I have a BA, MBA and I just received an M.D., and I am now an Internal Medicine Resident. I’m 28 and live in New Jersey. I started stuttering when I was 9. I had an uncle and a grandmother who also stuttered. Mine was generally mild growing up, but it was sometimes devasting under pressure. I couldn’t say one word on the phone. My biggest issues were speaking to groups, authority figures and of course on the phone.
While I was training to be a medical doctor, the ceiling fell in on me. I wanted to quit and almost did quit several times, because I stuttered so badly during presentations that my examiners had to read the case because they were getting no information from me. I literally battled to get every word out. Each word was becoming a miracle. My stuttering was getting worse and worse by the day. I was in panic mode.
I didn’t have the money or time to pursue speech therapy, but I found Coach Lee’s Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures, on Amazon and that was a real miracle. It opened my eyes to so many things. I didn’t really have to stutter. There were ways, things that I could do to speak in a normal way. He laid out many steps, many ways to avoid it, ways to reform my mind. It gave me so much hope. I listened to his audible version of the 2nd Edition and then read the 3rd. I also got Power’s Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis, which he recommended. I began to become optimistic about stopping stuttering.
I then Skyped with Lee a few times and many more times with Coach Tasneem, an attorney from South Africa, who helped me a great deal. They even did “emergency sessions” with me to help me get ready for presentations. I can’t thank her or Coach Lee enough! As I wrote them, “I thank you for existing.” For a long time, I was so embarrassed with my speech, even when talking to them, that I wouldn’t allow them to stream or record our sessions. Finally, my embarrassment subsided enough and I allowed streaming.
Still, my cure did not follow a straight line. I got better and spoke much better but then would have a nasty fall-back. It seemed that my fear and anxiety were so extreme that I was unable to use the Crutches, and I dragged my words embarrassingly. Truth was that I was so busy with medical work that I was not practicing the Crutches, and I just didn’t know how to use them.
Now, it’s been about two months since my last speech disaster. I have become good enough with a few of the Crutches to avoid them. Lately, I’ve been using speaking softly, slowly and using extreme pronunciation. I also drop the first letter or syllable of quite a few words. I also use a sound and jam the feared word into it. All in all, I don’t sound disabled. If you want to hear me speak, go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUBwao7mMk
Still, I’m not finished working on my speech. I do want to learn to love to speak in all situations. So, I intend to stay on the program: Doing multiple daily mind-training treatments, reading aloud, and using the Crutches to keep them fresh. I’m also going to join SpeechMasters Club (https://speechanxiety.com/speech-club/), which is tailored to those who have or used to have speech anxiety issues. I’m also going to Toastmasters.
Finally, I’m going to keep at this until I can say stuttering was a blessing in my life, as Lee constantly insists. He and Tasneem did it; so, why not me?
So what’s my bottom line? It’s your turn. Lee’s methods work. Way too many of us have proved it. Recently, Lee’s methods have been made much more user friendly by Speech Anxiety Cures (https://speechanxiety.com/), the world’s first and only organization run by those dedicated to removing stuttering from the planet and they even have a staff of EX-stutterers to guide stutterers. So, I’m just one more voice saying: You can stop stuttering, too. I hope that you will.
LINDA, New Jersey, June 2020, updated March 2022