Constantly Nervous
The earliest memory I have of being nervous reaches back to when I was four years old. I was in nursery school. I don’t remember much about nursery school except that we would sometimes go outside to play, we would sometimes sit down on carpet to hear a story, they had tables full of water such that we could float boats and ducks in them, and we had at least one fire drill while I was there.
It’s the fire drill that caused me to be nervous. We learned that if the alarm sounded then everyone was to line up and be marched outside by the teachers. After the first fire drill I was afraid that I’d miss the lineup and be left behind if we had a fire drill while I was in the bathroom. This made me so nervous that I wouldn’t go to the bathroom at preschool. I’d hold it. I’d suffer. I’d suffer so bad that as a 32 year old I can still remember how bad I had to go to the bathroom when I was 4. But my fear overpowered even having to “go” that badly.
I have been nervous — painfully, awkwardly, constrictingly nervous — for all of my life.