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Frustrations and Worries (I’m sorry this is so long I just needed a place to get this all out) I’m a freshman at college right now, and I’m going through a bit of a transformative period of my life. I’ve stuttered throughout my whole life. During some periods I’ve experienced really good fluency (to the point where you couldn’t tell I stuttered), while during others my fluency was so bad that I would just refuse to speak in public or to strangers for weeks on end. I got hit with a particularly bad period of fluency in the beginning of eighth grade that I think has had a really really negative impact on my life. I think that period came about because I started to become more self aware and lost a lot of confidence, which the increased stutter worsened even more in a sort of compounding effect. I got so traumatized by this period that it’s pretty much stuck with me since. It’s like I’ve been experiencing continuous depression (albeit not serious depression) since then. This period really caused me to close myself off, so I’ve made no new friends since then (thank god I’m still really close with my friends from middle school), and have never had any romantic experiences with girls. I’ve really been trying to figure out how I can start making friends and dating, but I’ve been finding it so difficult considering that I haven’t had much experience with either before, and the fear of stuttering in front of people takes such a hold on me. I just don’t know how to navigate through this part of life. On top of this, I’m starting to think about careers and trying to find jobs/internships, which (especially in the field I want to go into) requires a lot of “networking”. I go to a great university, have great grades, etc., but even with all this going for me I can’t help but feel defeated and scared due to my stutter. The worst part to me is that, even if I conquer my fear of stuttering and just go for all this stuff, a lot of people will just naturally judge me for it and not treat me like a normal person. I find that even the most well meaning people are often incapable of treating me normally when I stutter (oftentimes as a result of their “well meaning-ness”) and it really adds to that sense of defeat. I believe that one cannot truly live life without making meaningful connections with numerous people over time, whether romantically or amicably, so I want to get out there and start living, but I really don’t know how. Would anyone mind offering me any words of advice, stories about their life, recommendations, etc. ? Thanks