From covert stuttering to accepting your stutter.

[yves]

Hello everyone, I'm a 23 year old guy and I'm new to this forum. I've been a stutterer ever since I was in kindergarden and it has never improved. I have a relatively long story to tell so bear with me. If anything sounds weird it's because I'm European and my english might not be perfect.

In all my years as a stutterer I've never joined a forum like this or sought help in any meaningful way. There's a reason for that: I was in denial for years. I was pretending not to be a stutterer, and the only way to do this effectively was to shut up unless spoken to and not get into social situations that I might have to talk in. This, of course, ended up being *all* social situations and I spent my teens and early twenties indoors, alone. When I did have to talk I often managed to hide my stuttering by substituting words or pacing my speaking differently, but it was a constant struggle that was extremely taxing on my mind and nerves. My life was really stressful; for example every time we had a language class I'd go to school petrified with fear, knowing I'd probably have to read out loud. I'd be squirming with fear all day because I knew I had french class at the end of the day. I eventually developed an anxiety disorder because of this (but more on that later).

I was mostly happy during my teens, as I didn't have to deal with a lot of people and face the stress of every day conversation. It wasn't until I hit my twenties that I started feeling I was missing something. My years of nigh-isolation had given rise to social anxiety disorder and I was faced with the prospect of leading a lonely and empty life, alone, in my room. I was seeing people in my college getting girlfriends and blossoming socially, while I was stuck in my room, and in my head. These thoughts of an unpleasant future combined with my isolation eventually made me depressed, for 2 years, which greatly hampered my academic performance.

I know that the only way forward in my life is to once and for all accept that I have a stutter, and learn to do it openly, to take all this stress and fear off my shoulders. Stop trying to hide the way I talk and make it a part of me. Stop being ashamed of myself. I'm at a loss over how I can do this though. I've spent 20 years of my life hiding from myself and now I'm faced with the choice of being unhappy and alone for the rest of my life or accepting my stutter and opening myself up to ridicule and derision, but at the same time, hopefully, to friendships and possibly even a relationship. I've become more and more accustomed to the idea over the past few weeks, but I have no idea where to start. How do you accept your stutter? What do I do? How should I think about myself? Hopefully someone here can help me.

[dream431ca]

Hi Yves. Welcome to the forum. I read your post and it reminded me of myself. I'm 27 years old, still live at home, no girlfriend but over the past 6 months I have become much more confident in myself. One part of that confidence comes from music. I am a music lover, especially when it comes to metal music. I love bands like Nightwish, Gamma Ray, Dream Evil and a whole lot more. One of the main reasons why I love these bands so much and metal in general, is that the songs and music tell you to never give up your dreams, never give in and keep going forward, even in the worst of times. One of the most powerful songs I hears recently is from a band called Tarot. The song is called "I walk forever". To me this song describes, no matter how hard things get, I will still walk on forward, no matter what people think of me.

Confidence is the key to help you not only accept your stuttering but also stutter less. People get confidence in different ways and for me, the primary source of confidence is music. For other people it may be something else. Find something you love to do and strive for it.


One more thing. When I was a child and still in school, I got made fun of everyday, and I couldn't do anything about it. Now things have changed. People rarely if ever make fun of me when I'm around. However, I do suspect they do talk about me behind my back, but I'm at the point where I could care less. There is really no point getting involved with these people. I just ignore them and never talk to them. That seems to work.

What you need to do is to find away to get your confidence up. Anything that makes you feel good, surround yourself with it. Also you may need to step out of your comfort zone like I did not to long ago. I really liked this girl at my workplace. We would talk every now and then. One morning I decided to see if we could go out together. That took every will of my being to get that much courage in me. Before I asked her, I overheard some of her co workers talking and found out she was less then one month pregnant. Man, I can tell you I was bummed out for 2 days after that. My thoughts once again returned to depression. But now I'm over that phase, and even though will never get the chance to go out with her, I still talk to her. Stepping out of my comfort zone also has made me stronger and I felt great. That was the first time in my life I did something like that and I was proud of myself.

My friend, stuttering s. We all feel it. The most important thing is realizing that stuttering does not have to run your life. Never give up on your hopes and dreams. Ignore those who shun you because you stutter and imbrace those who accept you who you really are. The hardest thing is to accept yourself and stutter. Realize that you are more then your stuttering, gain the confidence you need by doing what you love to do and never give up on your dreams. We are all stutters here, so we are all in this togeth

[dream431ca]

Sorry about my last post. I was typing on my iPhone and hit the wrong key :p What I meant to say at the end is we are all in this together. We all stutter here. Never give up.

[Thomkatt]

There is really no easy answer to your question. You have to get into the mindset the there is nothing wrong with stuttering and just do it. You kind of have to look people in the eye and stutter.

[howeee]

Hello everyone, I'm a 23 year old guy and I'm new to this forum. I've been a stutterer ever since I was in kindergarden and it has never improved. I have a relatively long story to tell so bear with me. If anything sounds weird it's because I'm European and my english might not be perfect.

In all my years as a stutterer I've never joined a forum like this or sought help in any meaningful way. There's a reason for that: I was in denial for years. I was pretending not to be a stutterer, and the only way to do this effectively was to shut up unless spoken to and not get into social situations that I might have to talk in. This, of course, ended up being *all* social situations and I spent my teens and early twenties indoors, alone. When I did have to talk I often managed to hide my stuttering by substituting words or pacing my speaking differently, but it was a constant struggle that was extremely taxing on my mind and nerves. My life was really stressful; for example every time we had a language class I'd go to school petrified with fear, knowing I'd probably have to read out loud. I'd be squirming with fear all day because I knew I had french class at the end of the day. I eventually developed an anxiety disorder because of this (but more on that later).

I was mostly happy during my teens, as I didn't have to deal with a lot of people and face the stress of every day conversation. It wasn't until I hit my twenties that I started feeling I was missing something. My years of nigh-isolation had given rise to social anxiety disorder and I was faced with the prospect of leading a lonely and empty life, alone, in my room. I was seeing people in my college getting girlfriends and blossoming socially, while I was stuck in my room, and in my head. These thoughts of an unpleasant future combined with my isolation eventually made me depressed, for 2 years, which greatly hampered my academic performance.

I know that the only way forward in my life is to once and for all accept that I have a stutter, and learn to do it openly, to take all this stress and fear off my shoulders. Stop trying to hide the way I talk and make it a part of me. Stop being ashamed of myself. I'm at a loss over how I can do this though. I've spent 20 years of my life hiding from myself and now I'm faced with the choice of being unhappy and alone for the rest of my life or accepting my stutter and opening myself up to ridicule and derision, but at the same time, hopefully, to friendships and possibly even a relationship. I've become more and more accustomed to the idea over the past few weeks, but I have no idea where to start. How do you accept your stutter? What do I do? How should I think about myself? Hopefully someone here can help me.

Well It seems like you are well on your way.

Accepting myself as a person who stutters began with rejecting all therapy. Trying with little steps not to avoid as many situations as possible. Meaning I would order my own food in a restaraunt and the foods I wanted. Making all my own appointments on the phone, calling my childrens teachers and those kinda things. I dont dwell on how I stutter or why I stutter.

This happened for myself at the age of 40 when I looked back on all the therapies and therapists I had and came to the conclusion they only complicated my stutter and damaged my self esteem. From that time on, about 16 years ago, I went from being a severe stutterer to a mild to moderate one.

I wish you luck on your journey.

[GregC]

I am 24 and I recently went through the internal conflict that you mentioned. "I want to not care about my stutter or speech block. I just want to lead a happier life."

Although I am not 100% fluent by any means and do occasionally stutter or have the verbal block, I think the attitude that you mentioned is the one that you should have. You should accept your stutter.

By accepting your stutter, you will be less self-conscious about it. When you're less self-conscious about it, you will feel more relaxed during social situations and you will be less prone to stuttering. In my opinion, accepting your stutter is not just an internal struggle. It's also about letting the people around you know.

I'm not advocating telling complete strangers that you stutter, but by telling your friends, family, and co-workers about your stutter, you can learn to talk more openly about your stutter and thus not feel the negative stigma associated with stuttering in general, listen to their positive feedback about you and your speech (you'd be surprised how often you will hear that your speech is actually not as bad as you think), and hopefully get more comfortable in normal social situations. It's surprising once you tell someone that you stutter, how fluent you become afterward.

I would also suggest just practicing your speech with close friends. While hanging out with friends, you can learn to feel relaxed about the situation and relaxed about your speech. You can then expand these social situations, hanging out with close friends at a new location or hanging out with close friends and some of their friends (whom you haven't met). By gradually expanding your comfort zone, you can learn to accept your stutter, practice your speech, and get to a comfortable level of fluency.

Hope all of this helps.

[lynn]

im a mother of a five year old twin boy who stutters. please find the strength to live your life one sentence at a time. be strong so i can know theres hope for my precious baby boy! I dont think ive stopped agonizing over my son since stuttering hit him over two years ago. Your story saddens me cuz i can see this struggle beginning for him. on his good days ,our whole family is happy and on his bad days we all crash and burn. im so sorry that this affects others.

[howeee]

I dont understand this practice your speech suggestion. We have been speaking since children. In my experience, dwelling on ones speech only complicates ones stutter. I doubt if anyone needs to practice talking.

In accepting yourself as a stutterer, a part of that means not practicing, not using useless techniques like air flow, bouncing, purposeful stuttering and the rest of that crap.

Accepting yourself as a person who stutters is a process, it doesnt happen overnite. It is somthing that is neverending.

In my experience as a person that was a severe stutterer and now is a mild to moderate stutterer is, you have to let go of all that stuff and that includes practicing not to stutter(what ever that is).

[rodnorp]

It is who you are, who you were, and who you will be.

dont let it get in your way.

[Thecoherentman]

Acceptance of one's stuttering and curing of it are one and the same thing. Now we need a rocket scientist to explain how acceptance of an affliction and lack of it can be the same. In the level of brain chemistry every time we stutter we are ignoring the real neurotransmitters that are inhibiting us to go forward. If we feel the need to urgently fight our inhibiting impulses then our acceptance of stuttering is only an idle fantasy and pure mindless imagination or better to say mindless distraction and no imagination.

[amey]

There is really no easy answer to your question. You have to get into the mindset the there is nothing wrong with stuttering and just do it. You kind of have to look people in the eye and stutter.

This is RIGHT ON!