Hello! My name is Nick and I have been stuttering since I was 5 years old. Right now I am 18, and I have achieved what I thought to be impossible: to stop stuttering.
My stutter manifested mainly in the form of blocks. My recovery process began a couple of months ago, when I decided to join the World Stop Stuttering Association. This journey began the moment I started reading Lee Lovett’s book, “How to Stop Stuttering & Love Speaking”.
What makes WSSA different from other programs is that they really understand stuttering. Their Stuttering Therapists are people who stopped stuttering and who have been trained by Lee Lovett (the ex-stutterer who created these methods) to master the Neuroscience Method to Stop Stuttering and therefore help other stutterers overcome their speech impediment. They have also created a community of PWS and PWSS, where we all support and help each other.
After I finished reading Lee’s book, my speech improved, and I felt much more confident and began believing in being able to finally stop stuttering. I decided to get the help of one of their Certified Stuttering Therapists.
I was assigned to Javier, a PWSS from Spain. In our first session he explained the routine that I had to follow every day and some speech tools to avoid more stuttering incidents. After that session I was very motivated. The session went very well and my speech was sounding much better already. The next few days were fantastic, full of fluency. Then, I had a horrible conversation, full of stutters and blocks. And after that it all went downhill. I felt so frustrated…
In my next session with Javier we discussed this, and the reason for this was that I did not carefully follow Javier’s instructions. So, from that moment, I decided do exactly was I was told, and in just 2 months I stopped stuttering.
It has now been over a month since I had my last embarrassing stuttering incident. It’s been such a long time that I can barely remember it. Still, I have peaks of anxiety, and sometimes I still worry if I will stutter again, or what others may think about me or my speech. But I know that I have the tools to stop appearing speech disabled. I have succeeded for a month, I can continue doing it for the rest of my life.
My next goals are to get rid of the residual stuttering fears, anxiety and insecurities and learn to love to speak in all situations. I know I can do it. Many have done it already, there is no reason why I can’t do it too. And if you are reading this and you stutter, the best advice I can give you is to join WSSA and their amazing community of ex-stutterers and those fast-becoming ex-stutterers.
Nick, Pennsylvania, October 2024
