Bless this program, Lee’s books, WSSA’s speech coaches and these methods. They just enabled me to end 40 years of humiliating stuttering! My name is Tara, I’m 46 years old from Ireland, and I have lived with severe stuttering since childhood, blocking and forcing on at least 70–80% of my words. Some of my most painful memories come from the simplest situations—trying to say my own name at a spa and going “ta-ha-ha-ha-ha” in humiliation, being unable to order a Coke Zero, or even avoiding saying my children’s names Rachel and Jane, and instead telling people “Anne,” because it was the only name I could say without stuttering. My mother’s constant criticism, “Tara, why don’t you speak properly?” made me hyper-conscious and fearful, and her words stayed with me for decades.
I was rejected from nursing school because I couldn’t get through the interview, and I avoided college altogether, knowing I couldn’t manage the speaking requirements. Through my 20s, 30s, and 40s, my life was dominated by avoidance: not answering phones, not speaking in public, not ordering for myself, and living with daily headaches, panic attacks, heart palpitations, and the constant dread of not getting words out. I would spend minutes, sometimes hours, stuck thinking about single words, and my only release from this nightmare was going to bed at night.
I tried therapies before: a six-week program as a child where everyone else became fluent except me, leaving me devastated, and later the McGuire program, which helped temporarily but was exhausting because of the constant reliance on costal breathing. Nothing gave me lasting relief.
Everything changed when my husband, who has always supported me 200% through good and bad times, heard Coach Lee on the radio and encouraged me to try WSSA. At first, I wasn’t consistent, but in June 2025, I gave myself permission to truly try, because trying cost nothing. From that point, I committed to practice sessions and speech plans, and I was amazed to see progress I had never experienced before.
For more than four weeks now, I haven’t had a single humiliating incident, and coach Prathusha said that I’m a PWSS as I have gone 8 weeks without a bad incident. I can finally say my name, introduce myself, answer phones, order meals, and even speak to strangers with a sense of pride instead of shame. The crutches that have helped me most are voice modulation, which not only keeps me fluent but also removes the facial contortions I struggled with for years, and extreme pronunciation, which prevent me from thinking words and allow me to focus on the pronunciation. Also, I would never be on the road to recovery if I thought of every bad or near-bad incident I had and punished myself mentally for them. Things really started to change for me when instead I congratulated and rewarded myself for every fluency memory I made, however small. This completely changed my mindset and started me in my journey to becoming a PWSS.
For the first time in my life, I am completely free of stuttering and facial contortions when I speak. My daily routine of reading aloud an hour a day, practicing autosuggestions twice daily, listening to Lee’s masterclass in the car or while walking, and applying the speech plan 24/7 has transformed me from someone who hid from speaking into someone who is learning to love speaking in all situations.
Meeting wonderful coaches and supportive people from WSSA’s crutch practice sessions in the program has encouraged me further, and with their guidance, I now understand that fluency is only the first base—true freedom comes with battling fear and expanding my comfort zone step by step. Today, I am embracing that journey, and for the first time in my life, I look forward to speaking. I am deeply grateful to WSSA, to Coach Lee, and to every coach and community who has walked with me on this path. After more than four decades of suffering, I finally feel free, and I now believe the sky is the limit.
Tara, Ireland, October 2025