Nervousness

[Niki9]

Hi,

I'm new to this, but I thought I'd come on this platform to see if anyone has felt like this or if anyone has tips to share with me.

Recently, a family friend from overseas came to stay with us before she could get a plane back to her country. We always have dinner as a family at the table, and I have always enjoyed this time of day where we can chat together. Two weeks ago, I wanted to read out a post from the internet on my phone regarding the coronvirus, at the dinner table, so I read it out to my family and ofcourse to the guest we had. I felt perfectly fine reading the paragraph out loud and wanted them to hear what I was reading. However, just as I finished reading the post, they all began to say that a red rash had appeared on my chest as I was reading. I went to check in the mirror and saw the rash clearly, but it started to fade away soon after I had read the paragraph. Everyone was confused, including me, about how this rash came about, as I wasn't nervous or anything - It was my family for godsake, why would I be nervous??
A week or so later, I found myself in a similar situation where I had to read out an email from my work to my family at the dinner table. And the rash appeared yet again! They pointed it out halfway through me reading, and this made my heart start racing, and I could feel my skin getting hotter.
Ever since then, it's like I've developed an anxiety every night at the dinner table, and I don't want to speak for too long as I will start to get hot and feel 'nervous' with everyone's eyes on me. Every time I get asked a question about myself or if one of my family members directs the conversation to me, my heart starts racing and I almost cut them off to avoid speaking, or if I do have to respond, this horrible feeling overcomes me again, and it's like I can feel their eyes watching me get nervous.

It was never like this, and I've always felt comfortable around my family and I consider myself a confident person, so this feeling is terrible and it feels like it's taking over my life! It's not just at the dinner table at this point - it's almost any time they confront me and I have to speak in depth about myself. I don't know if it's because this girl we had staying over made me nervous, but to me that's such a stupid thing, as she's a nice girl and I don't have a problem with her.

Has anyone felt this? I desperately need some tips!

Thank you 🙂

[zguenzl]

Hi Niki,

Welcome to BeyondBlue forums!

When I'm nervous during public speaking my entire face and neck go completely red and I start sweating, which often causes a rash on my neck because I have very sensitive skin.

For me this was something I just had to own up to, and when people pointed it out (as people tend to do), I kind of just say yeah I'm nervous presenting this, but I'm going to keep going now. If you show people you don't care, then they won't care either.

The reason why your family is pointing it out could be because they're concerned something is wrong and you're in pain. I don't know if that helps your thinking at all?

Alternatively, if it's a medical thing you're concerned about, maybe you could speak to a doctor?

Let me know your thoughts.

All the best,

Zoe

[Niki9]

Thanks Zoe, that definitely helps! However it's developed into more of an anxiety now, where I can't stop overthinking it and i'm always hoping they don't bring anything up where I need to speak about myself because my heart will start racing again. I just can't understand why this is happening to me, and I feel like as much as I want to be able to, I can't control it 😞

[zguenzl]

Hi Niki,

This might be where deep breathing could become handy. Maybe when you start to get those thoughts you could try breathing in for 4, holding for 4 and breathing out for 4?

I find this useful as it gets oxygen flowing, not only calming my redness down but my heart and mind.

Hope you're having a good day today.

Zoe

[Emmen]

Hello Niki,

I used to get anxious over university end of lesson bells (I know, it sounds silly on hindsight). I was fine with it for many years until one day, I jumped when the bell rang and a friend laughed. I guess I wasn't paying attention and it caught me by surprise. For some reason, I got anxiety over bells in that lecture theatre. I'd start getting very tense when it was nearing the time for the bell to ring, I'd start fidgeting. It happened a second time the following week during the same lecture - I have no idea how, but I was so tense that I just jumped again when the bell rang and the same friend laughed. And it happened a third time the week after. The anxiety was so bad that I ended up skipping lectures for that module after that. Or I'd attend but run off to the loo just when the lecture was about to end so that I'd miss the bell. It affected my other lectures too because I'd be anxious about whether the same thing would happen in another lecture theatre.

Your situation is different, but it seems to follow the same pattern where we had something happen to us twice and we got attention for it, and then we'd get horribly anxious about it after that. And the anxiety feels out of character for us as well, since it's in a situation we previously felt comfortable in.

Distraction helped for me. When I went for other lectures, I'd start doodling the last five minutes or so just so that the anxiety wouldn't get that bad and I wouldn't be mentally counting down to the time the bell rang. So luckily, I didn't end up missing too many lectures. I wonder if distraction may also help you? Maybe by focusing on something else (e.g. tapping your fingers in a rhythm against your body and keeping that rhythm) instead of the fact that you're about to face that particular situation.

Hope this helps somehow!

Best wishes,
Emmen

[Niki9]

Thank you so much Emmen! Reading this made me feel not so alien for suddenly developing this anxiety of mine. I will definitely give that a go!