Crown of Beauty Magazine The Brave Issue | Page 59

deodorants and antiperspirants Wal-Mart had to offer, and I wore lots of sweaters to hide the smell and the humiliating sight of dampness growing on the sides of my shirts.

I would literally hide in the bathroom whenever there was a chance I'd have to play ice breaker games.

I didn't even have to feign sickness, because most of the time I did get sick enough to feel dizzy and nauseous.

There was one time I refused to make a phone call for my mother because I was too scared to talk to a stranger on the phone. Long story short, by bedtime that night I still hadn't made the phone call, nor had I been permitted to eat or leave the same chair I'd been sitting in since that morning.

Instead of presenting the required weekly speeches at homeschool group for science class, I would simply not write them so I had nothing to present. My mother's threats to fail me and make me retake the course did nothing. If there was nothing written, there was nothing to read, and so I skipped every single speech the rest of the year.

For people like me, just getting out of bed every morning can be an act of courage. To go out and face the world and its challenges takes all the bravery we can muster. It's exhausting, it's painful, and it's taken a good five or six years of misery to get me to the point where I can talk semi-comfortably on the phone (but only when absolutely necessary) and go out in public and interact with strangers (even in some ice breaker games) without having a meltdown.

it's painful, and it's taken a good five or six years of misery to get me to the point where I can talk semi-comfortably on the phone (but only when absolutely necessary) and go out in public and interact with strangers (even in some ice breaker games) without having a meltdown.

The phrase “fake it till you make it”

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