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I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know d

I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know don't know(or remember) that I stutter. As I get older it's become more of an internal battle. I am pretty good at hiding it. If I am relaxed I can talk for long stretches without pauses. But occasionally I have to take a second or two before I can get a word out, this is especially disturbing during a dialogue with a person I don't know. It's even stranger when it happens in the middle of a sentence. I am sure I have left many people the impression that I don't know something extremely basic, or am mentally handicapped in some way. I usually make a thinking face and vocalize a "hmm..." if I feel a stutter coming up, it's better than staring the other person silently during my internal struggle. I know a word is going to cause problems even before I try vocalizing it, my brain let's me know in advance, I can feel the word being broken...blocked...sharp. I often reorganize sentences to get around them. If I really need to use that specific word I may start talking about something else, while battling with the word in my head, usually I can insert it into an in-progress sentence, instead of starting a sentence with it. I think I only stutter when the word begins with a strong letter, like k,t,p. I may also be subconsciously bending/smoothing the other letters without others/myself noticing, but getting a k,t,p - especially at the beginning of a sentence - out of my throat can be really challenging. Collecting myself, changing my posture, looking elsewhere, coughing, etc. can ease the first vocals out. Slight coughs or throat clearings are especially good for masking the bent first letters. Too bad about coughing not being in vogue right now. It will not happen during singing, only conversation, especially when I feel its a stressful situation - eg. even asking something trivial from the shop clerk. When I was younger there were many things I left un-bought because I couldn't vocalize them to the clerk. I don't remember myself ever stuttering on the phone - though I may misremember. Sometimes I don't remember when I last stuttered, though I might not register it as an event any more. It has not ruined any moments. I have probably organized my life to have less triggers to stutter. Overall it's a pretty stupid thing and I would prefer not to have it. EDIT: I only stutter in my native language, I don't stutter in the couple of other languages I know.

vemv 6y ago
A good friend has pretty much the same profile you describe. What has worked best for him is developing a habit of being very open about it, e.g. explicit stating to new people "I have a stutter". This would remove the tension around hiding something. In general hiding feelings tends to be bad for humans.
- kuratkull 6y ago
  Indeed, if a person I know I will be talking to a lot notices I usually tell them. People don't care - in the good sense. It's usually talking to strangers that may cause issues. While as a child it was store clerks who I had an issue with, as an adult it's tense moments where you have to protect your interests, explain something complex to strangers, point the way to a tourist, etc. - stress-free vocalization would really help out in those situations
bitbuilder 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. You've described my own stutter and struggles perfectly. Like you, I can tell I'm going to "block" on a word before I even say it. So it's less of what's thought of as a conventional stutter and more just a complete inability to say the word. It's a strange, almost scary, feeling to those who experience it. However, if I'm particularly excited about something, or don't care about the opinions of company I'm in, I occasionally "push through" the blocked word and it instead turns into a conventional drawn out stutter. I also use similar coping methods, which as you note sometimes result in awkward situations. To give a hypothetical example, if I want to tell my coworker "I need to go home and let my dog out", I might notice as soon as I start talking that I'm going to block on "dog", so what results is something like "I need to go home and let my... [long pause as I try to think of a replacement word]... pet out." (Which of course leaves me feeling flustered, as I wonder what the my coworker thinks a dramatic pause before announcing I have a pet, and who says "pet" instead of "dog" anyway?) This article was actually great, and does a good job of driving home that this is a physical disability relating to how our brains are wired, or our neurochemistry. Growing up in the 80s and seeing speech therapists about the issue, all the talk was around just "learning" not to stutter. Yes we can learn workarounds and coping methods, but at the end of the day it's still very much a biological issue, and it's obvious to those of us that experience it. Reinforcing the idea that it's related to neurochemistry, I've noticed that any strong CNS stimulant (caffeine, etc) erases the stutter. And conversely, being in caffeine withdrawal (or just tired in general) amplifies it. The good news is that I've found it's rarely interferes with my personal or professional life. It really only surfaces when I have my guard down 100% and I'm just engaging in casual conversation, while also tired or sleep deprived. When I put on my "work persona" for meetings, presentations, just general professional banter, it never surfaces. In those situations it's almost as if I'm talking through a manufactured persona, which would echo sentiments expressed elsewhere in this thread about the stutter disappearing when singing, speaking another language, etc. On the other hand, I'm pretty confident the stutter is at the root of crippling social anxiety I experience in some situations.

vemv 6y ago

A good friend has pretty much the same profile you describe. What has worked best for him is developing a habit of being very open about it, e.g. explicit stating to new people "I have a stutter". This would remove the tension around hiding something. In general hiding feelings tends to be bad for humans.

kuratkull 6y ago
Indeed, if a person I know I will be talking to a lot notices I usually tell them. People don't care - in the good sense. It's usually talking to strangers that may cause issues. While as a child it was store clerks who I had an issue with, as an adult it's tense moments where you have to protect your interests, explain something complex to strangers, point the way to a tourist, etc. - stress-free vocalization would really help out in those situations

bitbuilder 6y ago

Thanks for sharing. You've described my own stutter and struggles perfectly. Like you, I can tell I'm going to "block" on a word before I even say it. So it's less of what's thought of as a conventional stutter and more just a complete inability to say the word. It's a strange, almost scary, feeling to those who experience it. However, if I'm particularly excited about something, or don't care about the opinions of company I'm in, I occasionally "push through" the blocked word and it instead turns into a conventional drawn out stutter. I also use similar coping methods, which as you note sometimes result in awkward situations. To give a hypothetical example, if I want to tell my coworker "I need to go home and let my dog out", I might notice as soon as I start talking that I'm going to block on "dog", so what results is something like "I need to go home and let my... [long pause as I try to think of a replacement word]... pet out." (Which of course leaves me feeling flustered, as I wonder what the my coworker thinks a dramatic pause before announcing I have a pet, and who says "pet" instead of "dog" anyway?) This article was actually great, and does a good job of driving home that this is a physical disability relating to how our brains are wired, or our neurochemistry. Growing up in the 80s and seeing speech therapists about the issue, all the talk was around just "learning" not to stutter. Yes we can learn workarounds and coping methods, but at the end of the day it's still very much a biological issue, and it's obvious to those of us that experience it. Reinforcing the idea that it's related to neurochemistry, I've noticed that any strong CNS stimulant (caffeine, etc) erases the stutter. And conversely, being in caffeine withdrawal (or just tired in general) amplifies it. The good news is that I've found it's rarely interferes with my personal or professional life. It really only surfaces when I have my guard down 100% and I'm just engaging in casual conversation, while also tired or sleep deprived. When I put on my "work persona" for meetings, presentations, just general professional banter, it never surfaces. In those situations it's almost as if I'm talking through a manufactured persona, which would echo sentiments expressed elsewhere in this thread about the stutter disappearing when singing, speaking another language, etc. On the other hand, I'm pretty confident the stutter is at the root of crippling social anxiety I experience in some situations.