Hello! My name is Dean, and I’ve been stuttering for a bit more than 3 decades, since I was 10 years old. As soon as I started stuttering, my family took me to a speech therapist. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, I still stuttered. Since then, I’ve never went to speech therapy again, until now. I was going through a hard time. I wasn’t happy with how things were going.
Despite my stutter, I managed to study what I wanted, and work in that field. I got a PhD in Physical Therapy, and I work as a physical therapist. It’s a field I am very passionate about. But stuttering wasn’t making things easy for me. My work was more than a hundred miles away from home. Imagine driving that much every day, twice. The number of hours I wasted in my car is incredible… Of course, I was looking for another place to work, closer to home, but due to my stutter, most of my job interviews ended up being a failure. Meeting new people wasn’t much easier either. This entire situation was making me lose all hope and fall into a downward spiral, closer and closer to being completely depressed.
Then, at the beginning of 2021, on Facebook I found an add about a Speech Anxiety Cures and a person named Lee Lovett who stopped stuttering himself and who is now helping others achieve fluency. So I decided to give it a try. What could I lose, right? And how much could I win?
So, before signing up I had a quick call with one of the coaches of this program, Javier, an ex-stutterer from Spain. Like me, he had a severe stutter that consisted mainly on blocks. He explained to me the entire program and gave me the hope I was looking for. I signed up a couple of days later, and we began to speak once a month or so.
Speaking to someone who has gone through the same struggles as I did, who understands me, and who gives me solutions is priceless. Of course, you have to put in all the work. But the results were there. After a few weeks my speech began to improve. But I still had problems in high-pressured situations, like job interviews. I told Javier about this, and we even drilled these interviews. He even brought other coaches to my sessions, to “add some extra pressure on me”!
After some sessions, I mastered the entire program, but I still struggled to put into practice outside my house. On August we had a session and discussed this problem and about speech anxiety. Once I applied his suggestions, things improved even more. After a few weeks I was no longer appearing speech disabled with clients, friends, strangers, etc.
Finally, on October 2021 I became a PWSS. I hadn’t appeared speech disabled in at least a month. Instead of stuttering, I would stop talking, take a 2-count and use a Crutch to say what I wanted to say. At the same time as I became a PWSS, I managed to get a job at a clinic 15 minutes away from home. Speaking to people, making friends and dating became so much easier, even something joyful!
This program has helped me achieve what I thought it was impossible, what the rest of the world considers impossible: to stop stuttering. I did it. You can do it too.
At the end of 2021 I had a minor relapse, and this made me be reluctant to post this Success Story. I didn’t feel as a PWSS no more. So I told Javier about this. He told me that some PWSS can relapse if they don’t continue working on their speech. Being a PWSS means that we no longer appear speech disabled, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t feel nervous when speaking, or feel speech anxiety. So, if we stop working on our speech before we defeat speech anxiety and we learn to love to speak in all situations, we may relapse. And that’s what happened to me. But now I that I have overcome that relapse, and I have realised that I have been able to avoid appearing speech disabled for a month, I can do it for a lifetime.
My next goal is to get rid of the residual fears and speech anxiety and learn to enjoy speaking, no matter where or to whom.
My advice to you is to follow your instincts. You don’t stutter in some situations, such as when you’re alone. If you’re fluent there, it means the problem is 100% psychologic. There is nothing wrong with your brain, your respiratory system, or anything of that sort. It’s all in your brain. And you can fix it. I’m sure you’ve heard of famous actors, singers and celebrities having stopped stuttering. They are no different from you. They have done it, and you can do it too.
Seek the help of someone who has stopped stuttering. Go to SAC and let them help you. They have an extraordinary community of EX-stutterers, and a bunch of them meet every Saturday, online, and members of SAC are invited. They also organise practice sessions almost every day. Learn from them, help others. It has changed my life. It can change yours too.
DEAN – Wisconsin, USA – October 2021, posted Jan. 2022