My name is Ariane. I do foreign relations and diplomatic work in East Africa. I have been stuttering since the age of 4. I used to stutter up to 70% of my words, mostly repetitions, including with my family. I have had some therapy sessions with a speech therapist back in 2008 which did not help me to stop stuttering EXCEPT when reading.
My work requires public speaking and providing training, and I have sometimes failed to communicate properly in such situations and the more I stuttered, the more I stuttered. My whole life I have been limiting social gatherings to avoid speaking. I developed social anxiety, imposter syndrome and perfectionism, which did increase my stuttering.
Since 2012 I began to read books on stuttering from various authors, including Lee Lovett’s, as translated in French by my dear friend Richard Parent. From 2019, I have been having regular sessions with Richard using Lee’ s and WSSA’s methods and it helped me to reduce my stuttering down to 30%. I also joined many toastmaster clubs to force myself to do more public speaking exercises. Good results appeared in different situations. I was able to have phone conversations, give speeches etc. However, I continued to appear speech disabled especially with authority figures and my family.
In late 2023, I was lucky to join World Stop Stuttering Association and I began coaching sessions with Lee Lovett on his methods and despite the challenging moments I was going through my stuttering began to reduce quickly. I had only two bad blocking moments in 1 month. Since then, I have not had a bad incident (appearing speech disabled) for some time; also, I no longer think, plan and fear words; and I don’t think negatively about my speech at all now. Coach Lee says that I have reached 1st and 2nd base (no bad incidents in a month and not planning and fearing words anymore). We are now working on learning to love to speak (his 3rd base).
Each day, I am more able to present my ideas as I want in various situations. Richard and Lee’s coaching have been instrumental to help me not appear speech disabled. I am grateful to Lee and Richard for the tremendous impact they had on my life. I have also benefited from World Stop Stuttering Association’s website, its many coaching videos, SAM Meetings and being part of the world’s only community of people who have stopped stuttering. I plan to stay with this program, as I believe that I can learn to love to speak everywhere in time. I love that WSSA has a support community of ex-stutterers who help PWS stop their stuttering. As best I know, it’s the only community in the world of ex-stutterers. That kind of says it all about this program.
Ariane, East Africa, February 2024