Hello from Sydney, Australia

[sydney]

Hello!
Just wanted to introduce myself since finding this forum and share some experiences. My name is Thanh and I work in I.T. I have a mild (yeah, right!) stutter since I was 10 (mostly blocks). I am pretty sure I did not stutter before that age. It went away for a while and then came back permanently.

I've been to speech therapy at a few different periods in my life and found it did help a little. What has helped me most was one employer (who has a lisp) a few years back gave me a customer-facing job. I was forced to speak to I.T. customers face-to-face, go on site, make telephone calls in front of others, explain things, etc. This improved my speech/fluency significantly. My voice easily grew tired by early afternoon (and increases my stutter) so my then speech pathologist sent me to see an Ear Nose Throat specialist who stuck a camera down my nose, saw something "different", then prescribed a nose spray. Since then my voice no longer gets tired which means less stutters in the afternoon!!

I still stutter of course, but much more confident than 5 years ago (eg. ordering food, job interviews, speaking with Managing Director). I have my up and down periods that can last for a few weeks. Stuttering increases if I don't speak frequently (eg. going away on annual leave/holiday from work. When I return it takes a while to get back to better fluency, if that makes sense). Unfortunately I still suck at speaking/confidence when it is a group setting with colleagues/friends/strangers,etc.

Over and out for now.

Thanh
brain.anomaly@yahoo.com.au

[Nivek]

I am similar, in that if I am by myself alone, or don't speak too much for an extended period of time i stutter, but once i get into the flow of the convo or have been talking all day, i usually stutter very little. I truely believe in chemical balances in the brain because whenever I am in a good mood, or pumped up or even extremely angry, i tend to stutter very little when i speak. However, when say i go to a boring class, and then try to talk after class, it takes me a while to get into the groove of things. I've been trying this new exercise of pumping myself up before i go out, and it seems to work semi decently.

[peikayla]

Hey, my stutter went a way for 2 years and came back. I believe it was gods way of giving me away to get my life back on track. I had no friends from kindergarten to a week before grade nine. Then it went away. I started grade nine made friends, had a boyfriend, and had the time of my life. Then 2 weeks before grade 11 it came back. I was afraid of what my teachers and friends would say, but they excepted it. I was terrified what my best friend/Music teacher Kirk white would think, but he excepted it with open arms. My life has only gotten better, besides the fact that my family doesn't except me and they make fun of me. I am 17 and in Grade 12 i will graduate in June and will continue loving life. I Thank god and the people in this forum for helping me through the hard times, and still continue to do that. I have stuttered since I first spoke, I had to grow up and skip the childhood part, but am a well rounded person and am full of life. Add me on angelofbeauty_2003@hotmail.com or e-mail me at that address or peikayla@yahoo.ca! Hope to hear from you soon! :D