postr/StutterOctober 27, 2024

Probably stupid/"newbie" question: is there a term for when you only stutter at the start of a sentence?

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Probably stupid/"newbie" question: is there a term for when you only stutter at the start of a sentence? Long-ish, probably unnecessary, context: When I was about 12, I was sat in class and the teacher was taking attendance. It was French class, so we had to say "bonjeur" when our names were called out. Teacher comes to me, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere... stutter. I honestly can't remember how long it took me, or if I even did get the word out in the end, but it was such a strange feeling. I can't remember whether or not I felt nervous in the build up to it (which would go on to usually be a trigger for it), but it was the first time it ever happened and to go from speaking fluently to taking *at least* 5-10 seconds to say the word bonjeur was weird. Within a year-ish, my stutter largely vanished, but about 10 years later it's come back and I now have the same thing. But the thing is, as someone who never really sought help for it nor has a great deal of experience with others who have stutters and so is largely going off of stereotypes which may or may not be true... I only do it at the start of a sentence. Once I'm off, I'm fine, but if I feel "scared" of a certain word or phrase at the start of what I'm going to say, I'm going to struggle with it. It must be related to the content of what I'm going to say too, because it heightens when it's something that I'm even trivially nervous about bringing up (I have really low self-esteem and am *eerily* quiet in social situations, so this does happen quite often). There were times when, in class, I'd have been unexpectedly called on to answer a question, and I'd stutter for a couple of seconds as usual, and then, perfectly fluently, apologise for stuttering. I remember one of my teachers being confused at that; that I could stutter and then immediately and confidently say "sorry, I have a bit of a stutter", then go back to stuttering on trying to say whatever the answer was. Sorry for the dumping of all of that, I've never really spoken about my stutter before, so a lot of this is kind of unprocessed and I don't know the "types" of stutter, if there are any. Any information on whether this is usual or not would be greatly appreciated.

Themes

Anticipation & AvoidanceEmotional ExperienceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Feared Words & NamesAvoidance & SubstitutionExperiential AssociationAnxiety & Social JudgmentIdentity & Self-Perception

Codes (2)

repeating_oneselfperceived_judgment