I’m in my thirties now, and I live in Wyoming. I work for a wild-life related government agency. I was a severe stutterer all my life, until this year. I pulled off a miracle: After three years of working very hard on Lee Lovett’s methods, I stopped stuttering about six months ago. Sharing this story is a very emotional triumph for me. If you see tears and blood all through this story, don’t be surprised. It’s mine. They are tears of joy and the blood is long dried. Here’s how it all happened.
I started appearing speech disabled at age five. That was 29 years ago. I stuttered so much and so badly that everyone who met me had to see it. The only way that you can possibly appreciate the misery of stuttering your way through every conversation for almost 30 years (before I quit stuttering around seven months ago) is to do it and suffer the pain. I stuttered in every way that you could but the worst was the sever blocks when nothing, just nothing came our of mouth except air. Simply put, for all those years, in most conversations, I struggled with most words and most listeners viewed me as speech disabled from my first words. I thought and worried about my speech almost every minute of every hour of every day. It wasn’t life as much a form of misery.
Despite this, I had some friends and was a good student. When you can’t talk without creating a scene of some sort, you spend a lot more time alone than most. I studied. I got a Bachelor’s degree and a Masters in Bio Systems and found a job working for a government agency in Wyoming, largely outdoors dealing with wildlife. I love the outdoors and wildlife. Nature has been my best companion. It still is and I love my work.
Growing up, I had a ton therapies and therapists and even attended a three week clinic, a very intensive program. However, the net benefits, long term, were close to zero. Most therapists are well intentioned but they never stuttered or still do and they just can’t understand the problem enough to help much.
I never thought this day would come, the day that I announced to the world, and most shocking, when I announced to myself, that I have stopped stuttering, BUT that day is here and NOW. I can’t deny it any longer. It’s been around SEVEN MONTHS now since I had my last “bad incident”, as Lee defines it, which is “clearly appearing speech disabled”. I’ll put it differently. I’ll say that, when I talk to strangers now and for the past seven months, they do not see me as speech disabled. How I LOVE being able to say that!
My life is totally different now. I move around the fluent world unnoticed, like people who never stuttered. I long ago stopped thinking about my speech most minutes of every hour. I don’t think about my speech much at all anymore. I’m just another person doing her thing. So what? What is everything. At work, my co-workers can’t believe my fluency, and many have commented positively about it. My friends and family have done much the same. My life is infinitely better. I have even undertaken projects that I could NEVER have done when stuttering.
For example, I wanted to build my own house; I wanted to be my own general contractor and hire the subcontractors and be on the job doing as much of the labor myself as I could. I wanted to apply for the government permits myself and go before the Zoning Board and City Council and explain my project myself and introduce my main contractor and talk about the project. When I was stuttering, I COULD NEVER HAVE DONE ANY OF THESE THINGS, but, in the last seven months, I have done ALL of that and MORE. I can’t put in words how wonderful this has made me feel.
How did this miracle happen? It’s a long story.
In the spring of 2018, I was surfing stuttering sites on Facebook, and I came upon Lee Lovett’s name. He had written a book about beating stuttering. Although he’s written an even much better book about it now, I read “Stuttering & Speech Anxiety 2nd Edition”. (I later read the 3rd Edition of it and now his latest and by far his BEST book about it, “How to Stop Stuttering & Love Speaking”, which is also on Amazon.)
Anyway, I couldn’t believe it. Lee used to stutter and in his book he explained STEP BY STEP exactly how he stopped stuttering and then went on to help hundreds of others do the same. In his book, he invites his readers to email him. Even more unbelievably, when I emailed him he replied! That was in June 2018. We immediately began Skyping. We Skyped most weeks. He made notes from most of our Skypes, and he says that we SKYPED 80 OR SO TIMES and most of our sessions were an hour and some lasted well over an hour. He never charged me one cent nor did he ever ask for anything in return. Obviously, he’s not a “normal” person (hahaha), and we became great friends.
What are some of the things that I learned from Coach Lee that helped the most? There were so many that I can’t fairly say. I’ll try, but you really need to study his book (his latest and best one, How to Stop Stuttering & Love Speaking), but here are some of things I did, following Lee’s book and Skype suggestions.
I read aloud every day for an hour and sometimes much more. By doing this I heard my voice being fluent. Indeed reading aloud was the ONLY time that I could ever remember hearing my voice be fluent for more than a few words here and there. It was a lovely sound. I grew to enjoy reading aloud. I still do. Lee says that he’s been doing it for over 40 years and still loves it. I believe it. He reads like a polished actor.
Lee also encouraged me to read aloud with passion because that would teach me to concentrate on my message and not on any words. Very slowly, I began to do that. It made reading aloud easier and it began to make speaking easier, because I began to think about my message and not about my words. Reading aloud kind of brain washes your mind into hearing and thinking of yourself as fluent rather than as a stutterer. As Lee’s book says, it reprograms your mind’s memory bank. The habit of thinking, fearing and forcing words gradually becomes thoughts of pronunciation, enthusiasm, smiling, passion, linking words, inserting stops, etc. Thinking such solutions blocks the stutter-habit-chain, as Lee predicts in his books. The cumulative impact over time is incredible.
Just as important Lee pushed me to give myself “auto suggestion” treatments every day, multiple times, such as before bed and on arising and even one or more times during the day. Auto suggestion is a form of talking to yourself, a mild form of brain washing yourself in a positive way. In these mind training treatments I would say ten “Affirmations” (such as, “I love to speak”) which he and I agree to, and I’d say each of them 20 or more times consecutively. He also urged me to make recordings of myself saying my Affirmations, one recording in a monotone voice and one recording in a very animated voice. He then asked me to play the monotone recording very softly as I slept and the animated recording in idle times during the day, such as when I was jogging or bike reading or simply sitting quietly on a bench eating lunch. This mind training, as he calls it, truly works. In his book, he explains the methods in detail and he talks about the “neuroscience” behind mind training and how it can help solve physical problems, even organic ones Anyway, it DOES work with stuttering. That I know!
Maybe best of all are Lee’s “Crutches”. These are simply methods or tools to use to avoid appearing speech disabled all day every day while you are making progress reading aloud and doing mind training to retrain your mind to think positively about speech. He asked me to memorize his Crutches and I did. There are 12 of them plus one that is “no crutch at all”; it’s simply talking before you have time to think or plan words. Most of his crutches have multiple parts. So, there may be 20 or 30 or more of them. Lee urged me to practice them one at a time until I knew them well. I won’t attempt to explain them in detail here. You have to read his book. The bottom line is that, when you know them and use them, you CAN avoid stuttering. IF you do NOT use them, you will probably keep stuttering enough to prevent the reading aloud and mind training from working. Best of all, once you know the crutches really well, you don’t need to use them. I have used most of them a lot but now I don’t really need them and don’t use most of them anymore but they are there in the back of mind and I could use them if a need arose. They are insurance against relapsing.
My current war is against fear. I stay on the program, reading aloud, doing mind training and using crutches when now rarely needed, while I work on learning to LOVE to speak everywhere. I am making progress here too. I improve by pushing myself to talk a bit more in each pressure situation. The pressure keeps decreasing. Some day, I expect it to be gone, as Lee and some other PWSS have accomplished.
I did something else very important. Some of Lee’s EX-stuttering students and two of Lee’s sons formed a COMMUNITY OF EX-STUTTERERS, and they called it “Speech Anxiety Cures” or SAC. SAC created a huge program around Lee’s books and methods that made them easier to understand. SAC also became “command central” for Lee’s 1,500 coaching videos (which includes those of his other coaches too), and each of those videos is much like a private lesson for PWS. I have watched many of them and boy did they ever help! SAC also offers blogs, forums, a section with “150 of the Greatest Tips” on stuttering, and best of all a speech club (called SAM), where ex-stutterers meet with PWS and give talks, answer questions and just hang out.
I became very active at SAM, and I was the first one to organize “Practice Sessions” for PWS”, where I and other PWS meet weekly to practice Lee’s methods. These Practice Sessions have become very popular and SAC offers quite a few of them. SAC has expenses, so it has to charge something for its services, but it doesn’t charge much. It still loses money and Lee told me that he funds the losses every month. Anyway, SAC’s entire program costs less than ONE hour of the time of most speech therapists plus $10 a month. (I spent thousands of dollars on therapies that did not work. So, a couple hundred dollars for a program that works is a bargain indeed.) Even better, SAC is now in the process of converting itself into a charity to be called “World Stop Stuttering Association”. Most importantly, SAC and WSSA are the world’s ONLY COMMUNIY OF EX-STUTTERERS and those fast becoming ex-stutterers. If you stutter, THIS is where you’ll want to hang out and again it’s the ONLY community of EX-stutterers on the planet. What better place can a stutterer possibly be? Hanging out with stutterers can be depressing; hanging out with PWSS and PWS who are fast becoming PWSS is a blast. Everyone talks and helps each other.
So, how did all of the above work? Well, it worked but slowly. You have to remember that I was a VERY severe stutterer for 25 years before I met Lee. We began Skyping in June 2018, but I didn’t stop having bad speech incidents until around spring of 2021. That was around seven months ago now. So, I worked on it hard for around three years.
Is my speech perfect? Of course not! Do I appear speech disabled? No. Am I well on the way to loving to speak? Yes I am. Am I still working on my speech? Yes indeed. Do I still read aloud and love doing it? Yes I do. Do I still give myself mind training treatments? You betcha. Do I still use Lee’s “crutches”? YES and NO. That is, I don’t need them much anymore. I use mostly Crutches 11, 12 and 13, which are “Speak like a King or Queen”, Smile and “No Crutch at All”. These crutches do more than fight stuttering; they make you a better speaker. At work now, I give virtual and live presentations to my co-workers and I don’t stutter and I am often complimented on my talks. I am fast becoming a GOOD speaker. Imagine that!
In closing, I am an incredibly happy camper! I do not appear speech disabled for the first time in my life. My family loves it. My friends love it. My workmates love it and I LOVE IT. I could say that I have a new and ever so much better life now and I owe it to Coach Lee, his books and to SAC and soon the planned charit, WSSA, and all of the many PWS and PWSS (people who stopped stuttering) that have become my friends through Coach Lee.
All that I can say is that IF you stutter, you don’t have to keep stuttering. If I can stop it, anyone can. Don’t throw your life away stuttering. It’s time to accept the fact that stuttering is MENTAL; our minds caused it and our minds can stop it. Lee just figured out the ways to do it and was able to explain them step by step. Hopefully, the world’s speech professionals will study his methods and stop insisting that stuttering is “an incurable disorder”, and start using Lee’s methods, too, because I am LIVING PROOF that STUTTERING CAN AND SHOULD BE “KICKED OFF THE PLANET”, as Lee and his community of ex-stutterers have long wished.
Kelly, Wyoming, October 2021