Sry if I sound like a chud here but I haven't talked to a girl for like 5-6 mins in like 2 yrs.

I have recently joined clg and have been assigned to a group presentation with a girl group (I am the only boy in the group) but

Unfamiliar people + girls ------> MORE stutter

The girls have no idea that I stutter 💔 because I control it really well in class while talking to my friends.. Also this is my first presentation in clg so my anxiety is really worse. I am having nightmares and sleeping issues 😭 just thinking abt it

I’m 24 and just moved to Logan square and need some friends! I moved with my boyfriend from utah. Im having a hard time putting myslef out there in regards to my speech! If you’re close to the area and wanna meet up lmk :)

My mother is absolutely idiotic. She thinks that when I was 7 I used to stutter on purpose and that’s why I stutter till this day. She never took me to a speech therapist and completely neglected my speech problems. She is convinced that it is my fault until now (I am 21F).

It just feels so damn stupid because it takes 2 minutes of searching on google that it is a complex neurological speech disorder and it can’t happen like she is convinced. It feels completely ignorant that for years she couldn’t even educate herself about this problem. It makes me feel so isolated. It is already difficult to live with and now people who are supposed to be the closest to me are basically making it out to be my fault. I don’t even know anyone personally who stutters and I always feel like everyone is judging me :(

I hardly meet other people irl that have stutters (i’ve only met 1), so it’s nice being able to go on this sub sometimes and relate to other people that also struggle with stuttering

Hi. I've had speech therapy in the past and I believe a big portion of my stutter is mechanical and rooted in anxiety. I also have a nasally voice and chronic nasal congestion.

I was practicing a speech and held the tip of my nose up and not only could I breathe much more clearly, but I could pronounce words more clearly, the physical sensation of my nose vibrating when I spoke reduced (thus a less nasally speech), and my stuttering disorder reduced (not significantly, but I felt more in control of my speech due to the above). I have a slight plunging nasal tip (tip of nose has a lower angle drop than average), so I plan to talk with my doctor and get more information on if this is a real possibility.

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I don't want to get anyone's hopes up or have them obsess over if this will "cure" them, just thought it was interesting. I do think it'd be useful to list two things that I've done years ago in speech therapy that have helped me:

1. Over-articulation.

I spend a couple minutes throughout the day speaking slowly and out loud when I read or write something, making sure to enunciate each syllable and really feel it in my mouth, tongue, and facial muscles. This has helped me with mumbling, clarity, and conscious motor habits. It's important to not do it all the time and give your face a lot of rest. I just read a random article in the morning and practice as soon as I wake up.

1. Exposure therapy.

Anxiety overloads the brain and makes stuttering more prominent. If you have chronic anxiety like me, you NEED go outside and make yourself feel uncomfortable.

Before I practice, I write down what I expect my brain to think and do, then I do the practice, then stay in the moment and observe how people actually react. Afterwards I right down what actually happened

First, I'd start very easy to get a good base line: Greet a minimum of 3 strangers while walking. Once I've felt like it was too easy, I'd ramp it up: Have a short back-and-forth with a minimum of 2 strangers on my way to work. Once I tried it on the bus with someone who did not want to talk to me. I accepted how awkward I felt, then took a step back and analyzed how it's not a big deal, then I turned to someone else and chatted with them. Not the end of the world. Each step had to make me feel the slightly bit of discomfort at the very least.

The most uncomfortable one for me was when I intentionally made myself trip and fall (SAFE AND CONTROLLED FALL!) in a public area. Even tossed my keys. I got up, stood there, and observed how people reacted. I didn't try to walk away from the environment, just let myself feel that awkwardness. Most people didn't notice, a few looked then kept walking, and one person helped me get my keys. I gave my brain evidence that it's not the end of the world, and continued on. I showed my amygdala (emotional response center of the brain) that things happen, and it's okay that it does.

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These aren't fool-proof. Again, they won't "cure" anything. But if you're like me it may help. It may not help everyone reduce their stuttering, but it may help with other areas in your life!

I have the same exact problem to the milimeter, including the overbite one

My son is 5 years old and in kindergarten. We started noticing a stutter late last year, usually only when he was very excited. At first, if I got him to take a breath and slow down he could get his words out and was fine. I mentioned speech therapy to my wife, not to make excuses but life's been hectic and it just didn't happen. Since he's been in school I've noticed the stutter is getting worse. He gets hung up on his first word and sometimes really struggles to get it out. What worked early on doesn't seem to help anymore. He's more receptive to his mother, he gets very angry and upset with me. He is going to be working with the speech therapist at school, but it's going to take up to 60 days after his initial evaluation to begin. She is going to work with him about 10 minutes a day until then.

I'm just at a loss on what we can do at home. He comes home in a bad mood and doesn't want to talk. I ask him if he had a good day at school and he tells me to stop asking questions. A couple of the tips the speech therapist gave us at his parent/teacher conference don't seem to help, especially with me.

I think I mostly needed to vent, but any advice would be much appreciated. I know you can't necessarily "fix" a stutter, I just hate seeing him struggle and having such a hard time and I feel helpless.

I'm curious how many people use this technique? during a block, take a big breath of air and say the word as you exhale. like speaking during a giant sigh. for me, it's basically foolproof, it's impossible to block or stutter when you say it like this. the downside is that it still sounds different, it sounds like you are annoyed but it beats blocking for 2 minutes.

i discovered this several years ago and it basically changed my life, not having to worry about really long blocks. i've always been curious if it would work as well for everyone as it does for me.

i got the idea from watching a video about the "costal breathing technique" which is basically where you say *everything* as you exhale. you don't stutter but you sound like you have some other speech issue. maybe eventually it trains fluency, idk. i didn't like the idea of using it all the time but i realized you can just use it for getting past blocks.

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Probably the best tip I’ve found on this sub is to actually listen to your own voice while speaking. Like you’re talking and, at the same time, listening to yourself almost as a third person.

At first you have to consciously think about it, but after a while it starts becoming automatic. I don’t need to focus on it all the time anymore.

The more I think about it, the more I feel it’s similar to singing or changing your tone of voice. Maybe that’s also part of the reason why many of us don’t stutter, or stutter much less, when talking to a child — we naturally change our voice and rhythm.

For me it gives me something to “hold onto” while speaking. It helps a lot with confidence and also reduces the anxiety around speaking.

Definitely one of the best things I’ve learned here.

Really great.

Gonna keep this short since I’m in a lot of emotional pain from just realizing how much this disorder prevents us from doing what we really want. Stuttering didn’t allow me to ask my fellow co workers basic question sometimes and I always had to pre plan my words. Doing this within a fast paced manual labor job has me thinking on the fly and trying to do the things independently to the best of my abilities and just a few months ago on June 11th I was severely cut on my inner right wrist from an industrial machine and am left realizing how much pain I’m truly in due to this disorder. I’m only working here because I have a criminal record as well and I’m just at a lost for what I should be feeling. Should I be upset or regretting my decisions. I just don’t know. Gonna start talking even if I stutter because I can’t change what happened just learn from it. Life is very painful.

Yesterday at work was horrible it felt like I was stuttering over every other word and I know all of my co workers were noticing and trying to act like I wasn’t doing it. Idk what’s worse when people make fun of my stutter, or when they look at me like a sad puppy barely making it through a sentence alive. Having a stutter rly is a lose-lose situation like god why can’t I just fucking talk like a normal person this is so bs

I’ve been sick this week and I feel like I barely stuttered at all since my nose was all stuffed. Here I thought my mouth was the issue and maybe it’s been my nose 😂😂😂. Obviously I’m just being funny.

At this point, I just hate people who are able to speak without an entire battle going on within them.

I really hate the fact that these people will grow far more professionally and personally than I ever will.

I'm seriously done with justifying my stutter, telling people I stutter, asking and expecting some patience and empathy from everyone I interact with.

I'm resentful of literally everyone around me. I just hate it when people can just casually talk with each other, tell stories and what not.

And to pacifiers, who say our stutter doesn't define us, please don't lie to yourself. We all know speaking is one of the most critical functions of a human being.

I try to be positive, but right now I'm just losing it. I'm afraid that I'll lose my only earning source very soon. I'm a technical consultant, and as per the made up belief by pacifiers, we have to do more than just writing code. We have to demonstrate what we have built. That is a part of our job profiles. People who can speak have a defined growth path. And here, I'm afraid of growing in my career. I'm afraid of promotions. I'm afraid of leading people.

I'm angry that everyone around me, can do technical demos just like they breathe. And here, my whole body starts functioning differently the moment I even hear these words.

I hate it when people close to me, ask about my friends, my marriage plans. How do I tell them that I'm a failure, I have to take care of my speech for my entire life, and I can never have the mindset to get married. I don't have friends. I had, but slowly I'm losing the plot and I don't have it in me to maintain those friendships.

In my culture, the next 4 days is the festive season, and people define and remember this season with the conversations they have. Everyone around me is excited to have conversations and make memories. And here I am, dreading the best part of the festivities.

I've started to hate myself and everyone around me. I don't know the way out.

Seeing people happy around me, is just killing me from inside.

I was never like this. I never wanted to be like this. I always wanted people around me to be happy.

But realising what I've become over the past few weeks, is really tough.

Marking this as NSFW, as it is negative as hell. Just wanted to vent out.

I’m a very concerned mamma! My son started stuttering and his 2.9 years old. And it’s quite severe. Abit of backstory. His been a very early talker very switched on and was always ahead in speech. And he suddenly started stuttering a month ago. His repeating the first words or sounds like
I I I I I I I love you. And it makes him out of breath. Or wwwwwwwhere are we going? It goes on for so long and it’s every sentence with I or w e sounds that usually happens. I know it can be genetics because his dad has a stutter but not too noticeable.
Should I be worried it’s a lifelong thing. Has anyone experienced this.

hey all, M21 from India here. As a stutter i had never had a great friend or girlfriend or something like that. if anyone from India wants to be friends with. HMU

And if anyone’s genuine response is only that they have family/friends/pets that would otherwise be affected if you went, or if your just waiting for the next big movie/video game to release or something, please just don’t bother with giving your comment on this one.

Everyday im school I struggle so dam bad, I get in class I don’t wanna speak to anyone when someone tries to speak to me I just sound like a freak becuase ive got silent blocks. I can’t make any new friends I only have two close friends. I struggle even speaking to my own girlfriend and it always makes me insecure that people don’t like me because of it. My girlfriend is best friends with my friends and I can’t even make friends with hers because of how bad my stammer is anytime I try and speak to them I get so embarrassed and I just sit there. I can’t even say my own name too anyone, I don’t know what too do and it should’ve gone by now or at-least eased but no it’s still here I shouldn’t be really over reacting but if anyone could give tips I would appreciate it’s making me really insecure about just talking too anyone.

Hi all, I normally don't post, but just thought I'd share our experience for any parents whose young kids have a stutter.

Our older kid was 4 when he started stuttering. He also often cried and had emotional difficulties day by day. We avoided the speech language folks who argued that accepting the stutter was the correct path and opted for an old school lady who worked to build fluency from one syllable words, to multisyllable, to large phrases. We saw some gradual improvement. He's 6 now.

But the breakthrough was when the SLP noticed that my wife was "cluttering", which is a different kind of language pathology. Using AI (Gemini), we were able to discover that based on her tone-deafness and cluttering, the most likely culprit was a gene that messes up ion channels in long-transmission neurons.

The result, according to our analysis was that his mental energy was drained by needing to reset those ion pumps. Given that, we started dosing him with creatine (1.5g)... within two weeks or so, his progress accelerated and the stutter almost disappeared.

At this point, I believed the creatine had been a necessary (but not sufficient) element. But my wife's parents were with us for 6 weeks and they objected strongly to his taking any supplements at all.

The stutter returned and so did the emotional instability. By the end he was crying multiple times a day and stuttering constantly. I have to admit it was pretty painful to experience. Then, once they left and he started supplementing again, and soon we were back to no stutter and far more emotional resilience.

Now, there are a large number of genes and mechanisms that contribute to stuttering, and I don't think a single solution would work for everyone, and this is an n of 1 case. I also think that the creatine didn't "solve" the issue as much as ensure his brain had enough ATP to adapt using the methods of the speech therapist. But for the subset of stutterers or parents who experience similar characteristics, I hope this can be of service.

I've been on a very long journey, but I never thought this would happen. It was like an outer body experience. I was no longer in my stuttering brain. No stuttering thought, mental gymnastics, negative thoughts, word substitution even entered my psyche. I dislike evaluating fluency (but I know my audience here lol), but I did not notice any stutter. I'm sure if you had me recorded and had an SLP analyze it after, there were probably some minor hangups here and there, but nothing that my brain processed as a block or stuttering moment. I did not use any techniques or think about my quality of speech. I was fully engaged in what I was saying and doing.

Again, I know my audience... for context, I was a very severe stutterer, and consistently was so into my 20s, and then after that, it became more variable. I went to an intensive speech clinic as a kid. They told my parents I was one of the worst cases, if not the worst that they ever had. I'm in my 40s now. I had a lot of hopeless thoughts earlier in my life. Similar to the ones I see posted a lot.

I wanted to share this story to tell people: Yes, there is a lot of struggle and trauma, but if you explore things and be open to experiences, it can get easier.

I stutter much worse when I'm giving a presentation, and practicing it doesn't help at all (other than switching out some words). It's specifically just for prepared content - I am muchhhh more fluent when answering questions or adding things to the presentation off the cuff. Directly reading things vs paraphrasing what I know I need to say doesn't make a big difference at all for me. Stress levels or presentation importance also don't make a big difference. My theory is that because stuttering is a neurological disorder, and because remembering information and synthesizing information are different neurologically, going down the remembering/reading pathways does something to exacerbate the stutter. Does anyone else experience this? Could definitely be an issue that varies with different stutter types.

As someone who has significantly improved their speech through various methods and a lot of hard work facing my fear of stuttering. I am curious, what is stopping you?

By overcoming here I mean: stuttering no longer controls who I speak to, what I say, where I work, relationship satisfaction, etc. It does not mean you no longer stutter.

Context: I am a lifelong stutterer, who has largely overcome it and will soon be a registered psychologist, one of my dreams is to help more of us out there and I want to know what the hardest part is for you.

EDIT: Thanks for the replies so far. To be clear, I’m not saying anyone just needs to work harder. Stuttering has a strong genetic and neurological basis, plenty of people put in huge effort and still stutter, and “it doesn’t bother me” is a completely valid answer. People also see their stutter in different ways, as a disability, a difference or just part of how they talk, and all of those are valid. Barriers like cost and a lack of adult speech therapy are real.