Should I skip my presentation?
Ever since getting to college I have been having really bad anxiety when it comes to public speaking. I have never liked public speaking but for some reason it has become almost debilitating as of late.
A couple months back I gave a speech in my comms class and it was so horrible it still haunts me. I completely forgot what I was going to say when I got up so had to ask for a second of time. Then once i remembered what I was going to say I gave my terrible speech which was incredibly fast and worst of all I was visibly shaking violently the entire time. It was absolutely humiliating and I don’t think I can handle going through that again. Since then I have avoided any kind of public speaking like the plague. I am planning to get professional help this summer as I know I cannot continue to function like this.
However, in the mean time I have a group presentation that I will have to give in a couple of days. I am really contemplating skipping it as I am confident I can still pass the class without it.
My group mates are useless and have barely worked on it. I plan to do a lot of the work on the actual presentation as I feel bad for my group but then plan on being absent the day of the actual presentation feigning food poisoning. I would rather look like a bad student to my teacher and peers than get humiliated again. Especially if some of these students are in my classes next year. Going through that experience again I think would be very bad for my mental health but I feel conflicted at the same time.
So I guess my question is should I go and present or feign an illness? What would you do and is this a bad idea? Once again I do plan on working on this issue but as of now I’m not very confident.