I couldn’t always give speeches
Written on 6th Sep 2021 by Alex Lowery
As many of you know, I give talks raising awareness of autism and can do this fairly confidently. However, what you might not know is I wasn’t always so confident.
When I was younger I never imagined I’d be able to speak in front of people. I remember when I used to attend a drama group called Fuse. I hid my face from the audience because I was really embarrassed to perform in front of my parents especially. I’ve always found I get more nervous speaking in front of people I know than I do strangers.
Anyway, there was a point when I was so sure I’d never had the confidence to give a speech. I felt I would stumble upon my words too much and would be too shy to cope with the pressure. I even remember seeing autistic people on YouTube saying that they were going to give public talks on autism. I commented saying they were very brave and I would never have the confidence to give a speech.
I remember sometime later seeing another guy on YouTube saying he was giving talks and how he once thought he would never be able to do it. This gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe one day I would be able to achieve things I never thought I would.
When I was 17, I was finally asked to deliver my first ever speech for Saint John’s Ambulance and I was absolutely terrified. I was so anxious and nervous! I had to practice the speech again and again until I got it to spot on. When I came to speak, I just tried to imagine I was talking for the camera again and there wasn’t an audience. This helped me to get through the speech and much to my surprise, I actually did fairly well for my first attempt. This lead to more and more opportunities to speak.
Now that I am a speaker, I have also seen a number of people say to me that they could never do this. To them I say, I used to say the same thing but if you put your mind to it you’d be surprised what’s possible.
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