“I can’t hear you … speak up … did you say something…”

How to project your voice, speak without shaking,

When our words are silenced by those who are so loud they leave no room for others.

Ignoring your words accidentally or deliberately.

Being human is difficult.

Some days feeling like you’ll burst like a champagne bottle,

Emotions threatening to bubble over as soon as the cork is pulled.

Other days you’ll sit silently, caged in the jail cell that is your brain.

Your thoughts imprisoned with you, continuously scratching metaphorical lines of speech into the sides of your body

Wishing you could shove your valuable thoughts into the minds of others.

Finally making yourself known.

Do not be afraid to speak up.

Project your voice because You are valued and you are not forgotten, despite those who strite to have the audacity to erase your existence.

They can’t even begin to understand the thoughts you have flooding your mind every minute of every hour of every day.

They mistaking your silence for stupidity

If only they knew that

Sometimes silence is the loudest protest one can give.

They’re the ones sitting in the back of a class and typically the last few to say anything: the quiet kids.

The kids who grow up without their opinions heard. The kids who go through high school into senior year without having the confidence to speak out loudly. Thinking, “Yes, this is the year I will express myself and show off who I am.”

Not in my case. I am a senior and I have opinions. Do I share them? Not loudly. I am what I would consider a Stand-by-er; that is, I will make facial expressions to show my discomfort or approval but usually not say anything more. However, for those with whom I am comfortable, I will happily express myself. It’s in front of crowds and groups of people that I struggle with. I am in theatre and being able to pretend I’m someone else gives me confidence. Just being me, though, makes it worse.

I’ll happily say what is on my mind to those with whom I am comfortable and laugh out loud (very loud if I am extra sleepy that day). I also will stand up for them if I feel as if they are uncomfortable. Standing up to people about myself is a different story. I’ll be honest because I have anxiety in several situations and tend to overthink about several things. It really sucks some days because feeling like the whole world hates you is not an ideal situation.

Some ways I cope with those situations include: mentally strangling the rude people; mentally tripping people; sitting silently, fidgeting with pencil then wanting to die as it flies across the room; finally accepting the sweet embrace of metaphorical death.

My mean journalism adviser advised me to write this column after I refused to speak up during a meeting.

All jokes aside. Some helpful ways to cope are to breathe, ask to be excused and let yourself be alone for a bit and calm down. Go get a big drink of school tap water. Ah … refreshing. Then go back and sit and continue to breathe and know you’re a human and its ok to sometimes be a klutz.

If you couldn’t tell, sometimes being silent doesn’t always mean I’m less sarcastic. Come to think of it, some of the most sarcastic people I know are by-the-book-definitions of Wallflowers. Also yes, most of them I like to consider my buddies. Strength in numbers right?