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 advice? These methods work; they are life changing. It’s your turn. 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