I moved abroad and 'restarted' my speaking. Stuttering came back when I moved back home. Can somebody relate?
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I moved abroad and 'restarted' my speaking. Stuttering came back when I moved back home. Can somebody relate? **first of all I'm not ashamed of my stuttering and I know I can have a happy life even If I stutter a little now and then. I respect people who is either living with it, hiding it or fighting it. Just remember great people like Elon Musk and Joe Biden stutter and cope with it. Don't let stuttering define you** After college I was desperate to try something new, I was sick of school and there was no interesting jobs I was qualified for, so I joined a work n' travel program and moved to Germany. I was staying at a collective/house with 6-7 other guys who all came from different countries in Europe (we spoke English together). I was awkward and shy back then and the stuttering had something to do with it with some awkward silences etc. I decided when I was going there I was not gonna take any bs and I was not gonna stutter/let them know I stuttered. I did this to protect myself and I knew that if I first started to stutter or tell anyone about it could make me stutter again. Sometimes I was asked why I didn't talk more and I'd excuse it saying I'm not fluent in English etc, so I kept conversations simple and had some one-liners now and then. In the beginning I didn't talk much but slowly I gained more and more confidence. I realised after some time there my confidence had boosted, I had fought off my low self esteem and I was not taking any bs by anyone, I didn't fear anyone because I decided I was just as good and gifted as anyone else in our group. After some months I could speak fluently with my friends/colleagues but I still felt I needed to be alert in some situations (when I was really tired, noisy environments or if I felt some social anxiety etc). At the end of my year abroad I was pretty much stutter-free. I was so happy with how my life was because having confidence to talk and loosing the sense of fear had done wonders in my life. Eventually I had to go back home and It turned out to be a major disappointment for me. It felt like a step back and being home again made me stutter for some reason. I remember I tried to avoid it happening but I couldn't do anything about it, it's just like the stuttering forced its way back. Thoughts?