My name is Saniya, I am a 21-year-old college student, and I’m pursuing my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. I began stuttering at the age of three and have had many stuttering incidents since then.
I’m a situational stutterer, and I grew up very confused wondering why I was stuttering in some occasions and why I didn’t in other occasions. I had always avoided a lot of situations because of stuttering and when I was in high school, things were getting really difficult as there were situations in which I couldn’t avoid like standing up and reading in class, taking part in group discussions, I even started avoiding hanging out with friends as my confidence became very low. Stuttering took a serious toll on my mental health. To make matters worse, my two younger sisters also stuttered, both even worse than I did.
I was always sure of one fact that when we are truly passionate about what we are saying and happy and, in the moment, and not thinking about the past or present, we will not stutter! My youngest sister somehow found out about coach Lee and his books that told how to stop stuttering. Coach Lee’s book made more sure of that stuttering could be stopped. When I read coach Lee’s book, I started being more passionate about my message when I spoke.
Since then when I spoke and my stuttering was zero while I was speaking in a passionate way . Hence I decided to do something about it. My sister who became a PWSS, after reading Coach Lee’s book and Skyping with him a while ago told me about Coach Lee and I decided to go for it!
So I started reading his book and after finishing the book, I started reading aloud and doing my autosuggestions but I wasn’t sure how to apply crutches, and hence I noticed only a slight change in my stuttering which wasn’t enough for it to be considered as “non -disabled speech”, that’s when I decided to take sessions with Coach Prathusha (who had become a PWSS and Coach, after stopping stuttering by using Lee’s book and methods). That’s when things started to change!
I was actually surprised by the way she taught me how to use the crutches. Before my coaching sessions with her, I was using the crutches wrongly. I started using the crutches the way Coach Prathusha asked me to use and it made all the difference! she taught me to use half of the crutches as a style of speech (C-7 to C- 12) which really helped me
Before reading lee’s book , my way to stop stuttering was try to be more passionate but its not possible to always be passionate 24/7 and that’s where the crutch came handy . It helped me to dodge the situation and just avoid a bad stuttering memory. Even though I don’t stutter now I still do my AST, reading aloud, and use crutches daily.
I’m very grateful to SAC (which just became WSSA) and Coach Lee. Lee Lovett’s book is an amazing life changing book which taught me so much. I would like to thank Coach Prathusha for coaching me in such a sweet manner and being there whenever I need an extra session. The way she coached and explained things were very gentle and very pleasant and helped me a great deal. I can’t thank her enough. She’s the reason I don’t stutter anymore and confident with my speech. If you want to stop stuttering, you can do it. The easiest way is to join WSSA, which just took over SAC. They have a million ways to help you understand Coach Lee’s methods better, and you can get some coaching there too. You can find it here: www.worldstopstuttering.org.
Saniya, March 2022
