How do you fellow "social phobics" handle oral presentations in school? Are you able to do them?
I've managed to avoid almost every oral presentation in the past, and the few times I didn't avoid/escaped from them...I screwed them up big time. I just can't do it, it's physically impossible
I may have the greatest speech ready, I may have practised for weeks but once the time comes to do the actual presentation...I can't. My voice doesn't come out, and when it does it's all stuttery and blah. I completely black out too, I just stand there without having a clue of what to say, until the teacher tells me to go sit down
Needless to say, I don't want to experience that again!
I don't want to drop out of school either though, and I doubt my teachers will be very understanding about it

I practised and practised and practised until it was more or less automatic in my head, and I usually got very good marks.

I also made sure to give the audience plenty of handouts to look at and/or used an overhead projector. That way they wouldn't be staring at me the whole time.

I also went through likely questions that they would ask, but obviously, I could never 100% predict this.




Have you tried telling them?

That doesn't work for me though, my head completely shuts off in those situations


Good advice

I...just don't think I want to be able to do this. I'm not interested in it, and I think it's unfair that they make us do it.
I want to get over "social anxiety", but this really isn't a thing I want to overcome. So...I think I lack the motivation to even try

I just want to go to school and get things done, I don't want to have to worry about these things


Not with these particular ones. I haven't had a chance to.
But I've talked to a number of teachers in the past, none of them was very understanding

I did one a couple of months back where I had some notes, but they weren't very detailed, and planned to read off the PowerPoint slides. The girl who put the PowerPoint together had clicked on the wrong copy of the file, though, and my slides were the only ones that didn't come up! I amazed myself by joking about it and carried on without the slides and barely looking at my notes, which were really meant to supplement the PowerPoint. Afterwards several people commented that they would never have been able to do that, that I'd handled it really well and that I always seemed so professional when I presented. Just goes to show.

...That was in a group, though. A few weeks later I did one individually, in front of five other girls, and I blushed so badly I really thought I was going to spontaneously combust.