It feels like I’ve been stuttering forever. I was five, I think when I started, but a miracle happened. I was searching the internet for help with my stutter when I found Lees video and book on YouTube. It builded confidence. It encouraged me to talk to myself and to practice my speech. It also taught me NOT to really focus on stuttering when I’m about to talk. This helps me when speaking to my co workers and to everyone when I’m under pressure. I used to not be able to get my words out, almost none at all. But I found an answer.
My name is Darvano. I’m 20 and I live in the Bahamas. I have stuttered so much for so long. It was the cause of more embarrassment and humiliation than I can or want to describe or even remember. In school, it was the most hard. Then, when I got out of school, I stuttered in job interviews and it made it much harder to find a job, and, after I did, it made it harder to get promotions. I couldn’t afford expensive doctors or clinics. I was so depressed about it that I constantly searched the Internet to find solutions.
I loved Lee’s book It gave me belief that it was possible to beat stuttering. I saw his email address in his book and I emailed him. He replied and we started Skyping in January 2018. The Skype sessions helped so much. I worked hard to do what the book and he said. By mid-April, after ten Skype sessions, I had stopped stuttering. People who never heard me stutter don’t think I stutter now. It has been two months since anyone thought I was a stutterer. This has given me a new view of my life and my potential.
How did I do it? I read his book over and over and I read it aloud. I read everything aloud, and did my auto suggestions twice a day, before sleep and when I woke up and sometimes a bit during the day. I practiced using the crutches a lot. My favorites were jamming feared words into sounds and changing my voice modulation and I also try hard not to think about any word. After a while, I got so I could avoid any stutter or block. When I feel pressured, I talk less and I use the crutches more, but now I worry less about my speech and I don’t seem to need the crutches as much.
I used to worry about my speech almost all the time. Now, I don’t think about it much at all. I feel freedom that I have never felt before, and I just got a promotion at work and I’m sure that my improved speech had a lot to do with it.
I want to thank Lee for writing his wonderful book and for Skyping with me and I want to thank Speech Anxiety Anonymous for setting up a charity that gives away books and coaching help, because lots of us can’t afford doctors fees and there aren’t so many doctors where some of us live. Anyway, if you stutter, you owe to yourself to read Lee’s book and to go to SAA and ask for help. You’ll love them and you don’t really have to keep stuttering if you don’t want to.
DARVANO, Bahamas, June 2018
