What happens in the moment when you stutter?

What happens in the moment when you stutter? This post is intended to help people manage feelings of anxiety and negativity and poor self esteem surrounding their stutter, with the hope that it can stop being such a hard thing in your life. I speak as someone who used to have a severe stutter that ruined my life, until I learned mindfulness and acceptance. Now I have a moderate to mild stutter (depending on the day) that doesn’t impact my life negatively. I think it’s crucial to analyze what is actually going on for you in the moment when you stutter. You can develop mindfulness, so you can transform how you respond when you actually have a severe block or extreme repetitions. The worst part about a severe stutter is that moment when you really can’t get a word out and someone is staring at you and every second is an eternity and your heart is pounding and you feel like you would jump out of a window to escape from that moment. Here are a few aspects of that experience to consider: 1) are you tense or relaxed? Everything changed for me when i learned to catch myself in the moment of a stutter, and relax my body, instead of tensing it. It’s very tricky and takes a lot of practice. You have to *remember* this, in the moment when you’re freaking out. It’s so habitual to tense, but it doesn’t help. *Tension creates the stutter. Relaxation allows the word to come out.* 2) how do you perceive the other persons thoughts? It’s so easy to think “everyone is looking at me like I’m a freak. Everyone thinks I’m dumb. No one wants to talk to me when they hear I stutter.” Now, the thing is, there *are* people who are going to be actually mean to you about stutter. Those people exist. Avoid those people. You can tell who they are because they will laugh rudely, (as opposed to laughing nervously), they will openly make fun of you. These people are deeply hurting inside, and they’re trying to make you feel bad because they feel bad. Hurt people hurt people. They’re not bad people, but you don’t have to talk to them. But anyways, MOST people don’t want to be mean to you. They just feel uncomfortable and awkward. They can’t help it. They might laugh nervously, make a small joke, turn away, stare, say something dumb like “it’s okay I stutter too” or whatever. Their intentions are good— they *want* to have a good interaction with you. They just don’t know how. Social awkwardness is a result of good intentions. *They feel awkward because they care about your feelings.* So what’s the solution? Love. Hang on, it may sound corny, but just hear me out. You have to love and forgive. Everyone wants to be loved. Have a loving, embracing mindset towards people. Let people know that this interaction has been awkward and uncomfortable, but that’s okay. We’ll get through it together. Find joy in being who you are, being a human being that’s together with other human beings. It’s a rare person who can resist someone who comes towards them with an open heart. People are suckers for love. Embarrassment and shame puts up a wall between you and others— people sense your embarrassment and it makes them embarrassed, so they leave. If your being radiates love, and no embarrassment, people will not leave. But GIVE THEM TIME! They still be uncomfortable at first, but keep coming towards them with an open heart. They won’t resist for long. It doesn’t matter how severe your stutter is. A severe stutter makes it hard to communicate, but don’t try to save face and hide it. Just keep trying to communicate, no matter how much you stutter, and keep your heart open. ——— You have to remember these things in the moment when you stutter. Remember to relax. Remember to love. If you can transform your experience of that actual moment, you can transform stuttering from a terrible thing to a neutral thing. (Or dare I say, a positive thing…. Because it can teach you how to love). I know these concepts may seem crazy, but they are real and they work. Even if you don’t get it now, please hold onto them and try to get them. It gives me literal pain to come on this sub and see people suffering in the way i used to suffer, wondering how I can help them. I feel tremendously motivated to try to help people get it. But I don’t know the best way. Any feedback or thoughts would be wonderful.