Why some people suffer from a stutter • Hacker News Board

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#121

Post by mswen » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

A family story. My father-in-law (now in his 80s) began to stutter when he was very young, somewhere around 4 years old. Teachers, and I think his step-mother were trying to force him to write with his right hand, even though he naturally gravitated to using his left hand. At some point while still a child they gave up on trying to get him to write with his right hand and shortly thereafter the stuttering went away.

It might have been anxiety caused by the forced switch in handedness. But if so, why didn't stuttering reappear at other stressful times in life?

Or, is there a neurological connection. Writing and speaking both access language centers in the brain, so trying to force unnatural change in writing created problems in the oral expression of language?

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#122

Post by micksabox » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #115

lymeeducator wrote: post #17

My young son, now 7 (no stutter), did stutter at age 4 and had some level of anxiety. My wife and I discovered that he has an allergy to annatto, a natural seed used for orange dye & nutty flavor, that triggered the stuttering. The stuttering was likely due to slight inflammation in his brain. In this case, slice of organic American (orange) cheese caused him to stutter within 10 minutes. Then we could tell when he h…

Wow, I stutter, and have forever, and did not consider it an allergy.. My way of treating it, hat, has been successful was psychedelics. Interesting.

Can I ask what did you try? I've stuttered all my life and have recently come across the potential of psychedelics.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#123

Post by micksabox » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

ExactActuation wrote: post #120

It doesn't seem that this was mentioned yet. World-renowned mycologist Paul Stamets had his stutter cured from magic mushrooms. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAR4yH6TbtA

This is incredible, I definitely believe it's possible with psychedelics. I've stuttered all my life and have accepted it as part of my life, but I think I'm going to try it. Definitely not taking an ounce at one time though!

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#124

Post by gee_totes » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #63

quercusa wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a roommate with a stutter, but never when telling a joke, talking to the dog, or singing. We are way more complicated than we understand!

I stutter on jokes all the time, it’s pretty pathetic. Good for him, sounds uncharacteristic of a stutterer to be honest. But I’ve never heard of anyone who stutters when they sing. Something about singing makes the fluency a lot easier.

It's not pathetic -- do you look at someone in a wheelchair and think how pathetic they are?

It's not pathetic -- it's just some fucking bullshit that happens. We need to cut through all the bullshit and love ourselves. :)

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#125

Post by viraptor » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #78

Scarblac wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had therapy for years as well, didn't help. Until one day. They had taught us a very artificial way to speak, a sort of very slow, very loose su-su-stuttering on purpose. 15-year old me hated it. Then they made us go into stores, and ask for things using this technique. A couple of AA batteries, in my case, using that technique. I dreaded this, thought it was completely ridiculous. But the guy behind the counter di…

Interesting. This is basically exposure therapy which is used to treat a number of anxiety related conditions. For example, for men who have shy bladders (and it can get so bad they can’t pee outside their own homes), the therapy is to go to a public washroom and stand at a urinal for 5 min. Yeah, 5 min. Don’t even try and pee. Similar to you, they realize that their anxiety around people caring or even noticing isn’…

> exposing yourself to anxiety provoking situations for long enough (and in a controlled manner) will cause your brain to react less and less to it in the future.

Works for me with heights to some extent. When I go skiing, the first day of the season is terrible on the chair lifts. Then it gets better. There's still some height threshold I can't deal with very well, so it's not a perfect solution. But there is an improvement.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#126

Post by tejisant01 » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

mksha wrote: post #87

I used to have a feeling on what words I would stutter, I still do, and accordingly pick a trajectory of words that would divert me from that particular word, which would sometimes comes a bit off, most of the time successful. Paradoxically I would scan what I would say in advance, and usually while talking would scan sentences that would come very soon in connection to the one I am speaking. If I notice there is a p…

Exactly the same for me.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#127

Post by boomer_joe » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

>People who stutter often appear to have slightly weaker connections between the brain areas responsible for hearing and for the movements that generate speech

Interesting. One would expect that from this it would follow that stutterers are bad singers.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#128

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

micksabox wrote: post #122

rootsudo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I stutter, and have forever, and did not consider it an allergy.. My way of treating it, hat, has been successful was psychedelics. Interesting.

Can I ask what did you try? I've stuttered all my life and have recently come across the potential of psychedelics.

LSD and Mushrooms. They work wonders, I'd start with microdoses, though a good plateau trip works for years after.

Microdoses and an introduction to the culture of these chems, there's ever more material of these online, then, 15 years ago when I first experimented and that's both exciting and sad because if you were to rely solely on social media/reddit/twitter ancedotes you really won't get the full package.

I'd look at forums, erowid and published research journals for the full picture. :)