Growing Up Within A Tight-Knit Family

Communication apprehension has played a huge role on my life. Growing up I thought I was a social butterfly, not worrying about what people thought about me or how they viewed me. I had some great friends growing up that were always supportive of me. We would hang out all the time and meet new people and just have fun. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I learned of the fear of public speaking.

When I was little, I was very shy around new people. I usually only showed who I actually was around my family. I didn’t have a friend who I could be myself around, they were usually just friends who I would play with at recess. That was until everything changed, and I moved across the town of Derby.

While taking Introductory Sociology with Professor Cole Smith this semester, the course revealed concepts covering various topics about society and the world around us. During the course, the ideas and concepts covered were impressionable because of the nature of the content. Each chapter discussed controversial topics challenging the way the students previously perceived information. However, there are chapters in this course that have been the most influential. For example, chapter one covered the theoretical perspectives, chapter four examined the concept of the social construction of reality, and chapter twelve exploring the family dynamic. Although each chapter provided insight on various subjects, the information allows for the reader

In my 18 years of living I have never been considered very talkative or vocal. My father would always tell me that talking too much could land you in a big heap of trouble so I refused to do so. He had a phrase, “One thing guaranteed for a person that talks too much is swollen lips”. Hearing that as a child was kind of funny to me, but as I have gotten older I now realize what he was interpreting. I have seen a lot of people get into altercations for running their mouth’s too much and swollen lips is usually the ending result. Although I don’t talk much, I believe I can hold a pretty decent conversation with someone I have things in common with. I use to avoid talking to strangers, but being put in different settings with nothing but strangers has helped me with that to a certain extent. I still wouldn’t consider myself outgoing, but I will get out of my comfort zone if I see a female I find attractive or need to express the way I feel about something; however, talking irrelevantly is not my

From a shy kitten to a gracious swan, that’s the story of my life. Despite all those complications I faced, I can now easily give public speeches and converse with anyone. Nevertheless, overcoming my social anxiety required a large amount of self-motivation and courage.

My freshmen year, it took me a while to start talking to new people because I was super shy. However, due to my performance in my races, people started to learn my name and actually reached out to me to get to know me. Therefore, I began to become familiar and more comfortable with the members on my team. I decided that I needed to do the same and connect with others my sophomore year. To do so, I started to join various school clubs and attend my church’s youth services, where I met new people. Now my peers see me as a “social butterfly”.

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

Whether I like it or not I been given the opportunity to talk to large crowds like a squadron or just a couple of people in the class. My problems have always been the same getting shy, anxiety, and even sweating. Learn to analyze the size of the audience, I want to be able to captivate my audience and overall I just need to find the confidence in myself to do it.

I love the quote by Ezra Taft Benson, “Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.” That quote rings true to me, and has throughout all my life. When I was young, I suffered from such severe social anxiety that even talking to close relatives was terrifying. The anxiety was so severe that my mother nearly brought me into therapy. But one day, she drew a diagram for me. This diagram had a circle in the center labeled “comfort zone"; it explained that when we push out of our comfort zone, we expand our previously little comfort zone into a greater one. I took this principle to heart at a young age, and started pushing myself socially to expand my comfort zone. Even saying hello was a monumental success

After an interaction is initiated with a stranger or acquaintance, do your conversations typically proceed in disarray? Your mind races, you struggle with delivering a coherent message, but even more so the only thing you can focus on is your restless actions and how painfully inconsistent your paralanguage sounds. On the contrary, behind closed doors few people know that you are sort of like a big deal. Maybe you can’t relate to the prior, but it provides some insight into my own internal problem that I’ve struggled with until recently; appearing timid in certain social situations. Though, most of these episodes occur with unfamiliar people, it has surfaced among friends as well, but the likelihood and intensity of these behaviors appear to

As a child, I was very shy. I couldn't meet people in the eye and I had a hard time talking to people outside my own family. I joined 4-H in third grade, and it began to change noticeably. In 4-H there is quite a bit of talking to other people you may or may not have met before. When you are being judged at the fair, you must speak loudly, meet the person in the eye, and explain something by yourself to people you haven’t met. When I was younger, that seem

Everyone becomes a part of something in high school that makes them who they are. Whether it’s a club, organization, group, or team, students in high school will most likely become involved in something they will remember forever. For me, it was becoming a member of the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America. FCCLA has allowed me to become involved and learn more than I could have ever imagined. By becoming a member of this esteemed organization I was able to experience new ways to give service to my community and become involved in many other clubs. In addition, this organization has permitted me to travel many new places and hold multiple officer positions. All of this has taught me skills I am able to use for the rest of my life. Not only would my application be incomplete without FCCLA, but being a part of this organization has made me who I am today.

I avoid talking at school because I don’t want people to think I am annoying. I have been told that my voice is annoying and I don’t want to irritate people so I just keep quiet for the most part. I want to be “that girl” who is outgoing, confident and people want to talk to her… but instead I have a handful of friends and stay quiet. People avoid talking to me and no one reaches out to me since I unknowingly give off an ‘avoid me’ vibe because I am so scared of being outgoing and consequently irritating people. Internally, I am very social, caring and have a sense of humor, but I am too scared to be myself so I have decided it’s better to just be overlooked.

I do feel as though I experience some form of communication apprehension if I am talking to a peer that I don’t know too well. I usually don’t know what to talk about. I hesitate in sharing some things because I’m not sure how the other person is going to react. A lot of the time I think interpersonal conversations with people I don’t know well drain me. For example, on campus I have a lot of acquaintances that I run into every now and then. I find it awkward having to mutually stop and have a quick usually impersonal interaction. If I know I’m going to run into someone like that I get anxious, I would much rather walk a different route and avoid the situation all

I was known to be an introverted and quiet person. As I reflected, I questioned if I want to be like this forever. Of course not. In life, there are times where I have to deal with different people. I used to be nervous whenever I have to public speak and present in front of the class. But this all changed in Junior year of high school. In my Psychology class, we had to do a lot of presentations and public speaking. I was nervous in the beginning, but then it gradually goes away after practicing a lot.