I am Dhananjay from India and I am 22 years old. I have been stuttering since the age of 6 to 60% of the words. At that time my stuttering was not significant but with time my stuttering became prominent which felt worse. As I grew up I started to face a plethora of embarrassments and humiliations because of my stutter which pushed me to depression. I was too afraid and hesitant to talk about this even with my parents and somehow I managed to hide my stuttering which means that I spoke less and I was not being myself, in fact I never spoke to girls during my graduation because of the fear of stuttering. Just because of the stuttering I cornered myself so much that I used to talk very less, missed on so many opportunities, all of this affected me so much throughout my life but still I kept a positive mind-set that I will beat stuttering and one day I will be a fluent person.
Now that I am graduated, I want to pursue MBA but the thought of stuttering bothered me so much because stuttering was my biggest fear. And this fear held me back from so many things in life that I can’t even imagine. So one day I decided that I am going to eliminate my stuttering forever .This mental anguish and the battle between the mind and heart was too much to bear because my heart wanted to cure stuttering but my mind kept knocking my head saying “Bro there is no cure for stuttering”. In 2014 when I browsed for a cure, Google disappointed me with answers like “THERE IS NO CURE FOR STUTTERING”. I was broken but I never accepted stuttering because sometimes I was completely fluent but sometimes I wasn’t and I found this confusing. So I kept searching for a solution. In 2016, I started to search again for treatments, therapies and solutions on the internet. After couple of days I discovered a book called “Stuttering and Anxiety Self Cures” by Lee Lovett (Author). I also watched his videos on YouTube and realised that lee’s methods are really unique and have the potential to help me overcome my fears and stutter. Then I read his book and mailed him telling about my experiences. After that in response Lee assigned Prathusha to coach me.
I started the live coaching sessions with Prathusha weekly from the month of October 2020. After every session she assigns me weekly homework which includes reading aloud every day and doing auto suggestions treatments daily and using the crutches in all situations. Her teaching methods are very effective and she explained everything in detail and in simple terms to me, due to which I was able to overcome my stutter after couple of sessions. I started to see major improvements in my speech in the next week just after the first session and after two more coaching sessions my speech was almost fluent. In the fourth week Prathusha declared me as a PWSS because I no longer stutter. Now I don’t think of stuttering anymore and my speaking style has also improved because I keep following lee’s methods and what Prathusha has taught me.
I would like to thank Lee for writing such an extraordinary book about stuttering and would also like to thank Prathusha for the time and efforts she put in to help me with my speech because for me, speech is my life and thank you for changing my life and helping me to become a better version of myself.
Last but not the least I would like to thank WSSA for providing such a fluent platform. The video lessons and library has truly changed my life. I have just crossed the first milestone which is overcoming stuttering but the course is not complete yet because now that I have become a PWSS, I need to focus on the next goal which is loving to talk in all the venues and I believe that SAM speech-club meetings offer a great platform to experiment it.
JAY, Maharashtra, INDIA, November 2020
