I started stuttering at the age of 4. Due to my struggle with stuttering and all the negative experiences, I always made decisions based on the limiting belief that I could not speak fluently, creating an automatic subconscious message “It’s bad to speak non-fluently, always be on your guard against any speech that is not perfectly fluent, it means you are inadequate and inferior”.
Of course, these core limiting beliefs, ingrained in me for 45 years, were the result of a history of emotionally painful experiences, bullying, teasing, rejections, you name it.
I still have vivid memories of myself at school, seated somewhere in the middle of the class, waiting for my turn to introduce myself. The idea of knowing each other, though exciting for many, was nerve-wracking for me. My heart started racing faster than the fastest sprinter. When my turn came, somehow I managed to stand up, trembling and shaking out of fear. Somehow, I managed to say my name. Because of episodes like this, I had a reputation in school of being somebody nervous, very nervous.
These episodes repeated themselves throughout my childhood. However, I became very skilled at hiding my stutter, by either not talking, talking as little as possible and/or substituting words. My stutter developed into a very covert one, so covert that not even my parents were totally unaware of my stutter until the age of around 22, when I finally decided to disclose it to them.
I started therapy, first my mother took me to a psychiatrist, who advised me to eat pebbles, like Demosthenes. Not liking this solution, I went to a SLP, who asked me to read the following affirmation: “I can speak” for a month, then took me to a classroom at the University of Cadiz. There were about 100 SLP students in the room. They asked me lots of questions, I blocked on every single word. There were people laughing in the classroom, although just a few. This is probably my worst stuttering memory ever.
I then went to a psychologist who introduced me to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I have to say that I noticed some improvement. I also attended some well known stuttering programs. All of this helped me in some situations but I was still far from being stuttering free.
When I came to the UK, thanks to facing situations once and again and trying different tools, my speech got better. Since then, I have lived with a more controlled stutter, it is probably the reason why my career hasn’t taken a massive toll. It took me 5 years of countless rejections to find my first finance job but I have to say, it could have been a lot worse.
In recent times, due to a tennis elbow episode, I learnt about the concept of neuroplastic pain and that was the point when I started to suspect that stuttering follows a similar mind-body pattern. I began to research this hypothesis and lo and behold, I bumped into Lee’s work and methods. The lines in the book resonated so much with me that I read it in no time.
The rest is history, I became totally immersed in WSSA’s program, the 1-2-3 punch and coaching sessions with one of WSSA’s Certified Stuttering Therapists, Sebastian.
He has helped me identify the intricacies of my case and, for the first time, I stopped having “bad incidents”; that is, humiliating myself by being unable to communicate in some situations. Like most fluent speakers, I still make some mistakes. However, having finally stopped humiliating stuttering incidents, Sebastian and I are focusing on challenging my fear, which is quite significant.
As Lee says in his books, “Fear is not stuttering.” He adds that it, as long as there are no more humiliating inability to communicate due to stuttering, fear will die eventually. However, fears of it can still be a problem that plagues your speech, but, if you don’t have humiliating stutteri8ng incidents, fear dies eventually. To expedite the process, one needs to gradually increase talking under pressure while not having a humiliating stuttering incident. Then, the fears of speech slowly die. How long it takes depends on the type, severity and tenure of one’s stuttering.
The key ingredient to my improvement has been pure determination. If Lee recommended two mind training sessions a day, I did (and still do) 4, if Lee recommended 1 hour of daily reading aloud, I multiplied that hour by 3. I got totally immersed in as many speaking activities as realistically possible and slowly but surely my mind started to enjoy the use of the crutches.
It took me quite a few months of rehearsing, trial and error to work out my speech plan, which is a mixture of crutch 4 and short-link-stop.
Danny suggested I could host a practice session in the week, a suggestion that I very happily accepted. Helping others motivates me and it helps my speech as well.
I haven’t had a bad incident since joining WSSA’s program (a first in my life) and I am making noticeable progress towards ending fears of speech and giving myself emotional freedom, freedom from this torturous habit.
One of the affirmations suggested by coach Lee is “I count my blessings”.
Well, my biggest speech blessing for sure is having found WSSA. I am now teaching myself to love to speak in all situations. Only Lee’s book, WSSA’s program and the Neuroscience Method® to Stop Stuttering enabled me to do that.
Juan, UK, March 2025