commentr/StutterJune 4, 2024

Content

I've had a stammer for pretty much all my life. I'm 38 now. For me, I think I stutter because my mind is jumping ahead of what I'm saying and my mouth is trying to catch up. My absolute first thing I will ask you is to do is to go to your doctor and get anti-anxiety medication. I only started taking medication when I was 26, and I honestly wish I had taken it earlier. The medication boosted my confidence.. I've had a good few jobs, as a catering assistant, retail assistant and working in IT. Very "talky" jobs. I honestly just gave up caring what people think of me and I know that my stammer is kind of part of me now. When I was in school, it's definitely different to being an adult and it wasn't actually too bad for me. I was made fun of, laughed at, etc. But I didn't care. That's really a reflection on them, not me. Look at Joe Biden, people have different views about him, but he's the President of the USA and he had a stammer as a kid. What job can you get? The President, that's what. The medication alone will not 100% help, and you will need to consistency push what you think are your limits. I went back to education in 2014 and I had to do a presentation at the end of the year and I was absolutely shitting a brick. But during the presentation, I came across as being confident on the outside. My tutor didn't notice that I was nervous until the very end when my hand began to shake. Regarding jobs, your employer will hire you based on what you can do not on your stammer, same with a girlfriend, they will love every single part of you, stammer and all. "Now that I just graduated I realize that life is only gonna get worse for me now that I’m an adult and can’t even talk." This is how I thought, but in your 20s, you'll "mellow" out and "mellow" out further in your 30s. I don't know how else to describe it. You'll just start to care less and less and work on yourself, and realise that you are you, and you can only do so much to change your stammer, but one day, you'll be able to mentally analyse it and just wonder why you cared so much. Jessie Davies has a stammer, but she films herself going through drive throughs and doing things that she "cannot do" because of her stammer. She even appeared on a morning talk show: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMJRSNICt20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMJRSNICt20) . She can do anything, literally, even with her stammer. You can literally do anything you want to do, stammer or no stammer. Adults don't joke around with stammers as much as kids do. F\*ck what people think. They're going to have an opinion of you no matter what you do, so you might as well be a unicorn, uh. Ok, maybe not a unicorn, but you can be you. No one expects anything more or less from you than you being you.

Themes

Anticipation & AvoidanceEmotional ExperienceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Anticipating StutteringAvoidance & SubstitutionAnxiety & Social JudgmentHope & MotivationAcceptance & Pride

Codes (2)

ordering_service_encounterssris_snris_antidepressants