I've got social phobia!

yesh... social phobia is the fear of negative evaluation and scrutiny by others and public speaking is a form of social phobia. and i absolutely DISLIKE speaking in public or giving presentations.

i dunno how so many ppl are able to do it at ease as though there's nothing much to it and they go up there, talk to 100 ppl as though they're talking to their friends. and here i am, getting jittery and nervous about it as though i'm gonna enter doom. so i've got social phobia... how?

in psychomed, i learnt that the treatment for phobias is exposure therapy. the more you do it, the less scared you get! but tt is if the result of the exposure turns out to be positive! if not, the phobia gets strengthened!

see right, i'm scared of public speaking... i go up there, stutter my way through, got a few sniggers and laughs, got mocking stares from ppl... and my fear of public speaking gets elevated by another fold. but if i go up there, stutter my way through, got words of encouragement... i feel that public speaking is really not that bad a thing after all. the next time i wun be so scared and i'll prob improve in public speaking. makes sense huh?

haha! i still remembered i was such a good girl in kindergarten school, my teacher made me memorise this speech and present it to our parents during our graduation ceremony. At 6 years old, i haven't realized the existence of the word "embarrassment", nor the phrase "social phobia". of course i made a perfect speech with no stuttering (thanks to numerous hours of practice in the teacher's staff room), even could wave and smile to my mom who was so excited downstage.

but the more i grew up, the more scared of public speaking i got. haaii... i scraped through most of my pri, sec and jc school years without having to make that many major presentations. phew! but looks like things are gonna hafta be changed. i got myself into medicine without realizing that presentations are gonna form quite a big part of my life. (i thought i just hafta talk to patients and treat them??!?!)

from an amoebic life form as a HO who hafta present for ward rounds... a registrar who gets arrowed to present for journal clubs, hospital grand rounds, seminars, lectures and tutorials... to a consultant giving public lectures, seminars to colleagues, research seminars, more lectures and tutorials. argghh!! ok... that's if i dun become a hermit GP holed up in my clinic la. but i dun hope to become a hermit GP...

well... at least there's a potential cure with good exposure therapy huh? things can't be that bad la... i hope...