For years, speaking in public has triggered panic attacks. So to overcome them, I road-tested some popular methods, from psychotherapy to virtual reality
My vision is fuzzy, my heart is racing and my lungs are emptying of oxygen. I’ve just been asked to speak in a meeting at my first graduate job on a fashion magazine. My task is simple – read out the week’s social media stats – but I can’t make it through. I cut the presentation short. I sit down, murmuring an apology, my eyes stinging with tears.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. I had my first panic attack during a university class presentation. As the room started to spin and my breath grew short, I ditched most of what I’d prepared just to reach the end of my speech as fast as possible. When I returned to my seat, the lecturer carried on as though nothing had happened, but I was mortified. It had blindsided me. I’d enjoyed public speaking at school. Since when had I become such an anxious wreck?
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