commentr/StutterJuly 17, 2020

Content

I have, from moderate to mild to mostly zero for long periods of time. I even forget that I stutter or start to believe I've finally outgrown it haha. For me, the key was to: 1. Master your fluency speech techniques and tricks. The only way to do this was to use them all the time. Are they exhausting to use? Yes. But the more you practice the easier it gets. Also not all of them will work all the time, so the best thing to do is to build an encyclopedic knowledge of all of them to deploy when needed. This is not a quick fix, and may take years, but i'd rather spend half my life learning to control my speech than all of it struggling. The goal is not to avoid stuttering, the goal is to be able to say what you want to say when you want to say it, with control. 2. Read widely and educate yourself. Reading teaches you to think and to express your thoughts more cogently. It also exposes you to a huge vocabulary- that most other people get buy talking you can get it through books. 3. Shower talk- you should always be talking out loud to yourself when you can, praise yourself, encourage yourself, be kind to yourself, rest your greatness and take care of yourself. Most people get this from their tribe- friends, family etc, but if you can't, do it for yourself. I feel like PWS often have a very negative inner monologue. I tell myself crazy things but they make me feel great. Every morning, I tell myself "howtobegoodagain, you piss champagne and sit ice cream!"or "howtobegoodagain, You look amazing and you smell sexy". and when I have bad days, my own voice says these things to me and I smile, **like a psychopath.** 4. Say Yes: to everything extroverted. Wanna hang out? Yes. Wanna make a speech? Yes. Wanna do a presentation? Yes. Put yourself out there and practice your fluency techniques. talk to people and learn how people talk to each other. There's this often unreasonable expectation that young people let each other finish their sentences. most times there are like 3 convos going on at the same time and everyone is just trying to outwit the other person. Its banter and its not everyones cup of tea, but you gotta learn to go with the flow of a convo. not everything has to be this deep meaningful discourse, most is just superficial nonsense - or small talk- get used to it and try to master spontaneous banter. this will help you very much with the need to produce impromptu speech under pressure. 5. this is what helped me most. Good luck.

Themes

Coping & AdvocacyAnticipation & AvoidanceSocial & Relationships

Subthemes

Fluency TechniquesAvoidance & SubstitutionHiding & ConcealmentDisclosure & Telling Others