I Need to Vent

My dilemma is that, I am terrible at group discussion but alas I have to take discussion based classes to graduate. At the beginning of the semester I enroll in said discussion based class and tell myself, ok this semester will be different! You'll talk and everyone will think your pretty cool, or at least won't hate you for never talking. So the first day, I don't talk, second day-don't talk, third day-don't talk. And now we are half way through the semester and I still haven't said a damn word in that class. The thing is I prepare notes and questions but I get to class and i think about speaking and its like somethings gets caught in my throat, and I start sweating, and get nervous and fidgety. THen I keep telling myself ok, ill talk after this person...ok after them...ok after them and then the bell rings and once again I have sat through an entire class just stabbing myself in the back. I want to talk but get to nervous about how other will react to what I say, like maybe they will just say ooookay. and move on. Now you can't tell me people won't do that cause it sure as hell does and has happened to me several times.

I think if I don't talk everyone will hate me and ill become a waste of space but if I do talk then everyone might think what I said is stupid and hate me equally as much. So I sit in class thinking about talking but then my memories come and attack all my the confidence I build up before class, even before the semester. I want to talk, but am too scared to talk and then because I don't talk my anxiety becomes that much worse. Its like a vicious cycle that I can't get out of.

But even i realize that when I talk the thing that I want to say never come out the way the are expressed in my head so of course people are going to look at me like im stupid. People put so much emphasis on talking and if you don't talk your just a horrible anti-social person. I don't want to be viewed that way but i don't even know. It took me forever to figure out how to respond when I was at work and people asked me whats ups because i thought about it and wondered Are you asking me how I am doing, saying hi, or is that just a hypothetical "whats up" in which it doesn't require a response?

I feel like even writing it out I still cant clearly express how I feel. Its all just really frustrating. I know what I want to say but can't express it. I want to speak in class but the words always get caught in my throat. I hope I don't have to take anymore discussion based classes after this. I really don't even know how im gonna make it in the [i]real world[/i] if my brain freaks out when I am talking to or more than one person can hear what im saying.