Explorer
01-04-2005, 03:35 PM
Have just joined up today after having been impressed by DonR's postings and recommendations.
I have had a stammer since the age of eleven and have spent the last forty-eight years since, trying to establish the cause and a cure of the great curse that has dogged my life.
I used to have a great and confident speaking voice at primary school and enjoyed reading at the quite early age of five.
In my first year at grammar school, I was entered into the Christmas play. I played a leading role and was the first to enter the stage and speak in front of a large audience of schoolkids and their parents. I spoke loudly, fluently and with confidence.
What seemed like only a few weeks later I could not stand up in class and recite a poem that I had learnt as a homework task, the day before. The teacher suggested that I hadn't learnt it. When I insisted that I had, I was asked to write it up on the blackboard, which I did, perfectly.
From then on, I dreaded those lessons where I had to read out loud, and soon I had a seemingly permanent and full blown stammer.
I learnt word substitution and other techniques to hide the problem. My parents knew I had a stammer but didn't provide any help, perhaps I coped too well.
In my forth year at secondary school, I became very friendly with another lad with whom I had much in common. This friendship helped my self-confidence, which in turn helped with my speech fluency, to the point where I thought it had completely disappeared. I became a very popular and outgoing member of the class as my speech improved.
Later in my early twenties, I suffered from an anxiety condition, and found that my stammer would return from time to time then, and into my married life.
My "managed" stammer never prevented me from choosing my employment, and now I am an area sales manager where speaking is the "all" of my job. To date, it has worked, but this is in spite of my stammer, and there are periods where my speech relapses into a nervous incoherance.
I am going through a particularly bad period at present, hence my renewed interest in searching for a cure.
What is the cause of my stammer? Like many on this board I have come to the conclusion that it is nearly all in the mind. A nervousness that causes poor coordination of my motor actions on speech control. It is rather like the self-conscious sportsperson. On the big occasion, the nerves spoil brain and limb coordination and a poor performance results.
What triggered my stammer? I believe it was the result of feelings of insecurity when at the age of eleven, my parents were going through a bad patch, and I experienced the terrible and sometimes frightening arguments, first hand. These insecure feelings sapped away my confidence and created an ongoing anxiety problem. It is interesting that I also developed a food phobia too at school about the same time(not becuase the school dinners were bad). Those were the days when you were forced to eat, and of course that just reinforced the anxiety state.
I once tried professional hypnosis at the age of fifty. I did appear to go into a trance state and seemed to regress back to those problem days at the age of eleven. I remembered the events more vividly and suddenly burst into tears. Quite embarrasing. The hypnotherapist judged that to be a success, however, it did not help one iota.
I now believe that my cure lies in the reduced anxiety and nervousness route. This will improve my natural speech performance that I know I can achieve. DonR's self-hypnosis technique could be the answer in helping me develop strategies to become a more relaxed and confident person.
Having read his posts I have already ordered my first self-hypnosis book from Amazon today, and I am going to give it a try.
By making this declaration on this board I am hoping it will help me persevere with the method, and I shall endeavour to keep you all posted as to the outcome.
Bye for now!
I have had a stammer since the age of eleven and have spent the last forty-eight years since, trying to establish the cause and a cure of the great curse that has dogged my life.
I used to have a great and confident speaking voice at primary school and enjoyed reading at the quite early age of five.
In my first year at grammar school, I was entered into the Christmas play. I played a leading role and was the first to enter the stage and speak in front of a large audience of schoolkids and their parents. I spoke loudly, fluently and with confidence.
What seemed like only a few weeks later I could not stand up in class and recite a poem that I had learnt as a homework task, the day before. The teacher suggested that I hadn't learnt it. When I insisted that I had, I was asked to write it up on the blackboard, which I did, perfectly.
From then on, I dreaded those lessons where I had to read out loud, and soon I had a seemingly permanent and full blown stammer.
I learnt word substitution and other techniques to hide the problem. My parents knew I had a stammer but didn't provide any help, perhaps I coped too well.
In my forth year at secondary school, I became very friendly with another lad with whom I had much in common. This friendship helped my self-confidence, which in turn helped with my speech fluency, to the point where I thought it had completely disappeared. I became a very popular and outgoing member of the class as my speech improved.
Later in my early twenties, I suffered from an anxiety condition, and found that my stammer would return from time to time then, and into my married life.
My "managed" stammer never prevented me from choosing my employment, and now I am an area sales manager where speaking is the "all" of my job. To date, it has worked, but this is in spite of my stammer, and there are periods where my speech relapses into a nervous incoherance.
I am going through a particularly bad period at present, hence my renewed interest in searching for a cure.
What is the cause of my stammer? Like many on this board I have come to the conclusion that it is nearly all in the mind. A nervousness that causes poor coordination of my motor actions on speech control. It is rather like the self-conscious sportsperson. On the big occasion, the nerves spoil brain and limb coordination and a poor performance results.
What triggered my stammer? I believe it was the result of feelings of insecurity when at the age of eleven, my parents were going through a bad patch, and I experienced the terrible and sometimes frightening arguments, first hand. These insecure feelings sapped away my confidence and created an ongoing anxiety problem. It is interesting that I also developed a food phobia too at school about the same time(not becuase the school dinners were bad). Those were the days when you were forced to eat, and of course that just reinforced the anxiety state.
I once tried professional hypnosis at the age of fifty. I did appear to go into a trance state and seemed to regress back to those problem days at the age of eleven. I remembered the events more vividly and suddenly burst into tears. Quite embarrasing. The hypnotherapist judged that to be a success, however, it did not help one iota.
I now believe that my cure lies in the reduced anxiety and nervousness route. This will improve my natural speech performance that I know I can achieve. DonR's self-hypnosis technique could be the answer in helping me develop strategies to become a more relaxed and confident person.
Having read his posts I have already ordered my first self-hypnosis book from Amazon today, and I am going to give it a try.
By making this declaration on this board I am hoping it will help me persevere with the method, and I shall endeavour to keep you all posted as to the outcome.
Bye for now!