commentr/StutterJune 18, 2020

Content

Like u/StutteryG says, from your childhood to maybe 20-21 those are definitely the most difficult and frustrating times, I think that goes for most people who stutter. It will get a lot easier to cope with as you get older, and you'll definitely be fine and find your place in life just like anyone else, as long as you keep on making the choices you want despite your stuttering. However on the other hand it's a bit unrealistic to say that stuttering isn't going to affect anything you want to do, sometimes it will. There will definitely be obstacles, and I wanna say do not expect people to always be compassionate about it, sometimes they won't and you're just going to have to deal with it. But the important thing is don't let that demotivate or scare you, and I think that's what young people who stutter need to learn, but it probably won't help telling you this, I mean it never helped me when anyone told me this when I was younger, you sort of have to learn it for yourselves. And that's what you do as you get older, you learn that there are obstacles for you but that's okay, you sort of develop a shield for them so that you can handle them, rather than avoid them, that's what it means to cope with it. I'm convinced that avoidance is the worst thing you can do. Nobody can tell you how med school is going to turn out for you, not even yourself. You might be afraid of it because you have an idea about, but I would agree you need to stop that, it doesn't help thinking it's gonna be an issue before you even tried it, you're focusing on your stuttering but that's not the most important thing, what's important is what you want to do. You just need to try it and see what happens, that's all you can do. As for speech therapy, I've done a 10 day speech therapy when I was about 21, not exactly successful for me but I think it really depends on who you are. It was a therapy where you basically re-learn how to speak, in a very slow and controlled way. I was positive about it first because it does work, but my problem started later applying it to real life situations, it was really hard for me to apply it everywhere and I also couldn't help but slowly starting to think that I was basically replacing my stuttering with something else, and I didn't really see that as something better. That's not what I initially wanted, but again it really depends on who you are, and also on the therapy cause they're not all the same. For you it might have success, I imagine most therapies will allow you to maybe join them for 1 day as a trial, to see what you think.

Themes

Emotional ExperienceAnticipation & AvoidanceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Hope & MotivationAvoidance & SubstitutionIdentity & Self-Perception