Communication Anxiety

Communication skills do not come easily and I know this through experience. When I was a little girl I was extremely shy. I had a fear of speaking up for myself and ordering my own food when I would go out to eat with my mom and sister. I witnessed a lot of abuse in my home when I was little and I think it grew a fear of communicating because I would witness speaking, speaking turning into yelling, yelling turning into breaking things, then breaking things turning into physical violence. In my mind communication started confrontation which is something I wanted to stay away from. My mom started to recognize my shyness getting out of hand then taught me a valuable lesson which was the power of speaking up for yourself. I am now 20 years old and I am proud to say that I am way better at communicating and speaking up for myself. As a makeup artist I communicate on a regular basis with clients I do not know on a personal level which has begun to feel natural to me. Even though I am fantastic with communicating with makeup clients, I still struggle with communication. Since I had such a rough childhood I have built up a wall around the pain and have issues of expressing my emotions towards that subject. My best friend will ask questions about my past and I find myself not wanting to talk about it and coming off as being “cold”. I am not the type of person who likes to talk about emotional or personal things because I don’t like feeling vulnerable or negative. I have noticed that with me being this way people won’t want to talk to me about their problems or feel as if I don’t care about their problems. Even if I do not like to talk about my childhood problems I don’t want to be seen as someone that their friends cannot approach with those certain subjects. I want people to feel comfortable around me and be able to vent their issues to me. I think communication studies are fully capable of helping me learn a way to better communicate my feelings and thoughts about my personal life in such a way where I feel comfortable and not awkward.