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I am a stutterer and this is my story Hello everyone. First of all, excuse me if you see any grammar mistakes, since English is not my first language. I'll do my best. I have been a stutterer since I was a kid, I was born a stutterer. At first, I didn't think it was a problem or that I was different from the other kids. Until high school, I didn't think of it as a problem, because back then my stuttering wasn't so severe, and during those days I was pretty good at using "tricks" to hide it. Stuttering is a really strange condition, because I don't recall anytime during high school when I purposely skipped reading in front of class because of my stuttering or anything like that, on the contrary, I always talked during class, gave my opinion and participated a lot in class. It was until about 19 years old when my tricks weren't working anymore, and I struggled to say something or complete sentences. I started to feel little by little the necessity to really tense my chest or my face in order to get words out. After that, I moved to Canada and I suddenly had to change my language at school to English, and it somewhat felt that I didn't stutter that much in English, and I was relieved. But soon after that, again I started to have difficulty in both languages. I must say that I have always been a very friendly and outgoing person, I love meeting new people, and am very social, and I have never let stuttering interfere with that. Even though I consider my stuttering to be a solid 6/10, I have had very good luck to meet really nice people that don't judge me because of my condition. I went through college and made a lot of friends, and most of them don't even know that I stutter because I am really good at hiding it, and I even worked for a company for a year, where I had to constantly talked with customers on the phone (yeah I know, we all dread the phone), and once you feel confident in yourself it's all a matter of knowing to say the right words. I also have had a girlfriend for 5 years and she is the most supportive person I know, and she doesn't even mind at all. I have been really frustrated during most of my life, and I have sometimes really hit bottom because I sometimes feel like I am useless and there is not much I can do to help it, but trust me, it is not as bad as it seems. All I can say to all the stutterers in here, IT IS NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS. I know how you all feel, I have felt it my entire life, I have blamed my parents for making me the way I am, I have blamed everything, but there is nothing to do but accept the fact that this cannot be changed and we have to be happy with who we are, and not let this condition stop us from doing what we love. We are not retarded, we are not slow, we just cannot communicate the same way that others do, with the same fluency, but we have a voice that we can use, even if it takes longer than normal, we can communicate and transmit a message. I hope this gives all of you a little bit of comfort, and remember, I perfectly understand your frustrations, but it is not as bad as it seems.