My name is Tim. I’m 28, was born in France and live in Singapore. I hold a Master’s degree in Computer Science and work in finance. I began stuttering at age 4 and I characterized my stutter problem as “mild” because I don’t stutter with some of my friends. I met with speech therapists when I was in middle school but it was of no help. One situation where it was obvious to everyone that I stuttered was when I had to talk in front of groups. I used to repeat words and blocked on most of sentences. For the past few years, I have been often asked to speak at tech conferences, and I would love to accept these invitations, but I rejected them all because I know that I would stutter on every sentence, making it a ghastly experience for me and everyone. So I began to look for help. I found a speech therapist 3 years ago, but it didn’t seem to be solving the problem; so I kept looking.
I found Lee’s book on Amazon and read it. It helped me immediately, especially the importance of not planning words and speaking with passion. One thing that really helped me was to read aloud at least 30 minutes per day and practice Crutches while reading. Auto-suggestions and self-hypnosis also helped me. I remember that after finishing the book, I had a Skype with my parents, and it was the first Skype with them where I did not stutter. They actually sent me an email right after to tell me that my speech greatly improved!
Lee gives him email address in his book and invites readers to contact him; so I did. We began Skype in late 2017. In the Skypes, we worked on the best ways to use the Crutches to eliminate my stutters. After about eight Skypes, I haven’t had any bad speech incidents in four or more weeks. So, I can say that I am self-cured, that is, my speech seems normal to others! Fears of stuttering still come and go, and I still use the Crutches regularly, but the fact is that I think much less about my speech now and others don’t think that I have speech disability, and that’s the most important thing to me.
My next step will be to work on public speaking. I plan to start with smaller groups and work my way up to larger ones. I actually gave a short tech talk in front of a small audience recently and it went well! A few people told me they enjoyed my talk and I was so happy! This would have been impossible a few months ago. I’ll keep Skyping with Lee until I am comfortable with speaking in front of larger groups. Lee’s book and his methods worked for me and I believe they can work for most who work at them. Later this year, I hope to coach others and help them self-cure. That’s the great idea about SAA, a charity where self-cured stutterers help others self-cure. Things change. You don’t have to keep stuttering, you CAN beat it, and I hope you’ll do it! Life is so much better and easier when your speech doesn’t mark you as disabled.
Tim from Singapore, February, 2018
