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Rant/looking for advice 14F Hello everyone! I started highschool a few months ago, and am someone who has been stuttering my whole. I believe that this is caused by genetics, as my brother, aunt, and uncle all stuttered or have stuttered. I’d say I have a pretty severe stutter some days(mostly on w, st, and some l words), and can’t seem to get certain words out sometimes, especially when asking/ answering questions. I feel as if my stutter is more severe when I overthink about what I’m going to say, which is why I usually struggle to ask and answer questions, because I already thought of how im going to respond . I talk slightly faster than normal, but mainly do this to try to get out all the words before coming to something that I know I can’t say. I did speech therapy throughout my childhood years (4-11) took a break, and have recently got back into it. However, it is pretty expensive and I feel bad for making my parents pay it ($80/30m, I live in a pretty rural area as well, and the nearest place for speech therapy is about 40 mins away) This is the advice portion of my post. With my circumstances, how do you think I could improve my speech? Does anyone know of any techniques that could potentially help me? Thanks 🙏 Anyway, on to my mini rant. I feel as if I can’t achieve anywhere near my full potential with my disability. I participate in lots of clubs and activities, in and outside if school including cross country, track, trivia team, mathleats, eco club, basketball, band, a fundraising club thingy, violin recitals, student council, am on a government panel that collaborates with my local regional chair and province premier, badminton, and more. Anyway, all of the activities I do require public speaking abilities and although I always volunteer and do speak at some events, I feel as if im discriminated against due to my speech. It just really annoys me that people think that I can’t do something, even though im more than willing and happy to try. I’m usually really good at speaking infront of large crowds if I have to read something (depending on the words). But then again, I also understand why people don’t want me to read. They can’t have someone talking that they think, judging by their experiences, no one understands. Another thing upsets me is my ability to answer in class. I practically always volunteer to read, answer, or whatever. No one usually does in most of my classes, so I take advantage of the opportunities . For the times that I don’t (which I’d say is about 20%) it’s because the passage I have to read, or my answer has a word that I can’t say and can’t substitute for a synonym. I try to the best of my ability to not let my disability discourage me academically and socially, but sometimes it still shines through. For the times I do answer knowing I’ll most likely mess up, I always do and it’s usually pretty bad (I get stuck on the word I knew I would for 5secs). Lastly, the hardest part about stuttering for me is the social side. I feel like some people don’t like me, or think poorly of me because of my speech. I have a group of about 20 good friends, but again, I still feel like I could know more people, or have more good friends without my stutter. People aren’t eager to be friends with someone that they can’t understand at times. I heard from one of my friends that there was this guy that was making fun of me for my speech (I literally don’t know this dude, I’ve talked to him like twice and from what hes seen I barely stutter). Apparently, he went around to 5 of my good friends, asked them if they liked me, and proceeded to say how ugly I was and to not be friends with me. This really makes me mad, just because I don’t even know this guy, and now I can’t imagine how many other people may say this stuff about me. Lastly, one day when I was sitting with a group of friends during lunch, one of them shows the others of a video that they took of “this guys speech impediment” and they were all making fun of him. This guy has an EXTREMELY MILD lisp, and I didn’t even notice despite having a few classes with him until they showed me until watching the video a few times. This makes me like really scarred as to what people may be saying about me, and even recording Anyway, that’s all. I have no idea why I was chosen to have a stutter, and I honestly hate myself so much for it sometimes. Im tired of substituting words, being made fun of, not being able to talk, and not being the best version of myself despite striving to improve each day. Thanks for reading 🩷