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Letting everything out I just came across this sub and wanted to let everything I have about my stutter because I feel like you all will understand. I am fifteen years old and have had a stutter for most of my life that I remember. In earlier stages of my life (elementary school) I don't clearly remember having as much as a stutter as I do now, but my mom said that it first showed when I was a toddler mumbling around. I did go to speech class in 2nd and 3rd grade because I couldn't pronounce my Rs, and after that is when I think it started to show up more often. I started to become really self conscious about it as kids started to point it out more in school. I was always trying to avoid presentations and reading out loud in class, and was able to find excuses to get out of them, like having my partner present, or going to the bathroom. In 7th grade I even stayed home sick the day of a huge presentation in front of the whole grade so I could do it online instead. One thing I especially hate is icebreakers on the first day of school when you have to say your name and other stuff about you because I ALWAYS stutter on my name and I hate it. There has been some instances in my life where my stutter has hindered me, like in 4th grade, the whole city had spelling bee and I was able to win the whole thing but I was panicking the entire time and my stress levels were through the roof in FOURTH GRADE because I was so afraid of stuttering in front of the whole audience. My parents have always tried to be helpful with my stuttering, but sometimes they try to hard to fix it. They always try to give me tips on stuttering, and I know they are only trying to be helpful, but I hate it when people try to fix my stutter. Like they don't know what it is like to have a stutter and it is not that simple to fix. My dad sometimes even seems to get angry when I stutter and always says "Slow down" in an angry voice like that's supposed to help. Other people have mostly been supportive of my stutter but people still make fun of it. Always the small quips that hurt like mocking it or saying "that would've been funny if you didn't stutter" when I say a joke. Even in arguments with friends they bring it up just to make me angry. Like one time me and my friend were arguing about something random like we always do and he was getting pretty heated for some reason, and said "remember when you stuttered while presenting in (insert teacher)'s class?" He took it to far and it didn't even have anything to do with the argument. I didn't say anything after that but thankfully my other friend jumped in and stood up for me flaming my friend about stooping that low about something I can't control. I thanked him for that later. I feel like I have reached a more advanced vocabulary through this stutter too, as I had to learn to avoid certain words that I knew I would stutter on in conversations. I have even developed tactics like holding out the first letter of the word I am about to stutter on to make it come out easier (which I recently learned is called gliding from reading through this sub reddit). I have had some people suggest speech therapy to me but I think that is out of the question because I am afraid of how people might think of me and my parents were always more of a "suck it up" type and believing that therapy is useless. It would also be too expensive for my family to pay for right now as we don't really have much leftover cash to be spent on "pointless" things like that. This brings us on to present day where two weeks ago my highschool had a science fair where we spent the whole school year working and expirementing on a topic - mine was Absorbing CO2 Using Moss, where I collected 5 Moss types and out them in a jar with a CO2 monitor to measure the decreases - and we had to present to judges four times. I was not really looking forward to that part especially introducing myself as I can't say my name, but in the end it went pretty smoothly. I stutter in most places, but they weren't that bad. Well my project moved on to regionals meaning I have to present my project again to more judges. I feel like I will stutter again but we will just have to find out. If you have any tips on what to do there, please leave a comment. Thank you for reading my rant, it feels good to get it all out.