Today, I’m to present my embedded system project. Because of energy drain on the battery, I was unable to integrate a camera into it for gesture detection. (This also means I have until Tuesday to do an entire A.I. project from scratch and write another presentation.
I don’t do well with presentations. And for those that are curious, I have never been allowed an alternative means of earning my grade.
“Tough it out.”
“You’ll get better with practice.”
“It’s only [N] minutes! It’ll be over fast.”
“You’re smart. Why can’t you do this?”
I spend the time before presentations thinking about all the things that I could do wrong. I will sometimes get sentences backwards: “The ball threw the boy” and the like.
Being the center of attention feels like being on trial to me. It doesn’t matter all the correct, informative, and useful things I may say. One error proves that I’m not as good as I had seem. That I’m faking my knowledge. I’m more judge-mental of myself than others. I know this, but I don’t feel that it’s really true.
… I don’t like powerpoint slides. Yet, it’s expected that I use them anymore. I’m calmer and speak more clearly when ad-libbing. The absence of slides has become indicative of being unprepared to many people, so I’m forced to use them.
The more I think about presenting, the more anxious I’m getting. And the anxiety will make me screw up. It’s a vicious cycle.
On more than one occasion, I have been in tears when presenting. These result in a lower grade for me, independent of doing more research than my peers. Being able to explain to others orally has become more important than the quality of the work. I must not know what I’m talking about if I have difficulty explaining it in a neurotypical fashion.
I associate textures, animals, and a few adjectives rather than pictures to most of the things I think about. If I’m asked to describe what a person looks like, I’m more likely to refer to an animal than recall what color their hair is.
If I don’t think the same, I fail to see why I am forced to explain in their terms rather than my own.
I’m getting angry on purpose again. It’s very easy to dismiss anxious feelings when one gets angry. Becoming angry is easy when one realizes one’s suffering isn’t fair or acknowledged.
Tags: anxiety, classes, pissed, presentation
