Tommy
07-06-2007, 02:36 PM
Hey all you wonderful amazingly amazing people!! :D So nice to meet you! Wow I've never been to a stuttering forum before. I didn't think they even had them!
My situation's pretty good as to stuttering. I grew up with a stutter. Terrible teasing in school. I would skip days when I had I had to give an oral report. But over the years I've managed to perfect my avoidance techniques so well that I've eliminated a lot of stuttering from my life such as telephone communications. I don't even have to use any avoidance techniques while talking on the phone in most all situations for instance. So I'm fortunate in this regard because it always hasn't been this way. I know the kind of fears many of us go through and have gone through.
But what brings me here is I'm bumping up against the stuttering ceiling. I could go on in my life handling my stutter as I do no problem but what I want to do now is branch out and teach art. I'm iching to be an instructor but childhood fears are rearing their ugly heads bigtime. Getting up in front of a crowd is really scary to me. It's my achilles heal so to speak. I'm not so much afraid of not being able to speak as much as I am having a good solid panic attack. You know the type that overwhelms you. The kind you are powerless to do anything about.
So my plan at the moment is to work up to it slowly giving an art talk to a small group of people I know first and going from there. I think this is probably the best approach though I don't look forward to it LOL.
As well I've been looking into the various techniques or commercial treatments for stutterers on the market hoping to get some insights. I'm 59 years old and have never done this before. (Yeah I'm a late bloomer ha! ;)) What strikes me is that stuttering by and large seems to be treated as a physical problem as in the Vasalva Hypothesis. Why is this? Why do all the treatments out there deal with our breathing? There's nothing wrong with my breathing or my Vasalva mechanism. I can sit in a room alone and read the Gettysburg Address without one single hesitation. As a matter of fact I can't stutter when I'm alone. Impossible, unless I pretend to.
For me the stutter is all in the head and I imagine in the heads of many of us. I bet many of you don't stutter when you're alone. The singing thing (imo) can be explained away by pointing out that we didn't learn (or develope) the fear of stuttering through singing but through speaking and this fear only developed though being listened to. So when we think we are not being listened to we don't have much of a problem or none at all. This btw would explain white sound. Anyway I just don't see the current crop of treatments out there really getting at the root of the problem. For me the problem has to do with the mind not my breathing or my larynx... otherwise I would not be able to speak fluently when I'm alone.
My situation's pretty good as to stuttering. I grew up with a stutter. Terrible teasing in school. I would skip days when I had I had to give an oral report. But over the years I've managed to perfect my avoidance techniques so well that I've eliminated a lot of stuttering from my life such as telephone communications. I don't even have to use any avoidance techniques while talking on the phone in most all situations for instance. So I'm fortunate in this regard because it always hasn't been this way. I know the kind of fears many of us go through and have gone through.
But what brings me here is I'm bumping up against the stuttering ceiling. I could go on in my life handling my stutter as I do no problem but what I want to do now is branch out and teach art. I'm iching to be an instructor but childhood fears are rearing their ugly heads bigtime. Getting up in front of a crowd is really scary to me. It's my achilles heal so to speak. I'm not so much afraid of not being able to speak as much as I am having a good solid panic attack. You know the type that overwhelms you. The kind you are powerless to do anything about.
So my plan at the moment is to work up to it slowly giving an art talk to a small group of people I know first and going from there. I think this is probably the best approach though I don't look forward to it LOL.
As well I've been looking into the various techniques or commercial treatments for stutterers on the market hoping to get some insights. I'm 59 years old and have never done this before. (Yeah I'm a late bloomer ha! ;)) What strikes me is that stuttering by and large seems to be treated as a physical problem as in the Vasalva Hypothesis. Why is this? Why do all the treatments out there deal with our breathing? There's nothing wrong with my breathing or my Vasalva mechanism. I can sit in a room alone and read the Gettysburg Address without one single hesitation. As a matter of fact I can't stutter when I'm alone. Impossible, unless I pretend to.
For me the stutter is all in the head and I imagine in the heads of many of us. I bet many of you don't stutter when you're alone. The singing thing (imo) can be explained away by pointing out that we didn't learn (or develope) the fear of stuttering through singing but through speaking and this fear only developed though being listened to. So when we think we are not being listened to we don't have much of a problem or none at all. This btw would explain white sound. Anyway I just don't see the current crop of treatments out there really getting at the root of the problem. For me the problem has to do with the mind not my breathing or my larynx... otherwise I would not be able to speak fluently when I'm alone.