postr/StutterMay 19, 2020

English teacher here, I stutter and have a class today, I'm so nervous.

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Content

English teacher here, I stutter and have a class today, I'm so nervous. Hey everybody, I would love to share my lil story with you because I'm regularly reading everything here and I value and support each one of you. You help me more than you think and today I feel worse than ever. I am 23 y.o. and English teacher by profession. I tutor English kids and adults at my home and so far I was successful in terms of explaining and practically hiding my stutter in front of my students. But recently I met a woman (34) and now I am her English teacher. She's very nice and for some reason I was more nervous than ever in front of her so it was very hard for me to conduct a lesson. I was just thinking of my stuttering. I think she realized that I'm having some speech problems, especially since the last time when she asked me to pronounce 'mountain' and I couldn't. I felt so ashamed, sad, I wanted to bite my tongue (I wanted to do that numerous times so far and I hope someone gets that awful feeling when you know something or everything perfectly but you.just.can'[t.say.it](https://t.say.it). arghh). She didn't say anything but stared at me and I think she understood what's going on. Luckily, that happened right when the class was ending but after she left I was devastated and ashamed of everything. I'm questioning whether this is the right profession for me, I am thinking of quitting.. but still I want to fight it. We are supposed to have a class today (in 5 hours) and I can't stop thinking about it. I prepared everything, all the words I am sure I can pronounce properly but still I am scared to death that she will ask me something randomly. For some reason, I can even say it for the first time but if she doesn't hear me or doesn't get it at first then she asks me to repeat what I said and then I just block. Repetition is the worst in my case. Does anyone have similar or the same experience with it? I have one more year of master studies and I am super anxious about everything but I haven't always been like that. I'm happy to share more of my story anytime but now I'm sweating and (over)thinking everything and can't focus on the whole story. I really hope today will be different. Thank you for reading this if anything and I send everyone endless amount of love and support! ​ edit: My class just finished and it went way better than last time!! I'm so happy about it, you guys helped me so much and now I regret not posting here before!! I still stuttered a bit, but I was more happy and relaxed and tried my best to forget that I stutter and just focused on what I'm about to teach. Thank you once again!! Would love to talk to all of you, seriously!

Themes

Anticipation & AvoidanceEmotional ExperienceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Avoidance & SubstitutionOverthinking & MonitoringShame & EmbarrassmentAnxiety & Social JudgmentAuthenticity vs. Masking

Codes (1)

socializing_one_on_one