OP asked how to overcome his dread of speaking in Spanish.
McArthey, I would like to share something that may be helpful for you. Given that your question was closed, the only place I could find to record a contribution of this length was here.
Story #1. My mother left Germany as a child during the prelude to WW II. She was traumatized both by the Nazis and as a result of family tensions. The whole time I was growing up, she did her best to hide her German heritage. She never wanted to teach me a single word of German. Everything related to Germanness brought painful associations. She was never willing to talk to me about anything related to her early life.
But the tide turned for her on a snorkeling vacation we went on when I was a young adult. How? One day walking back from the beach she hit it off with a gentle, friendly young woman from Italy, who didn't speak English. They discovered that the only language they had in common was German. Lo and behold, my mother started talking German to this woman! It came rusty, slow, labored and accented at first. We visited a small, charming lagoon together the next day, and my mother opened up some more. She started remembering more words, more phrases, and her German started to flow a bit better. This continued over the next couple of days.
Even after the Italian tourist had left, my mother continued to take steps toward reconciling her past -- answering my questions about what happened when, what was it like when such and so?, etc.
Back at home, she joined a writers group and started writing about her early life!
Certainly, relaxing on vacation was part of this opening up; but I believe that making a connection with a specific person who only understood the target language, that she wanted very badly to be able to communicate with, was even more important.
And how can we use this story for your situation? Well, first we need another story.
Story #2. After I moved to Mexico for a job, after college, I started plodding along through a grammar book, making imperceptible progress day by day. It happened that a couple of months into this sojourn I fell quite ill, and missed several weeks of work. One day, during my convalescence, a coworker brought his three-year-old daughter with him for a visit. She was one of six children in a blended family. With no shyness, she climbed up and sat in the middle of the big bed where I was resting, and delighted in having someone (me) give her their undivided attention. She enjoyed the opportunity to take center stage. For my part, I could really see what the tongue does when pronouncing the D in verdad -- this little girl spoke slowly, exaggerating certain sounds to the point of almost spitting. She didn't care that I spoke pidgin Spanish, and said very little. She had her topics, and her questions, and nothing was going to stop her. This experience changed my approach to the new language I was struggling with. Maybe not as dramatically as in Story #1, but still, it was a turning point for me.
Thus, I believe that things will change for you when you find a person with two characteristics: this person doesn't understand English; and you and this person really want to communicate with each other. The reasons for this could be anything -- and they could be completely irrational -- but when you find such a person, that's when the process of speaking Spanish will start to change for you.
Here's an example of how strange and irrational this choice of person could be: at one stage of my learning process, I found myself visiting a tiny shoe repair shop every afternoon after work. For days, even after my repair job was complete, I would go in and park myself for an hour or two in a small chair next to the repairman, and do nothing. The repairman always tuned his radio to the same station, broadcast from his beloved and much missed native village. The reception was terrible.
Customers and acquaintances would stop by, talk a bit, drop off some shoes, pick up some shoes, shoot the breeze for a few minutes, go on their way. Nothing exciting. But I just loved sitting in that small dark shop while the repairman took one pair of shoes or boots from the to-do pile after another and worked his magic on it. I can say that at the time, it felt soothing to sit in that shop -- although I wasn't sure why I gravitated to it. I didn't talk, other than to say hello upon arriving, and good-bye upon leaving. I didn't even try to understand the conversations that took place. Do you see how irrational this preference was?
I can't say whom you will connect with. But when you connect with someone, as my mother did with the fellow tourist from Italy, and as I did with my co-worker's three-year-old, or with the shoe repairman -- then I think you will start to experience speaking Spanish differently.
