My name is Maria; I’m 25, and I’m a financial analyst in Poland. My English needs work, but I wrote this myself anyway.
I have stuttered almost my whole life, from the age of 2/3 years old. Despite that, I had a quite happy childhood and was unaware of the innocent habit of repeating. It was until I was 8 years old when at school I was called to read out loud a passage from a book. I was very happy about that because I was often praised, how good a reader I was. While I was reading, it was going smoothly, until I blocked on a word. I just couldn’t get out with it and it took few seconds. I finally made it and wanted to continue, but the teacher, startled and puzzled, said I had to “rest” and asked someone else to go on reading. This was the first time I thought, that there is something wrong with the way I talk, that there must be a secret that others for some reason keep from me.
I became a covert stutterer, i. e. I hid my problem as much as possible, which oftentimes meant avoidance, silence. For instance, even though I always cared about my school performance and wanted to have good grades, I missed so many literature classes (to not be exposed to the constant stress of having to talk in front of the class and teacher), that I barely avoided repeating one year of school.
What I hated the most about stuttering, was how unpredictable it was. Why sometimes I could freely talk to some people, and on other occasions, I would barely get my words out? I cried a river of tears, caused by anxiety, humiliation and physical and emotional exhaustion from stuttering.
I tried many speech therapies throughout my life, from a very early age, but, at best, it helped me only inside of speech therapy sessions. No wonder – the therapists had never stuttered themselves and didn’t know anyone who cured of stuttering. They did their best, but they couldn’t understand the problem.
Years passed and it was in 2020 when after few months of intense stress related to new tasks at work and living in a new city, followed by vacation abroad (and having to speak Spanish all the time, which had always aggravated my stutter), made my speech the worst in my life. At that point I struggled with almost every word, in any language, to any person.
It was when I thought, that I had no choice other than to keep searching for a speech therapy until I find the one that would help me. Somehow, thank heavens, I found Lee’s book.
As I was reading it, it was becoming clear, that I finally found someone, who understands the problem. I started to apply pieces of advice and felt immediate improvement – initially mainly thanks to using full pauses.
Since I incorporated reading aloud, mind training and learning crutches into my daily routine, I was able to prolong periods of fluency (i.e. no bad incidents). The side effect of mind training, was that it significantly improved my quality of life and relations with people. I became more comfortable with myself. My life was improving fast.
In the past I would have several bad incidents a day, now it’s been more than a month since I had one! I’ve never had in my life that much control over my speech as in the past 7 months.
With Lee Lovett’s method, there comes not only a book, a vast library of coaching session’s videos and plethora of materials that help to get the most out of the method. There is also a priceless community of ex-stutterers and stutterers who are working hard to become fluent. With such wonderful support group, the whole process becomes much easier. All of us help each other. We even practice together sometimes.
I am eternally grateful to Coach Lee Lovett that he decided to share his discoveries with the world and for creating such a community of people who stopped stuttering. I am grateful also for coaching sessions that he gave me, they enabled me to understand the Lovett method better and to make progress week after week.
In my opinion, Lee Lovett’s method should become a worldwide gold standard in curing stuttering. My life is a testimony, that CURING is possible! You simply have to dedicate to it and work diligently on your speech. I hope that you will.
MARIA, Poland, August 2021
