My name is Imran, and I’ve been stuttering all my life. I can say that I have tried every kind of therapy there is, but after reading Lee’s book, I believe that stuttering is in my head. Finding Lee’s book, and then discovering World Stop Stuttering Association, was like a light at the end of the tunnel, the solution I was looking for.
It was on 2019 when I bought the Second Edition of “Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures”, and I devoured it. The way Lee explains his method, the Crutches, stuttering, everything… it made perfect sense to me. Some months later Lee released the Third Edition. This edition was almost twice as long! But he explained everything more clearly and in depth, and I think that the book alone helped me reduce my stutters by 50%! This was the real beginning of my battle against stuttering.
In July of that year Lee Lovett began to coach me. I felt really lucky. We spoke once a month, and that helped me learn how to use his method properly: the Crutches, the auto-suggestions, etc.
Some months later, in 2020, World Stop Stuttering Association was created. The video courses of Lee’s books, the possibility of seeing more than a thousand videos of coaching sessions, to have a support group and community of people with the same problem as I, and who share the same goal: to get rid of stuttering, was like a blessing to me, and help each other. Everything that WSSA has made, it is truly amazing.
In February I began to receive coaching from Javier, a PWSS from Spain and one of the coaches of WSSA. For some reason, I didn’t quite connect with him at the beginning. Probably because I wasn’t ready to use the Crutches in conversations. I feared that people will notice that there’s something different with my speech. I don’t know…
So, I decided to work on my speech on my own for a while, but I wasn’t progressing as much as I would have liked, so a couple of months later I started speaking with Javier again. It took me a while to realise that if I really wanted to stop stuttering I had to commit myself a lot more, and use the Crutches as much as I could.
Some months later I became a father. I think that this change in my life made me change my mindset and start using the Crutches more and more, and exaggerating them too. I learnt that since we are not used to speak using the Crutches, if we want to make sure that we are using them correctly, we have to exaggerate them. Otherwise we might not be using them correctly. And this was like a breakthrough for my speech, and I began to improve faster and faster.
Finally, now, in March of 2021, I have been able to avoid appearing speech disabled for at least a month. For the first time in my life, I have stopped speaking like a stutterer for more than a month! It has been a long journey, but it has been so much worth it.
I still have a few hiccups or bumps when I speak in some situations, but I know that this sometimes happens to severe stutterers, but I can get rid of them too. Javier himself told me that this used to happen to him too when he stopped stuttering, which means I can get there too. Now my next goals are to smooth my speech even more, until I become a great speaker, to get rid of the residual stuttering fears and to love to speak, no matter where or to whom. To achieve these goals I am going to start attending to the SAM meetings, and step by step get to enjoy public speaking. My plan is to be the speaker of one of these SAM meetings, probably in a few months, and share my story with all of you, just like many others have done already. If you want to hear me speak, go here: https://vimeo.com/521981064/271611c359.
So, if I have to give any advice to other PWS who want to stop stuttering, I’d tell them tp read Lee’s books, go to WSSA, take the video courses and attend to their weekly SAM meetings. The proof that this works is there. You’ll be amazed. You’ll realise that there are a lot of people who have stopped stuttering, so you can also do it. But you must be willing to do it. You will have to make it your number one priority, and work on it every single day, as much as possible. Are you willing to do that? If the answer is yes, then you will beat it. It’s just a matter of time, but you are going to do it!
IMRAN, Illinois, April 2021
