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My stutter is a bit different… Long post, but I’m wondering if anyone can relate.. I can’t really remember how it was when I was a toddler, but it was definitely noticeable. My school friends remember me as the quiet kid rather than the kid who stuttered. ( well, we actually said stammer in England, I guess it means the same thing) Anyway, around age ten my mum got me enrolled in a weeks group speech therapy, did activities and exercises with other kids etc. I A, learned some exercises. And B, realised my stutter was not half as bad as others. Some kids had it really bad. This was a great benefit to me and my speech impediment often goes unnoticed. But for me I don’t really stutter as in ‘ h h h h hello’, it’s more like.. the word just won’t come out at all! And I know before I say it, just ‘ …………….HELLO’ So my way of managing this has been either, just shutting up. Saying something else. Or putting something else in front of it. It is mostly the first word of the sentence I struggle with. If I am on a meeting or on a course, I struggle to answer if an open question is asked to the group, whereas if I’m asked directly, no problem. Usually words beginning with vowels are worse. When I did my army training for some reason I struggled with the radio a lot, probably because it’s a very unnatural way of communicating. So yeah I was just wondering if anyone had a similar experience, I called it ‘blocking’, and it sucks but I am lucky. Even some of my oldest friends are adamant I don’t have a problem, but it is because I don’t show it.