I've been wrong about my nephew's family

[lydy]

I've written a bit about my nephew who is in jail. My assumption, incorrect, was that his fammily largely abaondoned him. This is not the case. They visit and write to him and are aware of his religious position. It is much more positive than I assumed. I should not have taken silence to mean disinterest. My sister has never been willing to discuss her kids with me, partly because I've always assumed the worst. I've been written a very sharp note by my sister, as you might guess. So to set the record straight, my nephew is getting lots of support from home. I shot off my mouth.

In other news, I'm having a panic attack about school. It started with a speech I still have to give. I thought I had to give it last Thursday, and was not ready for it. I was so nervous on Thursday that I threw up -- a new thing for me. I've never been that nervous before. As it turned out, I was able to delay it to this coming Thursday. But I've been in a state of raw panic since then. I don't feel like I can manage the rest of this course. I don't think I'll be able to pass the finals in the two courses. I have a knot in my stomach all the time.

I'm not doing well. Things will go better. They always do. But at the moment, things are not so good.

Comments

Some ideas

[guppiecat]

Fears do not have to be rational, nor must they be addressed that way. Some (like me) can logic their way (mostly) out of the crazy, but I am well aware that that doesn't work for everyone. The following (somewhat) logical awarenesses help me (no order):

* Fear often causes inaction. When you're being hunted by a tiger, this is a good strategy. However, some things, particularly social stressors, are made worse by inaction. In such cases, action... often any action at all... is beneficial. The action is best if it's related, but it doesn't have to be.

* Clearly (logically), practicing the speech is the best course of action, but if that's not possible (the boundary-barrier seems too large), unrelated actions can help. Hiking works for me. Other semi-physical activities can also work such as biking, walking, swimming, cooking, swordfighting, etc.

* If you're doing a semi-physical activity (such as hiking), and your brain is not fully occupied, you could fill it with a half-activity. Such things can involve organizing notes or thinking up good phrases to put into a speech. Perhaps even the sort of speech that you might be subconsciously thinking about anyway.

* The first attempt at practicing a speech never counts. This is because practicing (like C and Perl) indexes as zero. Thus, it doesn't matter how well or poorly you do at it, 'cause it doesn't matter. That's a law of the universe, and there's no point in arguing with it.

* There are, generally, two types of speeches. The ones that people attend voluntarily and the ones that they don't. In the former case, the public speaking bit is easy, 'cause they came to see you and they want you to succeed. In the second case, the public speaking bit is ALSO easy, because the audience doesn't really care, so there's very little judgment. I suspect that your speech may fall into the latter category, in which case, the only person doing judging is your professor/teacher.

* Unless a professor/teacher is trained in public speaking and have taught such techniques in class, they won't even know what to look for to judge a speech... so they'll be looking for content, not delivery skills. Since the thing is written, the content is done. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about.

* If you're like me, a part of your brain hates you. This is the part that wants you to fail and constantly whispers in the background, feeding the fears and raising the barrier to action. This part of the brain should get just as much consideration as it gives you... otherwise you're in an abusive relationship with yourself.

* If you can't get the mean brain to shut up and you can't ignore it, you might be able to drown it out. I find that singing the sea otter song can help. If it doesn't work, sing it louder. (There are, of course, other songs... but this one was specifically written to help drown out mean/crazy brain, and it works for me.)

* If people are too scary to practice speeches on, stuffed animals work surprisingly well. (They are also helpful in solving Physics problem sets, in case you ever need to do that.)

* TV doesn't help (me, at least), sad to say. It always seems like it will, and it never does. It's an evil lying box and should be unplugged when it starts whispering things about how relaxing for "just an hour" will make everything so much easier.

* Websites like kitten break and webcomics are related to the TV, and are evil lying bastards. Video games are too, even the ones that seem to be all safe and fun and don't have graphics. As you play them, they sit behind the monitor and snicker at all the time that goes by. They should be deleted with extreme prejudice.

* Clocks are evil when they remind you of deadlines, but can be most remarkable when it comes to preventing break-time from slipping away. Limiting breaks to 10 minutes and enforcing them with timers can be quite effective. This whole "linear time" thing we do is stupid and only serves to leak time away. The clock should serve you, not the other way around. In short, clocks should only count up when you're down and should only count down when you're up.

I know that we're different people, but hopefully this is of some help.