rs05d
03-28-2007, 06:54 PM
Hey everyone, I found this forum last night and have been reading everyone's stories since. It is just good to know that there are others who have had similar experiences. I find my stutter to be by far the most difficult aspect of my otherwise great life. I have been trying for about a year to take that seemingly giant leap and come out of that stuttering closet but I find the simple thought of doing that excruciating. I become dizzy, my heart pounds, and I get sweaty. I hope that this forum will serve as a kind of first step. Anyway, here's my looong story (I really need to get some stuff out, and the anonymity of the internet will hopefully make that possible).
I am almost 21 years old and am a student at Florida State University. I have an interesting stuttering history, like all of you I guess. I first started stuttering when I was in kindergarten. I stuttered terribly but it did not seem to mind me at all. My parents, even though split up, were always supportive of my problem. They set up stuttering help at my school and also at a clinic for a few years and by 5th grade it was completely gone. I had total and complete fluency. I loved giving presentations, reading for the class, and was busting with self-confidence. I was always the smartest in my grade, but I took great pride in being able to express that intelligence verbally. I would give ANYTHING and pay any amount of money to be able to go back and regain this speaking form, as this fluency did not last long.
I moved to a new school and changed households late in my 6th grade year and it was here when I started to make negative process with my speaking. I was placed in the gifted program and we often had to read books allowed and give presentations. I managed to get by but I noticed it becoming extremely difficult. It is here when I gained my patented "hesitated, uumm, you know" technique to cope with the stuttering. From this point on I was never able to do read or speak in front of a group of people again without hesitating or beginning sentences with umm/you know. I also started just speaking less in general and not being my once expressive self.
So here I am now, 20 years old and am having the same problems I had at 13 but no one knows about it. My stuttering is feast or famine. It is not noticable in most situations, but in situations where it is it really is. I have a fair amount of friends and I can communicate with them without anyone taking note. I mean, they even sometimes make fun of stutterers in my presence, and I know they would never do that if they even thought I had a stutter. I can talk on the phone with friends and people I know fine, and I can also speak alright on the phone if I'm answering (I uhh and you know quite a bit, but so do a lot of people I guess so they don't notice). On the other hand, if I have to call someone I do not know or even call to place I food order I become irrationally nervous and have a severe lock-up so I just avoid it now. I can go through a drive-thru and place an order with relative normalcy but have a hard time saying 3 words over the phone.
My biggest concern right now is that every undergraduate student has to take a public speaking course to graduate. There is no chance that I could make it through that in my current phase as giving presentations, public reading, and speeches are situations that make me go from "semi-normal, unnoticeable stutter guy of few words" to "wow, he can't say his name guy of one word every 4 seconds". I also have a hard time speaking with people in a higher position than myself so being taken serious by employers is going to be difficult as well.
I have a couple of great sources of hope though, and one of those is my mother. She was a stutterer all through school and told me a story when I was younger about how she put off her college speech class until her senior year because she just could not do it. In high school when she was called upon to read she stuttered terribly. If you look at her today though, no one would ever know she had such a bad stuttering problem. She is a nationally respected educator who gives speeches and hosts seminars for hundreds of people many times a year. I'm not sure how she overcame her problem because I am afraid to ask, but she is an incredible woman and gives me hope that stuttering CAN be overcome. I know that I could come out to her and she would understand, but I am just too embarrassed and the issue has become much bigger in my mind than it really is because I have put it off for so long. My other source of hope is the younger version of me. I believe that I was able to overcome my stuttering when I was younger because it was out in the open and I was comfortable with my problem. I did not hide it and everyone knew that I was a stutterer. I was in a comfort zone and it quickly went away. Once I was taken out of my comfort zone and began the avoidance behavior the stuttering came back and has since stuck. I hope that re-finding this comfort zone will allow me to again overcome stuttering.
I am really considering going to the university clinic for a little help as FSU has a great department of communication disorders. The only problem is there is no e-mail address, only a phone number :p . This has me questioning the logic of the people in charge over there, but maybe I'll write a letter or something. If anyone has made their stuttering problem public knowledge or made those difficult steps in seeking help I would definitely like to hear how you went about doing that. I am ashamed to admit that I am trying to seek counseling and payment options that I can take care of without anyone knowing.
Finally, I must say that all of you have stories that touch me. NO ONE deserves to stutter as it is one of the more embarrassing and debilitating problems anyone will ever have to deal with. People with normal fluency take their position for granted every day. Stuttering seems to be one of the few "disabilities" that most people are not particularly compassionate about. Sometimes the exact opposite is true and I hate that fact.
Thanks for gritting it and making it through my way too long post!
I am almost 21 years old and am a student at Florida State University. I have an interesting stuttering history, like all of you I guess. I first started stuttering when I was in kindergarten. I stuttered terribly but it did not seem to mind me at all. My parents, even though split up, were always supportive of my problem. They set up stuttering help at my school and also at a clinic for a few years and by 5th grade it was completely gone. I had total and complete fluency. I loved giving presentations, reading for the class, and was busting with self-confidence. I was always the smartest in my grade, but I took great pride in being able to express that intelligence verbally. I would give ANYTHING and pay any amount of money to be able to go back and regain this speaking form, as this fluency did not last long.
I moved to a new school and changed households late in my 6th grade year and it was here when I started to make negative process with my speaking. I was placed in the gifted program and we often had to read books allowed and give presentations. I managed to get by but I noticed it becoming extremely difficult. It is here when I gained my patented "hesitated, uumm, you know" technique to cope with the stuttering. From this point on I was never able to do read or speak in front of a group of people again without hesitating or beginning sentences with umm/you know. I also started just speaking less in general and not being my once expressive self.
So here I am now, 20 years old and am having the same problems I had at 13 but no one knows about it. My stuttering is feast or famine. It is not noticable in most situations, but in situations where it is it really is. I have a fair amount of friends and I can communicate with them without anyone taking note. I mean, they even sometimes make fun of stutterers in my presence, and I know they would never do that if they even thought I had a stutter. I can talk on the phone with friends and people I know fine, and I can also speak alright on the phone if I'm answering (I uhh and you know quite a bit, but so do a lot of people I guess so they don't notice). On the other hand, if I have to call someone I do not know or even call to place I food order I become irrationally nervous and have a severe lock-up so I just avoid it now. I can go through a drive-thru and place an order with relative normalcy but have a hard time saying 3 words over the phone.
My biggest concern right now is that every undergraduate student has to take a public speaking course to graduate. There is no chance that I could make it through that in my current phase as giving presentations, public reading, and speeches are situations that make me go from "semi-normal, unnoticeable stutter guy of few words" to "wow, he can't say his name guy of one word every 4 seconds". I also have a hard time speaking with people in a higher position than myself so being taken serious by employers is going to be difficult as well.
I have a couple of great sources of hope though, and one of those is my mother. She was a stutterer all through school and told me a story when I was younger about how she put off her college speech class until her senior year because she just could not do it. In high school when she was called upon to read she stuttered terribly. If you look at her today though, no one would ever know she had such a bad stuttering problem. She is a nationally respected educator who gives speeches and hosts seminars for hundreds of people many times a year. I'm not sure how she overcame her problem because I am afraid to ask, but she is an incredible woman and gives me hope that stuttering CAN be overcome. I know that I could come out to her and she would understand, but I am just too embarrassed and the issue has become much bigger in my mind than it really is because I have put it off for so long. My other source of hope is the younger version of me. I believe that I was able to overcome my stuttering when I was younger because it was out in the open and I was comfortable with my problem. I did not hide it and everyone knew that I was a stutterer. I was in a comfort zone and it quickly went away. Once I was taken out of my comfort zone and began the avoidance behavior the stuttering came back and has since stuck. I hope that re-finding this comfort zone will allow me to again overcome stuttering.
I am really considering going to the university clinic for a little help as FSU has a great department of communication disorders. The only problem is there is no e-mail address, only a phone number :p . This has me questioning the logic of the people in charge over there, but maybe I'll write a letter or something. If anyone has made their stuttering problem public knowledge or made those difficult steps in seeking help I would definitely like to hear how you went about doing that. I am ashamed to admit that I am trying to seek counseling and payment options that I can take care of without anyone knowing.
Finally, I must say that all of you have stories that touch me. NO ONE deserves to stutter as it is one of the more embarrassing and debilitating problems anyone will ever have to deal with. People with normal fluency take their position for granted every day. Stuttering seems to be one of the few "disabilities" that most people are not particularly compassionate about. Sometimes the exact opposite is true and I hate that fact.
Thanks for gritting it and making it through my way too long post!