My Struggles.....cont

The more confident years.
My stuttering improved slowly so that when I was in my senior secondary school years I could carry out conversation normally most of the time. By this time it was not fear of people that caused me to stutter, but occasionally would falter due to excitement. For example, I would feel very excited if I had to prove a point that I considered very important in a conversation or when I tried to tell a joke. It was only years later that I learned the value of taking slow and deep breaths to calm down my excitement in speaking.

Conclusion.
Today, I consider myself much improved to near normal in my speech. Occasionally, I would still trip in my conversation but I also quickly recover. I am very happy for having gone through and recover much from the handicap of speech impediment to an almost normal person.

My Struggles......cont

My desire to speak normal.

At the age of 11, I felt a desperate need to recover from stuttering in order to live a normal life and that to me was to be able to speak confidently without stuttering. My family was too poor to send me to a speech therapist and perhaps there were even no speech therapist in those days. I made up my mind to conquer this disabling disorder of stuttering, for I reasoned with myself that the stuttering would become worse to a point of no return to normal speech.

 My journey to normalcy.

I began to reason to myself that since it was fear that caused me to stutter, then if I could tame that fear, my problem would be solved. I checked out in my mind of the times I did not stutter and it turned out there were times, I did not stutter or stuttered less - when I read to myself, spoke to friends and people who are younger.

I assumed that since if I did not stutter when speaking to my friends and younger people, then if I would adopt an attitude of treating those whom I feared to speak with similar to those whom I find comfortable to speak with, then my stuttering would be more controlled. In order to remove the fear of people I feared, I decided to treat them without fear by looking at them into their eyes and to rehearse my speech in my head before I uttered. I had self-learned the technique of reframing my mental picture. When I was to speak to some people who I normally would, I would change the picture in my mind. Instead of seeing the person as threatening or to be feared, I told myself to look straight into his eyes, slow down my speech and project my voice. There were a number of words I struggled to pronounce without stuttering. So I substituted with easier words. Sometimes, I managed to speak normal, but sometimes in the midst of the conversation, I would verbally trip and stumble into stuttering again. And then I discovered something else about my stuttering, was that nearly all the time, I was conscious that I was a stutterer. Those times when I was not conscious, I performed better and nearly never stuttered. Overall, it had been a daily stage fright experience.

My struggles with Stut...stut..stut...tering

I want to share with my readers on my struggle with stuttering. I hope that those interested in the topic of stuttering, stutterers or ex-stutterers are welcome to participate in this blog.

From 8 years old, I started to stutter. I had always wondered how it all started. But I was unable to track down the initial cause or trauma that started my stuttering. I had to accept that the cause of my stuttering was a present problem. It was because of fear of speaking to some people. For example, I feared talking to strangers, older or people in authority and girls. I would feel very anxious at the thought of having to talk to people I considered a threat to my normal speech. In my mind’s eye I would see myself tense up and nervous and struggle to speak and sure enough the mind’s picture was self-fulfilling. I was sure to stutter as I had feared happening. Occasionally, I would stutter when I got excited. I realised that it was primarily FEAR that impeded my normal speech.

My family and relatives were of no help to my woe. My older relatives would laugh and mock me when I stuttered and there were times when my eldest brother would punish me by slapping when he caught me stuttering. My self-esteem was badly affected.