I’m 18, and I have this issue of stuttering when I speak to people, such as doing a presentation, speaking to people in public, reading out loud in a class, and sometimes even to my own friends. But it only occurs on specific sounding words, mainly words that start with vowels. It’s like I try to say the word, but it gets stuck and I can’t say it out.
I saw someone describing this stuttering and it is very close to what I experience. “Would I be correct in believing the stutter you’re having is a block? As in you’re attempting to push air through but it’s stuck, like you’re holding your breath?”
I don’t stutter if I’m just reading to myself, or reading something when no ones there etc, it’s usually when i have to talk to people where vowel sounding words will get stuck and I cant say it, it also worsens the more nervous I am (etc presenting to a class). I rarely stutter when I speak to my parents or family.
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Has anyone else experience this? Is this just a problem of my social anxiety or is this something else?
Any advice would be appreciated
1 comment
Bro, I’m 31, had a stutter since 5ish (first time I can remember). Went to a few different speech therapists as a child. It’s been ups and downs. I don’t have that severe a stutter so most people don’t notice, but presentations was a problem for a while. Not to mention introducing myself while in a new class, waiting for my turn.
It’s more or less gone by now, but shows up from time to time, for some reason more when I speak English (never in Swedish, or German, 3rd language).
Anyway, some thoughts;
1. Try speaking on the exhale, that makes it impossible to stutter. Practice a bit at home.
2. Control your breathing. If you start stuttering it’s easy to stress about it, so deep, controlled breaths should help.
3. Mindset. You can let it control what you do, or you can say fuck that and make sure to win, every time. That presentation? That’s happening. Start by saying something like “As you know, I stutter a bit occasionally so this might take a few minutes longer, which you’ll just have to live with”. Discharging the whole tension you’ve undoubtedly built up. Personally I love speaking for an audience, rather ironic really. But that meant I had extra incentives to overcome this.
4. Tell your friends about it. Mine were great. They were curious and often asked, but always waited.
5. It may have to do with anxiety, but I read somewhere that they believe it to be caused by some nerve/synapse something. Anxiety can probably make it worse but it’s not the cause.
All in all I’d say breathing, try to discharge situations you find tense and be open about it. Generally I find that most people don’t care that it takes a little while longer.