My Persistence

I thought that it would be fitting to share the introduction page of my book, "Breaking Through the Silence" as my first blog. I believe this introduction speaks volume of explaining who I am and my journey to find my voice beyond the silence, and also being a single parents to fraternal twin girls and my son.




" Breaking Through the Silence "

Introduction

According to the American Psychology Association, “Shyness is the tendency to feel awkward, worried or tense during social encounters, especially with unfamiliar people. Severely shy people may have physical symptoms like blushing, sweating, a pounding heart or upset stomach; negative feelings about themselves; worries about how others view them; and a tendency to withdraw from social interactions. Most people feel shy at least occasionally. Some people’s shyness is so intense, however, that it can keep them from interacting with others even when they want or need to— leading to problems in relationships and at work.”
As a fifty-three-year-old mother of three teenagers, thirteen-year-old twin girls, and a fourteen-year-old son. At the age of fifty-three, I feel like my life has just begun. I had spent four decades of my life trying to overcome my extreme shyness. Shyness, throughout my life, was a constant companion; we strode hand in hand, and side by side. Some would say that my shyness and I were two peas in a pod. Although I spent four decades of my life trying to break free from my extreme shyness, this book will glimpse my struggles and the journey to find my voice. Most people would say so what you were just shy, but what they did not know that my shyness affected almost every aspect of my life?
My shyness affected my academic career early on in grade school and hung with me throughout my college career. I am a single parent and in this book, I write about my experiences of being a single parent, and how I can relate to the shy child who just want to find their way and who teachers overlook sometimes because they are so quiet, but if I can just help one person by telling my stories as my experiences as a single parent and overcoming extreme shyness; then I have done what I set out to do.
As you read this book you will embark on a journey that is filled with true-life experiences. Although I tried throughout my life to break free from my extreme shyness, nothing I tried seemed to help. In my early elementary school years, I was classified as a slow learner, shy, quiet, and reserved, but no one went beyond that assumption and noticed that l had a real problem. Extreme shyness was a problem that was crippling me socially, and academically. In junior high school, my shyness was becoming more apparent to everyone that not only was I starting to be bullied, but was also labeled as being stuck up. In high school, I tried to break free from my extreme shyness by reading countless books on the topic, but nothing seemed to help.
Although in high school I was surrounded by peers, but yet I still felt lonely. Throughout this book, you will learn through stories written how I learned to break free from my extreme shyness. I learned to find my voice by doing something I never envisioned myself doing. In this book, you will be given glimpses of what extreme shyness if left undetected can rob people of. You will also meet people that have had a positive impact on my life and how I learned to give back to those who have crossed my path to finding my voice. This book has been years in the making. I hope that “Breaking through the Silence,” would show first-hand what shyness looks like and give teachers, parents, and anyone working with children and teenagers the insight of going beyond the assumption that a child is just shy.
I heard people say countless times about me oh she just shy, but inside I was screaming help me, help myself! My only regret in life is that I wished that someone would have noticed that I had a real problem overcoming my extreme shyness. I believe that this would have saved me four decades of trying to break free from the silence. I have been working with children for a total of thirty years, and I have seen first-hand what shyness looks like in the school setting; I can relate to most of what some of these students are going through in relations to shyness