Facing fear: A student journalist’s quiet battle with social anxiety.

Written by Ty Holloway

The day started out like any other. The smell of stale coffee, day-old muffins and the quiet hum of an air purifier left on overnight.

After that, a quick shave to feel somewhat prepared for the challenges I was about to face.

It was the second week of the winter semester at school and I had just begun working as a student journalist; finally doing the legwork, gathering information, scheduling interviews and writing articles.

For as long as I could remember, this was my dream.

However for me, there’s an unwanted passenger. A little voice, sometimes evolving into a monstrous wail, beckoning me away with all its might.

This voice has proven an impossible chasm for me to cross, a feeling that I can never escape — a fear of those around me.

Health Canada estimates that anywhere between eight to 13 per cent of the Canadian population suffers from social phobias. Of this group, about one per cent suffers from agoraphobia.

I find myself a part of this group.

This phobia is classified as an intense fear of public places or situations that may trigger a panic attack. As a student journalist navigating these challenges, sometimes I have to remind myself that the real reward of all this stress is seeing a story come together in the end.

The first obstacle today: actually getting to class.

Surviving the crevasses and ice fields blanketing the Edmonton streets and sidewalks made making it to Allard Hall feel like reaching base camp on a mountain expedition.

Immediately, the blast of hot air as the doors opened with a slow, mechanical crawl was a welcome comfort.

It would be the only such comfort I would feel that day.

My one and only class was Radio News and Documentary, a podcast production course, simple and fun. It was one of the few reprieves from the onslaught of hard news stories, broadcasts and audio/visual projects I was facing that term.

The assignment for the day was to gather streeter interviews for an upcoming podcast episode focused on natural resources, it seemed easy enough.

Every day it feels like at least one of the top stories around the world concerns environmental issues or natural resource security. After all, a 2025 study from Western University suggested that as many as 90 per cent of Canadians are aware that climate change is happening, so producing a story about one of the big issues surrounding that would be easy, I thought.

Naively, I grabbed my recorder and headed out across campus.

The first stop was the second floor pedway between buildings 10 and 11. Scanning the room, I found a couple of worthwhile candidates to answer the question I was told to ask.

“What does water mean to you?”

A harmless question, one that I was sure would produce at least somewhat interesting conversation. I approached the students and delivered my pitch.

“No, sorry I don’t think we wanna help.”

Suddenly, that fear crept back. “Oh well,” I thought hollowly. On to the next person.

Up another flight of stairs.

On the third floor, I approached a group of music students. Surely these guys would be my port in a storm.

“No, sorry we’re busy.”

Then there was that voice, the feelings I had tried so hard to hide, to push down.

I was losing control.

The once familiar stairways around Allard Hall now resembled an M.C. Escher sketch. I was lost in a maze of endless corridors to nowhere, caught in the middle of an embarrassing living nightmare.

This cacophony continued into the library. I was weaving in and out of the bookshelves like some killer in a slasher movie looking for another victim.

If I did find someone willing to talk, I fumbled hopelessly through the introductions I had carefully planned out in my head.

Soon I counted fifteen rejections, I was never getting these quotes.

That voice was now amplified to a deafening scream. I wasn’t cut out for this, I was in completely over my head.

I was frozen.

Countless thoughts were running through my mind, how only 25 per cent of people with panic disorders are unemployed, how I am one of the 0.7 per cent of people that experience panic attacks on a yearly basis. All these numbers, hopeless statistics. I was letting the doubt win.

Then as if by some divine intervention, a thought crossed my mind.

The TV studio.

The one place I hadn’t thought to look, my one last shot. It was a small space, and they were stuck in there with me.

I could do this.

Hastily, I made my way back to the first floor with about ten minutes left before I had to turn in my recordings and accept my fate.

I approached the studio and entered through the hallway. The loud slam and harsh click of the lock re-engaging on the door as it closed behind me made it feel as if I couldn’t get out.

There I was, stuck in a lion’s den.

Inside the lounge was one woman typing away on the dim screen of a MacBook.

This one woman appeared to me like the summit of Everest breaking through the early morning clouds.

At this point I was sweaty and battle-scarred, I had spent the last 80 minutes running around the school like a madman. My ego was mortally wounded after being wrung through a gauntlet of “No’s and “We’re busy’s.”

To me, this woman dressed in a fuzzy brown jacket and Toronto Blue Jays hat, sipping coffee and paying no attention to me at all was my only hope.

Time for the final push.

Nervously, I approached, and that scream in my head drowning out my every thought…

Suddenly went quiet.

She turned her gaze briefly to me, and before she could react…

“What does water mean to you?!”

I took a leap of faith, not even stopping to introduce myself. Maybe in my delirious state I had found a renewed confidence, or maybe I simply didn’t care anymore.

“Well, I drink it every day, so that’s obviously important.”

Finally, calm.

From there the conversation continued, and I had learned not only more about the question at hand, but so much more about this woman. The mountain I once feared, thought impossible to scale — I conquered.

In the end, I went back to class and had the least amount of quotes out of anyone else, but for me that wasn’t important.