Hello from Canada 🇨🇦

[Ocean Atwood]

Hi everyone!

My name is Ocean, I’m from Nova Scotia, Canada. I am a registered nurse and have been stuttering since the age of 4. Stuttering has always had a huge impact on my life & how I live it but got increasingly worse in university when speaking under pressure became more common. I did successfully finish university with honours and I now work full time as a nurse in long term care which I absolutely love. However, I still to this day base everything I say off of what words & syllables I don’t stutter on. For the most part I can get through days at work without any bad stuttering incidents as I’ve always had my own “crutches”. But one day I would just love to be able to speak freely, saying what I actually want to say, without thinking & having to avoid certain words & letters.

I purchased Lee’s book off of Amazon a few weeks ago and have been reading it in my spare time. I’ve been reading aloud every day. I’m slowly learning the different crutches and have been trying to do the daily AST’s but am struggling to find a lot of spare time as I recently had a baby (she is 4 months today).

I’m hoping that even though I can’t put as much time into this as I would like to I can still beat stuttering some day and join the PWSS community. It might take me a bit longer than others but I’m determined to get there.

Ocean

[Javier]

Hi Ocean! Welcome to WSSA!!
My name is Javier and I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA. I began stuttering at around age 6, and eventually my stutter became very severe (blocks on most words in ALL situations, face grimaces, etc). Finally, at the age of 29, I became a PWSS. Your case seems milder than mine, so that’s good.
In my previous job (I worked there for around 6 years) I had to do a lot of phone calls, meet clients, travel, etc. I loved that job, besides the multiple bad incidents I had every day. Everytime I got stuck on a word, it has devastating.
The thing is, you can work on your speech while doing the rest of the things you do everyday. Here are some examples:
– You can do your Auto-Suggestion Treatments while driving/going to work (or elsewhere). I still do that.
– You can read aloud everything that you read, such as emails, reports, messages, news articles, etc. If you are at work, and you don’t want to disturb others, do it in a whisper. Since I guess that you’ll have to wear a facemask at work, feel free to read aloud whispering, most people won’t notice it.
– Use the Crutches every time you speak.

Have you gone to any of our Crutch Practice Sessions? We have multiple every day. Check them here: https://worldstopstuttering.org/crutch-practice-group/
These sessions are in groups of not more than 5 people. The host is either a Coach or a PWSS, so they know the Crutches. The idea is that the attendees have the chance to learn, practice and master the Crutches in a safe and supportive environment, where everybody there has the same goal as you: master the Crutches. So nobody is going to judge you; on the contrary, they’ll try to help you as best as they can. So, try to go to as many of these sessions as you can. A lot of my students go there and they are improving a lot faster.

Another thing that you should do is to watch the video courses of “Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures” and “Crutch Mastery series”. The former is not a substitute of the book. It is a complement to the book, to help you understand it more easily. Here’s the link to these courses: https://worldstopstuttering.org/courses/
Since you are a busy person, in most of these video lessons you can simply listen to them, without watching, so that you can do other things at the same time. I used to listen to them while cooking, for example.

If you have a free Saturday, please do come to the SAM meetings (Saturdays at 10am NY time). You will be able to listen to the speech journey of other PWSS, learn from them, ask them questions, etc. It’s really motivational. Here’s the link: https://worldstopstuttering.org/speech-club/

And of course, coaching will help you considerably too 🙂

Feel free to ask us any questions here, and keep us posted with your progress!

Have a wonderful day!

Javier

[Leah Areff]

Hi Ocean,

So nice to have you!!! Update us on your progress. Are you able to attend the SAM meetings which are held every Saturday?

[Author]

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