My name is Taleb. I am 19 years old, and I am a college sophomore who attends Rider University majoring in Accounting and Human Resource management. I started stuttering when I was 12 years old. My stutters consisted mostly of blocks and repetitions. Stuttering made me very nervous to talk to others and made me very shy. Whenever I got nervous, I started stuttering. The crippling anxiety and feeling humiliated every time I got stuck on a word have been a constant in my life during all these years.
Then, while doing a Google search, a program that claimed to have helped many stutterers immediately caught my attention. I started reading all their Stopped Stuttering Stories, watched some of the video testimonials and decided to joined them (if all these people have been able to stop stuttering, there was no reason why I couldn’t do the same. So, I joined WSSA on December 30, 2021. The year 2022 would be the beginning of the end of my stuttering days. At first, I was very nervous at the Saturday SAM Meetings. There were both people who stopped stuttering and people who still stuttered. I also met the coaches and even Lee Lovett. The first time I did not turn on my camera, as I was very nervous. After this first meeting I felt so inspired by how well the PWSS spoke. Now I had no doubt that I could speak at least as good as them. Since then, I attended to as many of these meetings as possible, and began being a more active participant. Slowly but surely, I got used to speaking there and more comfortable with everyone. Now I always say something and contribute to the Saturday meetings. I have also attended to some of their daily practice sessions, and this has also been of immense help. We gather in small groups and practice everything we have learned in WSSA. We also help each other. One of the things I liked the most about WSSA is its very supportive community.
The book I read is “How to stop stuttering and love speaking”. Personally, the method that helped me the most was reading out loud. It reinforced the consistency of fluent speech. Now I also use mind training for other ideas besides stuttering. I am proud to be a PWSS now. Very soon I will be the one giving a speech at the SAM Meetings and share my journey to fluency.
Taleb, New Jersey, July 2024
