The Shy Butterfly

As a child and as an adult, I've always been on the shy side. I would say I was one of the shyest people in the world. I was always worried about what other people thought or what they would say about me, always lived in a cocoon, and was never the social and outgoing type. I was constantly made fun of because I was so quiet the majority of the time. School was horrible, and I always dreaded being called upon in class to answer a question, or to do a speech, I would much rather have the ground swallow me up or be struck down by lightning, than to say something in front of a group of people.

I am not completely sure what caused me to become so shy, maybe its the way I was treated by other kids at school, or maybe my mom caused it by treating me as badly as she did. When I was a senior in high school, we had speech class, which I hated and refused to get up in front of class and do the mini-speeches'. And when I was willing to get up in front of class and say something.......at the last minute I would crack under pressure, and feel like I was going to pass out, or cry. I wanted to cry because of the embarrassment that I felt afterwards. I was also shy when it came to the opposite sex. I had a hard time with dating like you wouldn't believe, way too shy to approach men, but I eventually got over with being shy with guys.

When I was 27, I was in a training class for a major hotel corporation, and we had to do role-plays, I thought that I could handle it, because I knew what to do, and I did fine on the phone with real customers, lol, well, I didn't do so well in the role-play, because I came down with a major case of stage-fright at the last minute, I was frozen and couldn't speak. I went home feeling miserable because of it. I thought to myself, geez, Nicole, what happened? I guess that I never got over being shy. The weird thing is, I am not shy around strangers, probably because they don't know me and I am not afraid to be myself around them. I wish that I knew of a way to get over being shy. But I am working on it everyday!