The best and worst things about stuttering

The best thing about stuttering is that you can learn to speak again with fluency. The worst thing about stuttering is that people may tease you or laugh at you.

A bird with broken wings

Stuttering can be a horrendous experience. It's as if you are robbed of your voice and silenced forever. You feel as though you are alienated from others at social functions and feel completely alone. Even when you have something valuable to say or want to put forward your own opinion about a particular matter, this insidious disease prevents you from fully expressing yourself.

Sometimes you feel like you are a bird with broken wings. You want to spread your wings and fly but it’s a constant struggle to get up when you’re down.

Surviving as a Stutterer

I am a stutterer. It's not a very common condition, and more boys are prone to it than girls. Let me tell you that stuttering is not an easy condition, it leaves you nervous and scared. Oral talks are a real thing to shake about, you stand there praying that you won't make an idiot out of yourself, and that is very hard. I am going to tell you how I survived as a stutterer. Here is my story.

It's not an easy thing, being a stutterer. It involves being laughed at, trying to maintain control of your speech, and yes, even resisting the urge to have a good cry on extreme occasions when I have completely screwed up in an oral presentation, and after that having people mimic your speech. Having people tease you about something that you can't help is absolutely awful. You feel like isolating yourself from the rest of the world for the day. Another bad thing is you trying to talk to someone, but you just can't get the words out. This is called blocking. Most people will just get sick of waiting for you to talk, walk away and say "yeah whatever", or just stand there, put on a fake smile and nod their head.


Usually in the past I would just try and end the conversation as quickly as possible, or pretend that I had forgotten what I was going to say. For example I would say: "What's that again?" or just a plain "I can't remember". Doing this was horrible. First of all, it made you look like an idiot to the people that you were talking to because you seemed to forget everything that you wanted to say. Secondly, if you really wanted to say something, you wouldn't be able to get it out! Now I don't have to do this any more. Why? I am going to tell you.

The reason I don't have to end conversations quickly anymore is because of a seriously bad bout of stuttering in Year 7. It was terrible. Sometimes I would really want to ask a question in class, and I couldn't, because I was too scared of embarrassing myself in front of the class. This caused a lot of stress, not just for me but for my parents too. It drove them nuts. So my Mum looked in the phone book and found out that there was going to be an intensive speech therapy course on in a few months. I was anxious. I was thinking could this really fix my stuttering? Will the problem that has caused so much stress ever be gone? The weeks seemed to drag by.

Finally the day came. I felt so relieved. Dad took me there. There I was, in a room full of strangers. They were all children, but they didn't feel like strangers. For the first time in my life I was among people who had the same problem as me. I felt safe. It was wonderful. That night I couldn't believe it. It felt like a dream and I had an emotional outburst. I cried and sobbed. I felt an immense hunger to get it right.


So the program started. My speech pathologists, Santiago and Lynn who were in their final year of studying to become speech pathologists, had me speaking at sixty syllables per minute and that is slow. During the process I made two great friends, Rick and Michael. My speed moved up, and I made great progress.

The course also included activities such as having to talk to strangers, ask them the time etc. A real highlight of the week was going to Northlands Shopping Centre with my two speech pathologists. I had to do activities like order food for people, just to make sure that I was ok talking in public.

Now I can have a normal conversation without stuttering, but I have to remember the techniques I learnt from La Trobe, they are: gentle onsets (starting the word with a gentle soft start), linking the words together (continuing to speak without gaps in between words), sliding in (dipping in with the sound of the start of the word), stretching out the vowels (stretching the vowels a, e, i, o, u, out to make the word more clear) and keeping the sound of the speech natural.


This is the story of how I survived with my stuttering. Everyday is still a challenge. Everyday I still have to try hard at my speaking techniques. I can still stutter. It will never go away. I am still vulnerable to scary speaking situations. But I know how to control it. It will never again control me.

The worst thing about stuttering

The worst thing about stuttering is getting teased. I get teased about it, but all you have to do is ignore them. Tell someone or tell them to stop if you get called stupid, dumb or retarded. You're not, because you're good at other things like sport, maths, etc.

If you think you can’t stop your stuttering, you can- all you have to do is go to a Speech Therapist and they will help you. If you want to ask someone about a clinic ask your doctor. Don’t worry if you stutter, you’re still good and perfect as God made you.

For My Son

I love you darling.
We communicate with speech but sometimes it can be out of your reach.
You get frustrated and upset.
I know it sometimes makes you sad.
We have achieved a lot in Speech Therapy to try.
I will always support you and never let a day go by.
You are an achiever and I’m so proud of you.
You gave it everything and more, in my eyes you have a 100% score.
Don’t ever let yourself down.
Don’t ever wear a frown.
You did an excellent job.
You should be wearing a crown.