A lot of y'all need therapy. Not speech therapy, psychological therapy
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A lot of y'all need therapy. Not speech therapy, psychological therapy Title. And to dispel the immediate assumption/hope that a lot of us have: no, improving your mental health will probably not do anything to improve your stutter. Therapy has been very helpful for me, and here's why. We're all multifaceted individuals with a lot of different issues. Stuttering is probably the main issue or at least in the top 3 issues for almost everyone who seeks out a subreddit just for stutterers. However, if we can improve the other facets of our life, we can improve our happiness overall. Here's an explanation of why therapy would help, using arbitrary math: Let's say that, on a scale of 1-10, stuttering is a 10 on the stress scale. But for one person, family could also be a 6, generalized depression could be a 7, lack of direction in life could be a 5, relationship/romance could be an 8. That would make their average stress 7.2. Therapy isn't going to magically solve your problems, but it might help manage them. Let's say that as a result of therapy, all stressors OTHER than stuttering go down by 2 points. That would make the average 5.6. This is obviously an oversimplification, but I think the concept holds true: dealing with other psychological stressors will make us happier people even if it does nothing for our stuttering. There are a lot of depressing posts on here, about self isolating, feeling hopeless, poor health, etc. None of those are direct symptoms of stuttering, they're symptoms of poor mental health. I think if we aim to improve our mental health it will help offset those other symptoms. I highly doubt that ANYONE here feels like their only problem in life is stuttering. As long as there are other issues to address, then something can be done. Psychiatry may also be a good route to go for many of us. I personally have noticed a higher quality of life on Wellbutrin, even though my stutter is the same if not a bit worse than before I started taking it. Just seek out therapy if you have any type of health insurance. I only pay $10 a visit and I have shitty PhD student insurance. It's an hour a week, and can be spread out more. Can be virtual or physical. There's really NO good excuses other than lack of health insurance. None at all.