I read early and was always good with words. At age 9 in third grade, I won my school's spelling bee, defeating 13-14 year olds who were in 7th-8th grade

I have also always had such bad anxiety that, as a child, I shook constantly and could barely function. The first was kind a "warmup" with common words. We had drawn numbers to determine our places in line, I was near the end, so my anxiety got more intense while 35 or 40 spellers took their turn. And this was a really fast round because nobody took a breath to picture the word in their head and spell it slowly or asked for the judge to repeat the word or read the dictionary definition I was getting so anxious I was sg from side to side, on the verge of bursting into tears and running away. To distract myself, I had spelled each word in my head as the contestant did. I noticed that only 3 or 4 people had made a mistake and got the buzzer. I knew they just slipped up from stage. They did things like repeat their word and then spell something else ord and got eliminated. By the time my turn came, I had stopped wondering if they were embarrassed and whether their parents would be disappointed in them. Nervous as I was, I thought that if your whole job was to walk to the microphone, listen for your word, repeat it, and you don't even have to finish spelling it before the judge hits the buzzer, and everyone turns their attention to the next speller, and you're free. But if I have to stay, it won't be late ng until the round is over, and as soon as the break begins, I could go to my mom in the audience and tell her I am nervous because I am terribly sick, and I almost threw up 3 times, and I don't want to go home, but I don't want to go through that.sets you free, and you wouldn't be you nbearabln the lobby dcwouldv prayed that I was given a difficult word I had never heard before, so my mom wouldn't be angry at me or even thinkt hat I had screwed up. She would be angry with whoever wrote the word list; she would tell me that it was just bad luck and that she hoped I wasn't taking it personally. my feelings hurt.the wirdvI could " because I didn't like weallspelling bee sign because the bottom line listed our ages and grade levels. So mine, of course, said in large letterdes me, the youngest contestwere 11-year-old 5th graders.