I got rid of my childhood stutter near instantly when someone told me that it was becuase I was thinking three sentences ahead of where my mouth was. All I needed to do was slow down the "speech in your head". I could still think ahead; I just needed to not internally vocalize my future words, and it all went away like magic.
Why some people suffer from a stutter
21–30 of 128 posts
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#22I have a stutter too. What is interesting, is that I stutter less when speaking English than when I'm speaking Russian (my first language). I think party it has something to do with different rhythm structure of English.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#23I have a stutter. I went to a speech and language therapist, which helped a little bit. For the longest time I couldn't say words like "Wednesday" (stuttering on the W) or even simple phrases like "Yes sir/ma'am" when at secondary school (I believe this is known as a "block", my mouth just wouldn't work; I froze up). I'm not entirely sure what helped me overcome the problem. If I'm relaxed, my speech is fluent. If I…
Do you stutter when you are not hearing yourself? For example, if you record yourself with headphones on playing very loud music so that you can not hear your own voice, will you still stutter saying all those things or reading the stuff you stutter on?
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#24I have a stutter. I went to a speech and language therapist, which helped a little bit. For the longest time I couldn't say words like "Wednesday" (stuttering on the W) or even simple phrases like "Yes sir/ma'am" when at secondary school (I believe this is known as a "block", my mouth just wouldn't work; I froze up). I'm not entirely sure what helped me overcome the problem. If I'm relaxed, my speech is fluent. If I…
Do you stutter when you are not hearing yourself? For example, if you record yourself with headphones on playing very loud music so that you can not hear your own voice, will you still stutter saying all those things or reading the stuff you stutter on?
Most of the time, yes.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#25I got rid of my childhood stutter near instantly when someone told me that it was becuase I was thinking three sentences ahead of where my mouth was. All I needed to do was slow down the "speech in your head". I could still think ahead; I just needed to not internally vocalize my future words, and it all went away like magic.
Something like that for me too when I was a toddler. It was a syncing issue.
People consider me articulate and eloquent.
When I'm not regulating I can still ramble until I'm out of breath. Never stuttering though. More like a mid-atlantic improv.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#26My stutter has been my primary source of stress/anxiety for that last 12 years. Its impacted my time in college and then later at Grad School. I've had good days and bad (more good days lately), but i'll never forget the terror I used to feel whenever I had to present something in front of other people.
I skipped classes to avoid doing that, i bombed many a presentation because I had trouble with certain sentences and it impacted my grades. I think not being able to make the best of time in grad school is something I can get over eventually, but a bigger regret I have is not being able to make meaningful connections with my peers in school because I'd avoid hanging out with people because of my anxiety over my stutter. In a way it almost feels like I never experienced
I still have issues with words starting with "A" which is unfortunate since my name starts with an A. I still speak really quickly which i think comes from a habit of trying to get through speech quickly to get it over with.
I do believe that a lot of it is mostly because of my anxiety as I speak just fine when i'm relaxed, and I've been trying to work on using different words when I feel like certain phrases/words will cause problems.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#27I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know don't know(or remember) that I stutter. As I get older it's become more of an internal battle. I am pretty good at hiding it. If I am relaxed I can talk for long stretches without pauses. But occasionally I have to take a second or two before I can get a word o…
A good friend has pretty much the same profile you describe.
What has worked best for him is developing a habit of being very open about it, e.g. explicit stating to new people "I have a stutter". This would remove the tension around hiding something. In general hiding feelings tends to be bad for humans.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#28I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know don't know(or remember) that I stutter. As I get older it's become more of an internal battle. I am pretty good at hiding it. If I am relaxed I can talk for long stretches without pauses. But occasionally I have to take a second or two before I can get a word o…
A good friend has pretty much the same profile you describe. What has worked best for him is developing a habit of being very open about it, e.g. explicit stating to new people "I have a stutter". This would remove the tension around hiding something. In general hiding feelings tends to be bad for humans.
Indeed, if a person I know I will be talking to a lot notices I usually tell them. People don't care - in the good sense. It's usually talking to strangers that may cause issues. While as a child it was store clerks who I had an issue with, as an adult it's tense moments where you have to protect your interests, explain something complex to strangers, point the way to a tourist, etc. - stress-free vocalization would really help out in those situations
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#29I have a stutter. I went to a speech and language therapist, which helped a little bit. For the longest time I couldn't say words like "Wednesday" (stuttering on the W) or even simple phrases like "Yes sir/ma'am" when at secondary school (I believe this is known as a "block", my mouth just wouldn't work; I froze up). I'm not entirely sure what helped me overcome the problem. If I'm relaxed, my speech is fluent. If I…
> If I'm relaxed, my speech is fluent.
Exactly like me. I can say any word, surprisingly in a better way, when I'm alone. I struggle primarily with words starting with T, D like Trajectory, Tutorial, and few more.
Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter
#30I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know don't know(or remember) that I stutter. As I get older it's become more of an internal battle. I am pretty good at hiding it. If I am relaxed I can talk for long stretches without pauses. But occasionally I have to take a second or two before I can get a word o…
Thanks for sharing. You've described my own stutter and struggles perfectly.
Like you, I can tell I'm going to "block" on a word before I even say it. So it's less of what's thought of as a conventional stutter and more just a complete inability to say the word. It's a strange, almost scary, feeling to those who experience it. However, if I'm particularly excited about something, or don't care about the opinions of company I'm in, I occasionally "push through" the blocked word and it instead turns into a conventional drawn out stutter.
I also use similar coping methods, which as you note sometimes result in awkward situations. To give a hypothetical example, if I want to tell my coworker "I need to go home and let my dog out", I might notice as soon as I start talking that I'm going to block on "dog", so what results is something like "I need to go home and let my... [long pause as I try to think of a replacement word]... pet out." (Which of course leaves me feeling flustered, as I wonder what the my coworker thinks a dramatic pause before announcing I have a pet, and who says "pet" instead of "dog" anyway?)
This article was actually great, and does a good job of driving home that this is a physical disability relating to how our brains are wired, or our neurochemistry. Growing up in the 80s and seeing speech therapists about the issue, all the talk was around just "learning" not to stutter. Yes we can learn workarounds and coping methods, but at the end of the day it's still very much a biological issue, and it's obvious to those of us that experience it.
Reinforcing the idea that it's related to neurochemistry, I've noticed that any strong CNS stimulant (caffeine, etc) erases the stutter. And conversely, being in caffeine withdrawal (or just tired in general) amplifies it.
The good news is that I've found it's rarely interferes with my personal or professional life. It really only surfaces when I have my guard down 100% and I'm just engaging in casual conversation, while also tired or sleep deprived. When I put on my "work persona" for meetings, presentations, just general professional banter, it never surfaces. In those situations it's almost as if I'm talking through a manufactured persona, which would echo sentiments expressed elsewhere in this thread about the stutter disappearing when singing, speaking another language, etc.
On the other hand, I'm pretty confident the stutter is at the root of crippling social anxiety I experience in some situations.