Advice to Those Who Stutter - Life Changing Book (Link in Post)

Advice to Those Who Stutter - Life Changing Book (Link in Post) https://www.stutteringhelp.org/sites/default/files/Book0009.pdf Hey guys! I am new to this subreddit and the main reason I joined was because I want to share this book I have been reading (few chapters in) and have already found it immensely helpful. It is called “Advice to Those Who Stutter” and is advice given from 28 therapists who stutter/stuttered themselves. The book really helps highlight many psychological struggles we face in accepting the fact that we stutter, and tips and tricks to relax your body, calm your mind, activities to go out and do in public (talking to strangers and mentioning that you have a stutter) which will ultimately help develop confidence and change our attitude about ourselves. It is incredible to see how much the advice from each therapist resonates with thoughts I have had, and I felt I was the only one experiencing any of this. I went through speech therapy when I was 13, and my therapist told me “speak slower”, “breathe before you speak”, “change your fluency.” I tried all of these tricks and it never worked for me. I continued to struggle until I moved across the Atlantic to attend medical school at the age of 17. Once I landed, I was extremely extroverted and suddenly my stutter was gone. I felt unstoppable for 2.5 years, until all of a sudden I relapsed. Now I go in between periods and fluency and relapsing. I have practiced everything, from breathing exercises, speech fluency training, researched all over the internet for anything I can do and nothing has helped me. Then I found this book. I have never felt like my thoughts (which reading other threads are a lot of other people’s thoughts as well) have been articulated this well by anyone other than myself. Each therapist says the suggestions I received from speech therapists in the past are amateur suggestions and don’t actually help. You don’t need to speak slower, you don’t need to change your fluency, and you don’t need to breath before you speak every time. You need to understand that as a stutterer, you can’t hide it and act like a normal fluent speaker, because honestly we can’t be. However what we can do is control how we react when we feel it coming and ultimately have a block. There will be interruptions in speech, but it is about minimizing those interruptions, acting confident through it, regather yourself if you are stuck on a block, and then overcome the anxiety and embarrassment which develops and control the confidence in how you speak. We can’t keep dwelling on why we stutter. We can’t keep hating ourselves and isolating ourselves. We have to accept the cards we’ve been dealt with, and work accordingly to provide ourselves with the best chance to be successful and be happy in life! Because each person in this subreddit and each person with a speech impediment around the world deserves to express what they are thinking without fear and anxiety taking over. Please give it a read and feel free to shoot me a message if you want to share progress, ask questions, provide any advice to me as I am still learning and developing as well. TLDR; 28 speech therapists who stuttered themselves wrote passages in a book (link provided). Various strategies and outlooks given which really helped me reshape the way I feel about myself.