My name is Jiang. I am 26; I am an accountant and live in Taiwan. Chinese is my language, but I wrote this story myself and I asked Lee to edit it as needed to make it readable by English-speakers.
I began stuttering at age 12. I stuttered around half my words. I stuttered worst when speaking to groups but I stuttered around my family a lot too. I had some therapy before I found Lee. Two years ago, I had anxiety treatment, NLP, a kind of hypnosis.
I found Lee in 2018. I could not get on Amazon. Lee then gave me his book. I studied his book. Lee also introduced me to Zhenhua Sun, one of Lee’s Chinese speaking ex-stutterers who lives in Shanghai, and he coached me some. Later, I did many Skypes with Lee. This lasted through 2018 and 2019. It took me about 4 years to understand the Lee method and it took me about three more months to cure.it By middle of 2022, I had not appeared speech disabled in over six months, and I wanted to post my success story. So, I emailed Lee. We Skyped some more, and he agreed to post it. Below, I’ll tell you about how I stopped stuttering.
there are four stages of my journey
1. surprise – that there is any way to stop stuttering
2. frustrated – that I couldn’t understand Lee’s methods
3. understand – finally, I did understand them
4. cure – I stopped appearing speech disabled
During my days in high school, I felt pressured. I felt like i was always worried about things. like how others perceive me. how should I behave properly to make people like me. these thoughts keep bothering me every day. I became a nervous guy when I talk to people. I start to think of the words before I talk to people.
I always think of the PERFECT sentence. iI thought if I can plan what I am going to say beforehand I can say something interesting so people will like me.it sounds crazy to me at this moment. because it is not real. I don’t have to make people like me and I don’t have to plan words.
It is an anxiety disorder and I have to stop it.
For me, the stutter is a mental problem. Now I’ll explain the four phases of my speech journey in more detail.
1. Surprise
It was at the age of 22 that i get Lee’s book.i immersed myself in the sorrow of stutter at that time. I cant look into people’s eye when i talk to people I can’t say a proper sentence when i even talk to my close friend.i was so hopeless because i am blaming the world blaming people blaming my fate.”why it is me to have this F**k stutter?”why i am born to be like this?”
I never thought that maybe i can do something about it. I am always complaining about the world, always begging someone to talk to me.I have a misunderstanding that if everyone can understand my stutter so that i can talk without shame. That was a big NO for me now .that is a HUGE misunderstanding. some so call stutter experts claim that stutter is a genetic problem.so we have to learn to accept ourselves. That is complete nonsense to me. i decide to do something about it rather than just sitting and complaining. When i found out Lee’s book,it surprised me.”who is he?””why does he so understand me”” is it real?” the book <Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures: What 100+ PWS Taught Me: What 1000+ Stutterers Taught Me> gives me all the answers.
The book gives me hope.i learn i can transform my mind i can stop negative thinking. long story to short,i can learn how to speak.
2. Frustrated
It’s easier said than done. I keep stuttering those days. I can control myself not to think the words.i still worry about people. I apply the Lee method. using Crutches and do auto-suggestion. I said to myself” your brain must mess up, there is nothing can do because you just have something wrong in your brain”. When i talk to people i just turn on my autopilot mode i can stop thinking of THE WORDS. I just cant. The more i think of the words the more i stutter.
i don’t want to surrender. this stutter mess up my life. I can’t let this little beast have his way.so I keep trying. I join the debate club and I seize every chance to speak. of course, I still stutter.
I can feel I make little progress every day. sometimes i can talk very fluently I know something is going on in my brain. the brain is plastic. One day I can transform my brain.
Aa the age of 25, I start up a stutter association in Taiwan. I reach out to stutter expert in Taiwan and PWS in Taiwan. every two weeks,we hold a meeting and share our perspect of stutter.i want to know if it is possible to confirm Lee method academically. There are a few techniques that are similar to Lees crutches but the idea behind them is different.
After joining it in the spring, in 2022 Summer I leave Taiwan stutter Association (TSA), i can’t keep putting myself into that place where everyone claims there is nothing we can do to our stutter.no one believes me.
3. Understand
I feel so relaxed when I leave TSA. because i leave the position that labels me as a stutter. I can talk so much better than 3 years ago. when I think of stutter I just feel pain but if I can think of life there is so much hope.
the fact is I am good enough to be a normal person. when I try to speak like a normal person so I can speak like a normal person.it is what Lee define as “stop stuttering”.only I can choose not to stutter.it is my responsibility to have a happy life.” don’t take stutter as your life excuse” I said to myself.
I wrote back and forth to Lee and this helped me understand. I finally understand. it’s just all clear. I can stop stuttering. maybe I still stumble sometimes. but I dontdon’t take myself as a stutter.
STUTTER is a mindset in which you think you cant It is a paradox!!
4. Cre
2022fall I skype Lee again. I explained how I spoke. We Skyped some more and I realized that it was time to post my story. I was no longer appearing to be speech disabled. I still had some fears, but I wasn’t stuttering. Fear is not stuttering. If we don’t stutter, fear dies eventually.
I realized that if others don’t see you as a PWS and no bad incident happened these days,” you are not a stutterer any longer. One important part of curing is to accept the fact that you do not stutter anymore, and that you know ways to avoid it. Your decision not to stutter and to admit to yourself and others that you are no longer a stutterer is part of the CURE. In that way, accepting that I am cured is a decision I make. When I decide not to stutter anymore and know ways to avoid it, I am cured.
5. Conclude
it is just the start of another journey. I have to keep speaking like a king so fear will die eventually and I can love to speak. .
There are so many details you can find in Lee’s latest book. You have to try them and you will know what is suitable for you. and if you need more confidence boost, there are other books. Lee’s “How to Stop Stuttering & Love Speaking” is his best explanation of his methods and his “Stuttering Stories with Happy Endings” has to be one of the most satisfying books to read that was ever written.
Jiang Wei, Taiwan. Summer 2022