Today I went out with my close friend after a while and coz I’m super comfortable with her I don’t stutter around her that much. But while giving my order today I had a very bad stutter to the point where I kinda blanked out. She didn’t say anything of it and just continued the convo like usual. But I feel so lesser than myself and annoyed. Idk but I feel like this is a loose for me.

Here's a tip that's really helped me manage my stutter, especially when it comes to speaking at public events in my career field.

See, even though I've had a severe stutter my whole life, I've gradually learned to rise above it and not let it hold me back.

Gone on the days crying myself to bed and locking up myself in my room for entire weekends afraid to socialize and pick up the phone.

One thing that's made a big difference for me is warming up my vocal cords before speaking. It might sound simple, but trust me, it works. I like to take a few deep breaths into my diaphragm or belly, really filling up my lungs, and then I blow into a straw submerged in a cup of water a few times.

This helps to warm up my vocal cords and get them ready for action.I know that sometimes it's not just the stutter we're insecure about – it's our voice, our names, and so much more. But taking the time to warm up our vocal cords each day before speaking can really make a difference.

It might not be a miracle cure, but it's a valuable tip that I've found really helpful, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Hope it helps someone out there as much as it's helped me.

-the internet guy

TL;DR: Take a few minutes each day to warm up your vocal cords by breathing deeply into your diaphragm and blowing into a straw submerged in water. It may not be a miracle cure, but it's a valuable tool for managing stuttering and boosting confidence in speaking situations.

Hey everyone!

I’m a UX researcher at a website redesign company. I have been a covert stutter my entire life. I am a former athlete with psychology bachelors and masters degrees.

I just want to let you know that stuttering fucking blows. There have been so many times where I go home and wonder why God made me this way. Until today.

I’ve been working at this company for 1.5 years. I’ve had a total of 6 presentations. The first one? Fucking brutal. Constant blocks. Especially on vowels, (especially E’s).

I gave my 6th presentation this morning (2nd this week) and leading up to it I had no anxiety symptoms. No sweating, no nightmares, no shaking, no lump in the throat. That’s when it clicked to me.

I still stutter periodically. It hasn’t gone away. But the amount of time and energy I spend caring about it has vanished. I’m just not in a place where I give fuck a what people think anymore. 75 percent of my stuttering came from anxiety I feel like. You have to have this mentality of not giving a fuck. It’s contagious. Most of us are extremely intelligent and quick witted. We have so much we want to say that it builds up and observe the world differently.. because we have to. We see the nuances in anything and everything.

Don’t let the world dictate who you are because of how you speak. Treat your disability like how people treat obesity. Sure it catches one’s attention - but then you move on and don’t give it that much weight right? (Pun intended)

I didn’t think I would be here. I still struggle sometimes. But don’t let yourself become the victim in your own story. Fight for fluency everyday. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose - but just know that you’ll be back for the fight same time again tomorrow.

Love you all!

i know you'll find yourself in me. i have psychogenic stuttering, caused by some supressed traumas.

every time I think about a sentence, I notice a word i'll probably stutter on, and I actually do.

every time I know I'm being heard, I have a block. even though i love having conversations.

i try to relax my throat and tongue muscles, but it never works.

i say something with a terrible stutter, but after that, i can say the same sentence fluently.

i slow my speech down but it only makes it impossible to speak, it takes my oxygen.

but you're loved no matter what. i've openly talked about my problem with my friends, and they made me feel so valid, and told me that i'm not wrong as a human, told me i can train by reading out loud to them, told me i'm not being ignored. i feared i'd never express my whole personality, because i can't help but go mute sometimes.

i'm 17 years old. it's been so, so hard. but it's gonna get better with the tiniest moves you make 🫶

Any people in the Netherlands that would like to meet up, and talk about and share our stories/experiences when it comes to stuttering. I would love to meet fellow stutterers who might be going through the same sh*t as me

Hi!

Imagine I stutter and start doing some exercises on January 1st, 2024.

After a couple of months I want to find out whether these exercises work, i. e. whether or not my speech got better (whether or not I stutter less).

Does anybody know techniques for estimating this more or less objectively (scientifically)?

The problem is that most stutterers can speak fluently under certain conditions.

This means that

1. if on December 31st, 2023, I stuttered more than
2. on May 1st, 2024,
3. it does not necessarily follow that I spoke better in May due to exercises.

There could be other reasons for me speaking better. For example, I usually speak better when I have to repeal verbal attacks.

Thanks in advance

Hello. First time to post publicly about my stuttering. Had this issue since I was a child and was only recently diagnosed. I'll be having my interview tomorrow for my law school application via Zoom and I'm not sure if I'll disclose my stuttering to them. Words get blocked and I am unable to say specific words and or sentences. I honestly do not know what to do, all I know is that despite this issue of mine, I want to become a lawyer. I know I'll prolly be given respect and consideration but I also know that it can affect my law school application. I've also tried many things to keep it on a low when meeting new people or when on Zoom but it still persist. Some say that I just need to accept it, while others say that one shouldn't be pessimist about it but proactive in an individuals capacity to change. I'm a graduate of psychology btw, so I know a little bit about the limits of our brains. Been also reading some posts here and all I can say is thank you to everyone, I appreciate you all.

It’s 2024 and still no cure. We have reusable rockets that can land themselves. Why so little research into find a cure for stuttering?

So back in November 2022 whenever I was on my entrepreneurial journey, I was trying literally everything (dropshipping, amazon, forex, everything under the sun) Then one day I was in a discord call and this successful guy had recommended to everyone that we start a Christmas lights business. So then that sparked an idea in my head and i was “yoo that actually sounds like a good idea” and at time i was still working at the local grocery store and i was making like $8/ hour.

Couple days went by and then I saw this video of other successful guy I would watch (alex hormozi) and he mentioned about how your hour should be worth more than than it is now. Then that made me think to myself “is my hour truly worth $8/hour? And i was like “hell nah” so a couple more days went by and I decided I was gonna quit my job and go all in on this Christmas light bizz. So long story short, I told my dad about my idea and he shot it down IMMEDIATELY but you see I could’ve let that get it but I DIDNT because I truly believed in myself no matter the outcome.

Then the next day I decided not to go in, and go knock on doors and it was a beautiful friday. So that day i knocked on at least 100 houses and only handed out 5 business cards which was my goal for that day. That day forever changed my life because it truly showed we all have this desire to become successful within us, and how our minds knowns no limits.

Now i’ll tie this all into how it impacted my speaking because like imagine how scary it is knocking on someone’s door, now imagine 100, you introducing yourself, talking to them, being forced outside your comfort zone… THAT CHANGES ANYBODY. You either have 2 options, either let the failure get to you, or allow it to be your teacher. That moment alone single handedly improved my stutter 80% and after I was “yo talking in general is so easy!” So the moral of the story is IF THERE’s ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO, DONT LET A MEASLY STUTTER HOLD U BACK BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD, the voice in your head doesn’t stutter and thats the authentic you. YOU GOT THIS, I BELIEVE IN YOU 🫶🏽

If we are to understand stuttering then I think that we should make an effort to connect secondary behaviors with primary behaviors.

The frontal eye field is a region of the frontal lobe associated with eye movement. Unlike other motor functions which are mostly delegated to the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex, the frontal eye field has a specific delegated brain region most likely because eye movement requires incredible precision.

Given that the frontal and supplementary eye fields are located in the same lobe as the Broca's area, a region of the brain associated with motor speech production, and stutterers often report that stuttering results in abnormal eye movements, is it a stretch to say that stuttering may be briefly interfering with the proper functioning of the frontal and supplementary eye fields, causing abnormal eye movements (diverted gaze that feels more like a tic as opposed to a voluntary action, forced upward gaze, etc)?

Secondary behaviors probably do overlap with behaviors caused by anxiety, but I also think that some secondary behaviors (such as a forced lateral gaze while speaking) are simply to bizarre to explain away with anxiety.

Considering that virtually no stutterers report any unusual noises and smells in the process of intense stuttering, it's likely that the negative impact of stuttering is confined to the frontal lobe. That could explain why specialized motor skills that reside solely within the frontal lobe (speech, eye movement) are negatively impacted but everything functions just fine.

Just a theory. If true, then stuttering may be an issue with how the specialized regions of the frontal lobe have organized themselves. I also find it interesting that stutterers have no intelligence defects despite the fact that stuttering is an issue confined to the frontal lobe. Thoughts?

cuz wat u want to say is important

As the title mentions, what do you think are reasons why speech therapists stand behind the hypothesis that structural neurological brain differences cause stuttering, in your opinion?

I started to be so disappointed because of my stutter, i felt that I wasn't like that, but for a long time i thought about that a lot, and this is so difficult, Now i feel that the stutter is stopping me in life, That was a long road until now, and I really tried my best.

I have amazing friends, and i have so many peoples that love me, and everyone has patience with me, i went out to so many dates and had real experiences with amazing girls; i worked as a salesman; I was on the military; I traveled; and now i am pursuing a bachelor's degree.

But i feel that i cant keep going on, i dont have any power left!to go out again and try to speak, to be desprred that i cant speak normally, i don't speak with any girls or go out to dates just beacuse the stutter, i dont want to feel that perssure on myself again and to try to speak the best i can, i just cant handle it again.

I don't understand why i feel like that; i did it all! even when I met my ex, we tried again and she told me that I thought that after we broke up, you went to girls beacuse this is you All the girls want to be with you, but i dont feel like that at all. i left heartbroken again but that is a story for another day

Everyone loves me and appreciates it, but why can't I love myself and appreciate myself? I want to get out of that kind of desperation that makes it so hard to stutter.

TL;DR: I'm trying my best even when I stutter, but I got to the point where I didn't have any power to try my best; I just want to rest from that stutter.

Truth be told here I don't know all too much about how stuttering and all that actually even works, despite having the problem my entire life. I suppose it's mostly comparatively minor which may be why I never looked much into it. But there are very specific words or positioning (if that makes any sense) of the word that screws me.

For example, if I START a sentence by saying "I....", or say it after a brief pause in a sentence, I almost am guaranteed to stutter "I" about over half a dozen times, just about every single time. It's very consistent and I have no idea why, because some words are fine, and some, like this, I trip myself up over constantly. So what I'm mostly curious about here is, is there any like, actual reasoning behind specific words or placement of certain words causing a stutter? Or is it mostly just random and/or conditioned from it happening frequently over a long period of time?

I have been a stammerer for the past decade. My root cause is my anxiety. I have been trying many techniques that actually work(not the prolongation). It worked a lot before a year or couple but now I have been preparing for my exams and I'm unable to do them and I'm unable to converse more with people as I spend most of my time alone studying. I feel down that I am stammering a lot these days. I know that it can be overcome but I just feel nothing is working as of now. One should believe in the techniques which are being used, as of now I just believe nothing is working out. Maybe, I have to start them once the exams are done.

Any tips to overcome anxiety? I speak so comfortably when I am alone( I know that happens with most of us), I don't have the fear of speaking with anyone, I just feel very anxious and my mouth gets blocked while I speak.

I have 3 kids, only my youngest stutters. It started as soon as he started talking but comes and goes (but kinda stays but very discretely). When he was younger, we were on waiting lists for treatment but it always got better by the time it was his turn. He’s 6 1/2 and it suddenly seems to have returned intensely. My dad and aunt have stuttered all their lives. I can’t find much about that specific info past the age of 5. Is this genetic? Could it last until adulthood?

Being unemployed is difficult but being unemployed and having a stammer is extremely difficult since your worrying about two things now. If a company does get back to you, you have a high chance of messing up the opportunity because of your stammer and going into a whole spiral again.

For a long time, I used to try and hide my stutter by swapping words or changing how I said things on the spot. It was like this reflex, you know?

But eventually, I realized that by doing that, I wasn't being true to myself. I was trying to cover up a part of who I am. I substituted words as I was so scared to stutter but my speech lacked truth and authenticity.

If I messed up, I would hide in my bedroom all day and replay the "stutter mess-up" in my mind and be afraid to talk for days.

So, I made a decision to try my best to push through with words i wanted to say and not substiute threm to prevent stuttering.

Tbh it wasn't easy at first. There were moment when I felt frustrated and insecure, but gradually, I started to feel more authentic.

I realized that my stutter doesn't define me – it's just one part of who I am.

Now, I stutter with confidence. I embrace it as a unique aspect of myself. And you know what? It's empowering.

So, to anyone out there who's struggling with stuttering, I want you to know that it's okay. You don't have to hide who you are or try to change yourself to fit in.

Let's embrace our stutters, own them, and show the world the authentic, badass individuals that we are.

Much love. Truth in that.

• the internet guy

TL;DR: no need hiding your stutter and substituting words to avoid the stutter and cause a guilt cycle. Sart embracing it as a part of who you are. It's liberating to stutter with confidence and authenticity. Really.

Hi everyone. First time post here been following this thread for a while now and it has helped me. I would say I have a mild stutter now after years of working on it and speech therapy but I continue to stutter on my name when introducing myself. My name starts with a B. I even tend to stutter when saying “I’m B#####” or “my names B###”

I would love to be able to introduce myself to people without depending on other people to introduce me, thinking I’m going to stutter so I don’t introduce myself at all, or me being so nervous that I’m going to stutter that my name comes out hard to understand because I repeat the BBB sound or it sounds like I’m blurting out my name.

I want to see if anybody has a similar experience or has any ways they became confident introducing themselves.

I’m applying to some markets these days and i was curios to know for yall

I’m 24F and I grew up with a SEVERE stutter. It was present from the time I started speaking and was exacerbated by trauma in early childhood, made worse by bullying in school because of the stutter. I was pretty much selectively mute in primary school because of the misery it caused me. I tried multiple speech therapists, attempted to get into clinical trials and even tried hypnotherapy but nothing worked.

Then, by some miracle, I had a spontaneous “recovery”? It seemed like my fluency improved almost overnight (realistically probably over a few months) around the age of 18/19. I still stutter but very mildly, when I’m passionate and engaged in long, explanatory conversations. However, no one would expect that I had a speech impediment unless I disclose it.

About 3/4 weeks ago, I started to notice I was getting stuck a lot more. It started with an/en/in/on/un prefixes and words that start with N and got progressively worse. Last Wednesday I was participating in a discussion at university and struggled more than I have in YEARS. I was absolutely mortified and spent the whole 2 hour lecture spiralling, thinking I was relapsing. I had a breakdown. I got home and I cried so hard I was gasping for air while talking to my mom.

I booked to see my therapist the next day because I was so scared and BOOM! My speech was fluent again, probably more so than my baseline fluency? Even while crying the whole time?

Tracing it back, I was experiencing severe PMS (not really cramping/physical pain etc., but emotionally things were INTENSE). Now that a new cycle hast started, I’m back to my new normal? This was wild to me as for the past 5 years, I’ve never experienced anything like this. I was diagnosed with PCOS (+ a subsequent progesterone imbalance) in 2020 and with ADHD last year which has changed everything (positively) for me. But once again, this is completely new?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Or read any literature that explores this? I’m in health research so I have a few university subscriptions to research databases but the very few articles and studies that focus on hormones (outside of exploring why stuttering is more prevalent among men) are behind paywalls and I don’t have the cash to subscribe to a journal/database for one or two articles.

Any info, including anecdotal, will be greatly appreciated!

Dont mind the gta reference 😂😂 we getting there tho

Personally I wanted to come on here to share how I managed to improve my stutter and see it as a strength rather than a hindrance. Little back story on me I’m currently 19 and I’m an online content creator and as long as I can remember I got my stutter whenever I was 8 and had it since then. I can go more in detail on this if yall want, but here’s some things that helped me improve it to a point where I can speak without barely stuttering at all.

1. Talking to strangers - When i was 17 and I just graduated high school I had to get a job since I decided not to go to school and pursue my dreams and at the time my stutter was the worst it’s ever been, I couldn’t pronounce my name, say 1 or more words without stutter it was terrible. So i ended up working at a local grocery store primarily to work on my speaking and it’s helped me go much get outside my comfort zone. At first it was so painful and one day I even cried in front of people and felt so miserable but I kept pushing and it payed off huge dividends

2. Reading self help books - One book thats forever changed my life is think and grow rich, there was this one story in that book on how the author’s son was born a deaf mute and how he didn’t want him to get any special treatment and wanted him to live a normal life, so he kept putting faith and belief in his son and after some years his son was finally able to speak and hear like a normal person and that story alone has helped me so much believe that I can also speak with no limitations and its helped me so much, along with SO MANY other gems that book has, A MUST READ.

3. Journaling - At first it was very painful coming home and writing down how my days went, but journaling gave me hope that I can speak normally and there’s no limitations in my mind. Also little side note, my stutter has helped me grow so much to where I have no regrets of having it because it’s pushed me to where I am today so I am very grateful for it and if you are reading this and you are where when I started just know that what you see as a flaw is your greatest strength

I had the random idea of just telling my story on here, so if you want me to go more in detail or have any questions then let me know, not being able to express yourself through speaking is one of the worst feelings ever. Have a wonderful rest of your day everyone :)

It has not gotten any better since my last post. I've tried to implement strategies given to me into my daily life but I can't think like that, especially while using the physical energy and breath stuttering. My mom signed my up for the school speech therapist but I won't be evaluated for treatment until next school year as this school year is nearing an end. Bull in my opinion.

​

Just wanted to have a micro-rant here. Not a post that needs any feedback, just wanted to get this out. Thanks to all for being supportive on my last post.

I'm going to vent about something that happened like 2 hours ago.

So, today I had to do a presentation (it's like 80% of this class grade), it was in groups, so before presenting I told them that I didn't manage well speaking in public and they were like oh ok, no problem!
And before my teacher entered the room I told her the same thing and she was like oh okay. Mind you, this teacher is kind of um... mean spirited and old fashioned.
When it was my first time to speak it went decent, then another one started to speak but as soon as my second time to present came I had to substitute a lot of words so I would continue to speak fluently, by doing this, even though my point came across, made the "techincal quality" of the info I was giving to go down, this was when my teacher stopped me and started to tell me in front of the whole class that "Yeah, yeah, you told that you have a hard time speaking in public, but I was like that too and look! I'm a university teacher now! the way you are speaking makes me feel like I don't have an education because you're not using technical terms" and she went on like that for like 10 minutes, but basically she told us to continue tomorrow but I had to say everything in the correct words. I told her that I could continue now but just said no. The cherry on top is that she was already mad because the first person from my group who spoke read almost everything, so she thought I didn't know my topics.
My team was obviously mad at me, I had to open up about my stutter, but as usual they didn't understand because it's something that is not as common, one just said "oh, grow up, you're in your 20s and can't speak?" or "well, just stutter! or does that create a conflict with yourself?"
I wanted to speak with my teacher in her cubicle but she was not there, emailed her so I could disclose my stutter with her in person, but she didn't answer so I went with my school tutor, I explained everything, had to obviously tell her about my stutter, and tell her that this extra day to "get a grasp and prepare better" wouldn't do anything lmao, that it's something I just can' control, she understood, and told me she was going to email my teacher and well, know I'm here ranting and feeling humilliated and down, with ZERO desire to return tomorrow and look everyone in my class after this.

ps. english is not my first language, so don't mind any grammar errors.

The thing about stuttering is that not a lot of people have this condition. And I’m in my mid-20s now and I still have never had a boyfriend before. And I’m really scared about making friends because I’m worried that it all stutter and then they’ll get really annoyed or like roll their eyes at me or something. Even my older brother does this.