As steamy hot water trickled down my shoulders, I wondered if my college Public Speaking course (which I would start that same morning) was the main source of my night terror. After all, I’d had that night terror every night that entire week, each time just as vivid and terrifying as the last. And, all I could really think about during my waking hours was my damn public speaking class, which was required for me to get my degree, no exceptions (trust me, I tried to find any way to avoid it with no luck). 

Now that the day I would start that dreaded sixteen week course had dawned, maybe those nightmares would cease. Or, maybe they’d stop once my new toy arrived at my doorstep: a 2-in-1 seatbelt cutter and spring-loaded tempered window breaker keychain. 

After my shower, I still didn’t feel great. I was extremely tense and hyper-alert. I stared into my reflection’s eyes as I brushed my hair, and all I saw was fear. Pure, unrelenting terror. 

Still, I stubbornly pressed on through the fear. I finished getting ready and packing up. I chugged my medication down with a protein shake and left immediately after, clutching a prescription bottle filled to the brim with Propranolol that I vowed to only take if I absolutely needed it. 

The drive to campus was way too short for my liking. As I drove down familiar roads in unremarkable traffic, all I could feel was fear, and my mind was reeling too fast for me to catch a single thought and dissect it. In a way, I felt like I was a young, sickly teen riding to school in 6th grade knowing, damn well, that I was going to have a hellish day of being bullied and abused by peers and teachers alike for being different. The dread, fear, and the urge to just turn around and put as much distance between myself and the source of my fear, were all too familiar. 

But, things were (and are) different. Now, I was driving myself to my college campus to start a required, sixteen-week-long public speaking course. Unlike middle school and parts of high school, the course wouldn't last multiple school years across multiple schools. It was sixteen weeks, or in my mind, sixteen Tuesdays and sixteen Thursdays: Thirty-two days or forty hours total (plus whatever time I spent at home or at Enchanted Grounds doing schoolwork). I could probably withstand that without ending up dead. 

While I knew no bullies or unsympathetic teachers were waiting for me in my public speaking class, I still feared public attention and scrutiny. I didn't want to attend a college course where I'd be analyzed and graded by peers and professors alike, as I did my best to face my greatest fear without puking, passing out, or bursting into tears. But, either I got that course over with, or I pushed it off another semester or two (which would just make it seem even scarier), or I didn't get my Associate's degree at all. So, I took my parents' advice, and decided it was best to get the course over with sooner than later.  

I just had to push through the fear and do it. Sixteen weeks would go by fast. Hopefully, anyway.

I caught my breath as I pulled into campus. It was one of the busiest days of the year, and students were rushing everywhere, seemingly unaware of anyone else around them. Thankfully, I managed to not run anyone over despite people being more aloof than the Valley deer, found a parking space amid the chaos and hung up my yearly parking pass on my rearview mirror. 

For a moment, I sat in my Xterra and stared straight ahead, clutching my steering wheel in a death-grip. My nostrils flared as I fought to regain control of my breathing, determined not to admit defeat and take my Propranolol. As I sat there, terrified and ashamed of being so scared, I again began to wonder what it was about public speaking that terrified me so badly. Nobody I knew seemed to understand the depth of my fear, even if they were sympathetic towards me. Hell, I didn’t get it either. 

Sure, I’d been bullied and ostracized for much of my life, and I had actually puked into a trashcan in the middle of class a few times too (due to intense anxiety that I so desperately tried to hide and deny). Family and biology teachers had put me in the spotlight before, thinking (wrongly) that I was okay with being outed as that kid with CF. And I did have to pull over and puke on the side of the road after giving a presentation in my college Astronomy course. But, that couldn’t possibly be why I was so fucking scared. There was nothing that could justify the levels of fear I’d been feeling all week ahead of this required public speaking course. Right? Right?