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?
