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My stuttering story and pieces of advice It was an ordinary day as I looked up online how to overcome stuttering once again, and I found these stories from people in reddit. Just created my account and wanted to share my story. I can’t really remember when I started stuttering exactly, but I already had the problem in primary school. I would be terrified of reading out loud in front of the class and just speaking in general. However, I noticed that when I’d read I could sort of catch a rhythm and not stutter, which would absolutely never happened when I had normal conversations. It wasn’t just stuttering, I feel like my social anxiety and the overall fear of speaking starting developing in primary school. It was still bearable while I was a child, but later my awkwardness really came to the surface. Though, I couldn’t say that I embarrass myself all the time. There were just a few times when I stuttered badly in front of a crowd, for example, when in 3rd grade I had to give a speech about one famous person from my city. I took the microphone and started with vy-vy-vy-vy…. I swear to god, I repeated it like 10 times, but then sort of broke through and was smooth the whole speech. So yeah, this is how my stuttering really is: I can catch a rhythm and be fluent when giving various presentations/reading out loud, but spontaneous conversations is my Achilles heel. Now I know that to whoever reads this, this part will probably not be interesting, but I’d like to talk about how I think I developed a stutter. I’ve literally read every single article, forum post, youtube video there is about stuttering (not even exaggerating) and I think from all the information I received I could easily write a book. From what I know, it could’ve developed because of this: my parents would fight all the time when I was younger and I grew up watching my mom fall into tears almost every day. I kind of wanted to defend her and I think because of this I developed a really close relationship with her. Till I was 6 years old, I would go to kindergarten, and every morning leaving my mom and going to a place full of “strangers” was a disaster to me, so I cried every time. Not even lying. When I was around 6 years old, the crying stopped, as I kind of “matured” as a child and realized crying every time when mom isn’t near isn’t okay. My parents still fight quite often till this day, for stupid adult reasons mostly, but now, I try to defend both my dad and mom, since I don’t want to separate them at all. Now that I’m 17, I realize how much of a traumatic experience this was and I think it caused my stutter… Furthermore, ever since primary school, I felt separated from my pears, felt different and that I didn’t belong with them, since everyone was talking all the time, and I would just listen and keep my mouth shut. In fact, you can easily get rid of stuttering while you’re still a child, but how could I do that, if I didn’t speak at all? My parents also didn’t realize I barely say a word outside home, people always said that I’m a shy, quiet kid. Yes, you might think this isn’t true, but people don’t know I stutter. Well, hopefully, they don’t. Because I talk so little, they don’t really get a chance to know what my real speech is. From everything I read about “How to overcome stuttering” I know that it’s important to tell people you stutter, because that will sort of unlock you and reduce stress, since you won’t have to think “I hope they don’t figure out I’m stuttering”. I also want to talk about how I’m working to overcome stuttering. I don’t get to practice daily, I only do that when my I’m alone, but still, sometimes laziness takes over and I forget to practice at all, which isn’t good. I lost hope long time ago that one day I’ll wake up perfectly fluent, and I recommend you to do the same. My practice typically involves reading out loud and then practicing conversations on various topics. After that, I need to sort of test my progress, so I usually turn on omegle and talk random things to random people. I want to leave links to a series of videos, which probably helped the most. Please check it out if you haven’t, the “doctor” there talked about stuttering from a perspective, which I’ve never even considered before. Not a sponsor on something, just my advice. Part 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gjPNBugBVg&list=WL&index=4&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gjPNBugBVg&list=WL&index=4&t=0s) Part 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKH46XwLfwA&list=WL&index=4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKH46XwLfwA&list=WL&index=4) Part 3 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8qUTeHqWpk&list=WL&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8qUTeHqWpk&list=WL&index=5) Finally, where am I now? As I mentioned, I’m 17 and working hard to overcome the issue. Social anxiety is still with me, and sometimes I feel if I overcome it, I’ll get rid of stuttering too. The reason being is most of the time I want to talk and I know what I want to say, but then the anxiety comes in and says “hell nah”. I feel horrible at the end of the day when I don’t get involved in conversations in school as I had planned. Then again, the anxiety comes from the fear to stutter. It’s kind of ridiculous that I can give presentations and be fluent, but not in normal conversations. In order to relief the anxiety, I’m going for a run almost every morning, going to the gym and have tried meditation before. The thing is, you still must be brave and determined during those moments when you have to speak, otherwise, nothing will help. I realize that, but it isn’t easy. I sometimes spend hours planning how to put together words in a sentence and tell a story, sadly, I never tell it. If I stutter, I still sometimes spend hours thinking about it and what could’ve been done differently. Over thinking triggers anxiety and stuttering too, so I recommend not to think about times you stuttered at all. I must say though, I’ve gotten much better within the last 3 years, since I started high school, but obviously, there’s still a long way to go. Thanks for reading. Fun fact, my parents had a fight while I was finishing this text. Apparently, my dad did laundry incorrectly :)