because they knew I wouldn´t say anything back. They would also try to get me to curse, because it would be sooo hilarious to hear the girl who barely talks saying MotherFUCKERRR or whatever other swear words were popular then.
In high school I didn´t change a whole lot, just that people thought I dressed weird and was a druggie because I never talked and dressed weird. My band teacher tried to get his introverted trumpet section to play more ¨nasty¨ in the jazz band, and I didn´t know how to tell him that telling a shy person to do that is like telling a cat to bark. It´s just not gonna happen. That was my most stressful year, 10th grade. Smack in the middle of high school and the middle of hormones and trying to be accepted without changing who I was. I was terrified to say hi to people in the halls and even more so when I tried to and no sound came out. By senior year I started to give less of a fuck and chilled with my even quieter friend Sadie and pretended to be a pirate sometimes. I knew I was leaving soon for college and that none of my classmates would be studying there so I was ready to start anew.
And basically here you have it, I was able to hide my shyness because in college everyone is more accepting. Honestly I could talk about more shy moments, but lets just say that I still am scared to ask to pet someone´s dog even when my boyfriend is right there with me. It seems to stay with me now in the form of not wanting to deal with strangers, for fear that they will think I´m crazy or not like me for whatever other reason. I will try to work on it, but I am extremely opposed now to the method of shoving shy people into being outgoing. PLEASE let them do it at their pace, and just talk to them about it if they wish, and help them as you can by being a friend.
