The Fear of Public Speaking and a Side of Clowns

Are you afraid of anything? Sure you are. Me, too. We’re all scared of something, maybe several somethings. Back in 2014, Chapman University’s Survey of American Fears (which surveys about 1,000 folks yearly on their top 100 fears and phobias), rated the Fear of Public Speaking as #1, generating much greater angst than, for instance, the Fear of Death or even Taxes. However, last year, just seven years later, the Fear of Public Speaking has dropped all the way to #54. This drop is somewhat explainable in that, during 2020-2021, (the period of this last study), few of us really had any opportunity to public speak anyway, right? Zoom doesn’t generate that same level of stress, I’ll guess.

Interestingly, people’s Fear of Clowns during that same period has dropped from 7.3% to 5.9%. The clown popularity drop is probably not significant but fun to wonder about. We are still saying that about six out of every 100 people you meet have a measurable and at least somewhat significant fear of those grotesque but normally benign creatures.

Speaking of angst, the first time I remember experiencing a true, significant anxiety episode was during a 7^th grade school speech contest I got roped into. We lived In Salinas, Ca. at the time and the Optimists sponsored the contest. (And they still do! Bless their hearts!)

From our class there were two of us randomly selected to participate, Richard (who was much smarter than me), and I. And we learned maybe there were gonna be eight of us altogether across the town from different schools, including Salinas High, North Salinas and Alisal. We’d be competing for prizes and if you won big maybe you’d get a scholarship. And we’d all be speaking on the same subject, “How school prepares me to do good in the world.” We were supposed to write, memorize and deliver a 4–5-minute speech with no props, meaning no notes of any kind.

This was a challenge, since up until then I hadn’t considered doing much good in the world or anywhere else. I was far more interested in sneaking the new Sears catalogue into the bathroom to check out this month’s cute girls in their brassieres and underwear. However, I didn’t mind the assignment. Then, as now, I liked attention and thought that I really wouldn’t have to work too hard at it anyway ‘cuz we’d have a coach assigned to help us; probably, I assumed, with the writing part, as we certainly hadn’t learned how to write a speech, right?

Wrong. As it turned out these were false assumptions. The little work I did before our meeting with the coach was difficult and, I thought, not speech-y at all. Worse, when we met, a week before the contest, it turned out our coach wasn’t there to help write our speeches at all. She was there to hear us deliver our memorized speeches, without notes or cards, just as we would at the actual event the following week and help us work on our delivery.

I can’t say nobody told me this, or tried to. I seldom listened much to anything anybody said in class in those days. But it couldn’t have worked out anyway as I didn’t have my speech written and (thinking back) I remember most of it wasn’t all that insightful, focused as it was on trying to turn my religion class into my talking points.

Why religion class? I went to a Catholic school and therefore we always had a focus on religion, so I thought I could use that to give me a leg up over the other speakers who would all be from non-religious schools, and so wouldn’t know anything about religion. But when I tried to speak about religion in practice, in the context of it helping me do good in the world, it seemed way off in some way, possibly driven by how little attention I paid to religion in class.

But I went with what I had, organizing it on the fly to introduce the subject and then offer three points about religion In my life. I don’t remember what the points were, they had to be fiction anyway, but the coach had said bullet points are a sure-fire winner and otherwise I had nothing. And after the practice session I figured I’d have a weekend to finish it. And a day after that – all the time in the world, really.

But the weekend came and went too quickly. I thought about the upcoming speech 100% of the time now, but I still had not finished it; the closer we got to the actual date the worse I felt, although it would be years before I had language for pernicious malady. That Sunday after church when mom and dad were reading the Sunday paper, I felt so lousy that I couldn’t even think about the new Sears catalogue. Instead, I sat on the couch, looking at my heavily pencil-noted cards and wondering why anybody had selected me for this speech thing.

The following Tuesday dawned, a pretty fall day, (not even a hurricane, my last hope), and I spent the morning in class ignoring the teachers, practicing what was on my cards in my mind. I knew I was under-prepared, but I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t that bad, that probably so was everybody else, right? After all, they had only had a weekend in between, too, and I was hoping that they hadn’t done much more to finish their speech than I had.

Late in the morning, our class was interrupted by Richard’s dad who was giving Richard and I both a ride to the speech contest, being held at the Italian Villa. I had been on-edge before, but I realized, on the drive over, I was now physically uncomfortable, jittery, my stomach was in knots. I was In the back seat clutching the white 3X5 cards I had pencil-written my notes on, and my hands were getting wet and the penciled words smeary.

I tried to smooth the notes out a bit; I wasn’t going to be allowed to use them anyway and suddenly the act of smoothing them reminded me of that, which I had been pushing into the back of my mind. I felt my breathing, normally shallow anyway, was starting to get faster. I suddenly had to pee, too, but luckily, we arrived at the restaurant, and I took care of that, at least.

We had been invited to join the Optimists before our speeches for their lunch. All Optimists, it turned out, were old, serious men about Richard’s or my dad’s age, maybe 50. The whole room was full of them, maybe hundreds. They were all wearing suits, and they were all staring at me. Well, at the four of us, then. Turns out there were only four of us, not six or eight, Salinas High had shown up but North Salinas High and Alisal High had decided not to participate.

They sat us all right up front next to a podium and we were served pasta and salad, but I just moved stuff around on my plate, not able to eat a bite through my increasing nausea.

After lunch, we drew numbers out of a box, 1-4, for our place In the speaking rotation. I drew second, after a tall, nice-looking guy from Salinas High School named Carlos. Well, second wasn’t that bad, I thought, praying that Carlos would be awful. “Opening,” I kept telling myself. “then the three points”.

Carlos addressed the group as we had been instructed, giving his name and  the shared title of his speech and went right into it. (This is from memory but I could hardly forget it.) “My family is Catholic,” he began, “and my faith is very important to me.” He paused, very effectively, I thought. “So when I began writing on how school will help me do good in the world, I realized it wasn’t my regular school that was going to help me with that, it was my Catechism school, which I choose to attend three afternoons a week. That’s where I believe I learn how to become a better person and where I learn to do good in the world.”

My heart, already pounding, now went into overdrive. I felt somebody was driving a race car around in my chest. Ol’ Carlos had stolen my one advantage, religion! But it was about to get much worse.

“I’d like to share three things with you,” he said. “Three ways, really, that my Catholic schooling helps me become a better person, maybe even a priest, some day!”

Holy shit, I thought. The priest had stole my three-points idea, too. As I frantically looked down at the white cards I realized that the letters, smudged from my wet hands, were now moving across and back, alive and sort of shimmering. I took my glasses off and peered at the cards. Nope, for sure, something was happening. At that instant, out of control, my mind shifted into “F”,  Fear. I suddenly felt the most uncontrolled fear I can remember. It was like I was sitting inside the cave and I just noticed the world’s largest Sabre-Tooth Tiger drooling at the opening. What the heck was happening? Was I sick? Did I need to throw up or poop or both? No time!

‘Course, what I was afraid of at the time wasn’t real, nothing had happened yet,  so it landed on the threat of my making myself an absolute shameful failure. And since that future failure was only a minute or so ahead it was as if it were already happening. My forehead broke out in a heavy sweat and I used my still-virgin lunch napkin to wipe myself off but of course anxiety doesn’t give up that easy and within seconds I was dripping again.

It was about then that I realized Carlos had finished and the whole audience was applauding and smiling. I noticed his dad for the first time, at the front table, clapping as hard as anyone and nodding his approval. I didn’t remember his three points or anything he had said.

A minute or so later, I was introduced. I felt like running away, but knew I couldn’t. Trapped, like a rat. I stood up, went to the podium and tried to start but couldn’t remember my opening lines. I couldn’t look up to make eye contact with the audience. I couldn’t do anything but look down at the three note cards I had incorrectly brought up to the podium with me.

Eventually, I started with my name. I heard a stage whisper to “talk into the microphone, son!” I started over with my name and my title, I got that much. But that was it. I forgot everything entirely and went someplace else, where I can’t remember. I do remember sort of “coming around”, realizing that a number of folks in the audience were looking at me in a funny way. Feeling even more shame than I had dreaded, I whispered, “Sorry!” and sat down.

For the life of me I can’t remember anything further from that occasion, Richard’s speech included, not even saying goodbye to the Optimists’ or getting into Richard’s car or getting dropped back at school with no other choice but to go back into class and explain I had forgotten my speech.

I expect that the three prizes went to the other guys. Richard told me Carlos had won first place, meaning he’d get to compete at the next level and maybe eventually win a scholarship. I don’t remember walking home or telling my parents anything; maybe I didn’t. Essentially, I have blocked out everything else that happened for the rest of the day.

So that was my first full-blow anxiety attack. Not quite the worst panic attack one could have (and I’ve had my share of worse later, thank you). But with no language to identify what had happened, I just thought that a pretty awful experience but at the same time maybe pretty normal and what would happen to anybody who forgot their speech at the Optimists’ Speech Contest.

So is that the end of the story? Well, no. By the next year, I felt much better about the whole experience. I hadn’t had another attack like that. I put some perspective on the event and realized I was still alive even though I had previously wanted to die. So, October came around, and this time, feeling brave but not too foolhardy, I volunteered for the speech contest again.

It’s clear that nobody else wanted the assignment as nobody fought David or I for the position. David was a recent transplant to the 8^th grade and because my school also served as a reform school of sorts for people whom no public school wanted, and because David was one of that kind of person, I think he simply wanted out of class for a couple of hours. David was much older than the rest of us; I’d guess 16, tall and heavily bearded and overall a piece of work but he worked on his speech and did OK with it, although mine was better, I thought.

This time was different. I prepared and memorized. Different subject but I didn’t care; my structure came to me as if in a dream and my bullet points were genius. I was on fire during our practice session and better than David. And this time our speech coach was my favorite teacher, Brother Rock, (yes, really), and I loved his sense of humor, and he even gave us a ride over and sat with us through the entire speeches and took us back at the end.

But you want to know about my experience, I know. Like in The Hero’s Journey, would I be the conquering Hero, overcoming the earlier obstacles and winning a free pass to the District competition and, eventually, a full scholarship to someplace? Returning to my village as a professional speaker? Or not?

Oddly, not. I had some anxiety during lunch but maybe a quarter of what I had had before, just enough to keep me alert. And there were only five participants this year, including David and I. So until I actually began my speech I was still dreaming of waves of adulation lapping at my feet….shades of the people cheering Ralphie Parker for his excellent shooting of his new BB Gun in A Christmas Story.

In fact everything seemed reasonably groovy by the time I was called, this time third. I began as planned, with my name and my intro. I breezed through my three points. And then I totally forgot the rest of it. I had not brought up my index cards to the podium, which would have disqualified me anyway, but without them, I simply couldn’t remember the transition to the body of my pretty good speech.

After a moment of silence I said “Excuse me”, and started over. But, again, the transition just never came. My second anxiety attack, this time just strong enough to make me forget something I had been living with for two weeks, had come just in time. Shame rolled over like a heat wave. My face broke out in a sweat. Again, this time just a whisper. “Sorry, Excuse Me,” I said.

And I sat down.

Afterwards, Brother Rock squeezed my shoulder on his way to open the car. David, bless his heart, told me not to mind. “Listen, nobody knows, nobody cares,” he said. Easy for him to say; I knew, and anyway he won $20 and a pizza.