I live in Herzegovina, Bosnia, where I am a college student. My name is Harun, and I’m 23. I can’t remember when I first stuttered, but it’s always been a problem with strangers and even worse when public speaking. The first time that I remember it being horrifying was in high school. I was 15, and I had to make a presentation. It was gruesome. From then on, it seemed to get progressively worse. Bosnian is my first language, but I have always spoken English as well, but my stuttering is even worse in English.
It was early June this year, as best I recall, when I gave a presentation at my university, and I stuttered so badly that I was sick to my stomach. I felt like I couldn’t stand my speech anymore. I joined a stuttering group online of people mostly from Eastern Europe. Someone there mentioned Lee Lovett’s book. So, I bought it. I loved it. That was in June 2018. It’s December now, and I’ve read Lee’s book THREE times, and I get more from it every time. Lee’s email address was in the book and he invited readers to contact him, so I did. He replied immediately; I couldn’t believe it. Next I knew, we were Skyping weekly. Lee referred me to Speech Anxiety Anonymous website, which has many Success Stories about other PWS and the ways that they stopped stuttering. Anyway, I Skyped with Lee weekly. That was three months ago. In our Skypes, he explained the importance of reading aloud and being expressive when I read. He also stressed doing auto suggestions and playing a recording that I made doing them while I sleep. Then, of course, we drilled the Crutches endlessly.
When I first started using the Crutches, I was ashamed, ashamed that I needed to use such tricks just to speak. Now, I LOVE to use them. No one ever knows, and it’s great fun to bob and weave through stutters using the Crutches to dodge the blocks. I also read aloud by the hour every day, and I did two to three auto suggestion treatments, around 20 minutes each, every day. In fact, I still play my recording of my auto suggestions every night as I sleep. I have been doing this for a couple months now. It just keeps reinforcing my fluency thoughts.
At this point, I haven’t had a speech incident where I showed speech deformity in more than a month, and I don’t think about my speech much anymore. I am also doing class presentations and talking to strangers routinely with no problem. I can also say that I am confident that I can avoid any stutter or block anytime. This is huge for me.
What helped me the most? First Lee’s book; then reading aloud, then doing daily auto suggestion treatments and, of course, the Crutches. These are Lee’s “one-two-three punch” as he calls it in his book. It does knock stuttering out!
I am now forming a Public Speaking Club at my University as Lee urged me to do and I intend to keep speaking and to keep proving that “I truly love to speak” for the rest of my life. From stutterer to public speaker, not bad. If you want to hear me talk, my Success Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBtYjNk7HU.
I have a message for other PWS: Get Lee’s book and read it as many times as you can and get in contact with Lee. He loves helping PWS and he makes the process fun. Check out Speech Anxiety Anonymous website too and read the fascinating case histories of other PWS battles against stuttering. SAA has other PWSS (who stuttered and beat it) and you can talk to some of them too. I have. I know one other. Anyway, you will beat it IF YOU WORK VERY HARD AT IT. All that I can say is that you don’t have to stutter anymore. Lee broke the code as someone wrote. So, why should you suffer. There’s no point.
HARUN, Bosnia, December 2018
P.S. Six months after he posted the above Success Story, Harun explained that his speech has continued to improve. He has been successfully doing debates successfully. In this video, you can hear him speak. You can’t see him because he inserted my picture in his Skype window. Bummer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyU8VBNhT50
