What is Stuttering?

Stuttering is a speech disorder which consists of repeating words & sounds or prolonging words and sounds. One sign of stuttering is when you are about to say something but you make a weird face such as your eyes closing shut or your mouth is stuck in the position of the sound of the word you are making. A way to control this is to not think to much about what you are going to say because when you think to much you automatically assume you are going to stutter and then you get anxiety because you fear someone is going to make fun of you. I have had this experience many times. People will tell you it’s in your head but it’s not. For some people when you wake up in the morning you can feel it in your throat that today you are going to stutter the most. The feeling is like someone is squeezing your throat and you just can’t release that pressure. Even before you stutter, before you say a word you can’t get the word out and your face is frozen in the same position and you can’t stop the word your going to say cause that seems impossible too. This is just to name a few things of what stuttering looks like. But what does it actually feel like ? When you stutter , it doesn’t matter who you are with or who you are around everyone’s first instinct is to laugh. And nobody wants to be laughed at. While the person who laughed doesn’t realize what it feels like , to you, you feel embarrassed and you feel like you don’t want to talk ever again. And when you feel like that you shy away from friends and family because you don’t want to be laughed at. Just the thought of talking again is terrifying. That’s when the depression starts, that’s when isolation starts, that’s when anxiety begins , and that’s also when anxiety attacks begin. As we all know when we start to feel depressed and anxious that’s when suicidal thoughts start. People who stutter uncontrollably and who grew up with this disorder often feel alone because it’s so rare to come across someone with the disorder. Let me tell you a story of the first time I noticed I had a stuttering disorder. Growing up I never stuttered, not once. But my brothers did and they got the speech therapy they needed and now they don’t stutter anymore. I first started to notice that I was stuttering uncontrollably in the 5th grade, the teacher had called on me on the first day of class and wanted me to stand up and introduce myself so I did i stood up so confindently but when I went to speak it came out like “ H-Hi m-m-my name iiiiiiis Cha-And-ssller” ( clearly my name is Chandler) And like all 5th graders everyone laughed and even my teacher said “ it’s okay don’t be nervous” and I said “ I’m not nervous I’m not sure what happened there “ so I try again and it came out perfectly. Then at recess I was talking to my friend who I’ve known practically my whole life and we were talking and I stuttered with her and she asked me about it but I couldn’t explain. So later on when I went home I told my parents what happened and they had this knowing look and they sat me down and said “ booboo ( my nickname) stuttering runs in the family but when you were little you never showed signs of stuttering so we assumed it didn’t get passed down to you “ and as my mom is explaining this to me I could feel my heartbreaking. i was thinking I am a freak, I am not normal , How could I ever make friends if I can’t even talk to people, so I didn’t. The rest of the school year I did not say a single word , I was too embarrassed. At the time I was just 10 years old, I am 21 now. And I am just now starting to accept this is my fate. After years of breaking down in tears , constantly being teased , years of depression. I am just now , as I am writing this have accepted this is my fate. I don’t want this for anyone else so I am telling whoever is reading this . Stuttering will only run your life if you let it. There is no cure for stuttering but you can learn how to control it by learning your trigger words, learning what makes you stutter the most. I am here to help, I understand , I know what you are going through and we can get through this together.