Scared to Death

I love to sing.

I LOVE to sing! 

I sing in the car at the top of my lungs.  It is one of the things I truly love to do.  So you would think I would be comfortable singing in front of others right? 

Ummm…not so much.  I feel that I have a semi good voice, but I have always felt, my whole life that I will be judged harshly for my voice. 

I guess it comes from when I was a kid…

I never wanted to sing in the school play.  I never asked to.  But there were certain people in my grade school that got picked to sing and so they did.  I remember being a fat kid and hating the attention.  This was made so much worse when I would hear the small selection of kids making snarky remarks behind me after I stopped singing in rehearsal.

I don’t know if that created it, or made it worse but whatever it was, it resulted in a severe phobia of singing in public.  Now I can sing in the car with other people there.  I can sing along with my IPOD when I’m at my desk at work.  This is all done at a soft level and because there is the song in the background with a real singer singing, it doesn’t bother me.  However, if I were up in front of people with only background music…where you could hear all my perceived mistakes…just the thought makes me want to start shaking and vomit with fear.

This creates quite a problem with someone who loves to sing.

So this brings me to my point…

If you know me, even only a TINY bit, you know that I love the movie/play RENT…I may even be obsessed with it.

So here is the thing.  Our local college is putting on the play RENT.  The auditions will be taking place in a little more than a month.  I have been practicing my song and I am fully aware that I have no shot at a main role in the play.  I would be happy to push a broom in this play, just to be a part of it.

So how does a person that is deathly afraid of public speaking/singing get over it?  I honestly am at a loss, but I know that if I don’t audition, even if I blow it, I will regret it for the rest of my life.

I’m seriously thinking about hypnosis or something. 

Thoughts?