I delivered this speech on 4/24/7 as an Ice-Breaker speech for Toastmasters

I hate public speaking.
I’ve listened to some other people who say that they hate public speaking. They say that they get a bit nervous. They say that they sometimes talk too much. They say that they can’t get much sleep on the night before a speech. To plagiarize from Terry Pratchett, this is not hatred, this is mild distaste. I hate public speaking.
For weeks, I’ve tossed + turned at night, sweating over this speech. Lately, my digestive tract hasn’t been happy with me. Paralysis sometimes happens. I’m anxious.
When I get anxious, my voice gets quieter. And very, very fast. None of this is helping.
I’m not comfortable in crowds of more than 5 people. Crowds of more than 10 are really awful. I certainly don’t want to talk to them. It says here that I should pause to let the irony sink in.
So I’ve gone to the Icebreaker chapter of the “Competent Communicator” book to get help.
I’m told to not be afraid of the audience. Someone with a mild distaste of public speaking may fall for that, but I won’t. The book suggests that I think of the audience as a group of friends. I don’t like talking in front of a bunch of friends either.
Once I’ve prepared and practiced my talk, I should relax. That didn’t happen. I did mention that my digestive tract wasn’t happy with me. Without getting graphic, let’s just say that now is the wrong time to relax.
The book says “No one is going to notice a little quavering in my voice”. What about when it cracks? What about when my voice bounces a couple of octaves?
I should try to make eye-contact with everyone in the audience. I’m not big on eye-contact with close, personal friends, much less a mass of people.

I’ve received other advice as well.
I’ve been told that I should get out from behind the podium. After all, it doesn’t really offer any protection. I’m not looking for protection. I’m trying to hide from the audience.
There’s a myth that I should visualize that the audience is naked. No, that won’t help.
I’ve been told to only write a few notes and not write everything down. This will help keep my speech fresh. Another cute symptom of my anxiety is that it raises the polysyllable count of my wording. Instead of saying that I need something like a hole in my head, I’ll say that I’d rather have an aperture in my cranium.

With all of this, you might be wondering why I’m up here. I have been. A few months ago, my management suggested that I make a presentation to a number of development teams. The thought of that scared me silly. Then I realized that I was pretty sick of being sick of public speaking. The only way I can think of that will cure this is to just do public speaking until it stops killing me. The reasoning is that people aren’t designed to be terrified all of the time. So if I keep doing this, I’ll develop some kind of mental callus so that I feel, not hatred, but mild distaste. Unless, of course, it does kill me.