I have been talking better lately and would like to share
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I have been talking better lately and would like to share I was a severe stutterer starting at about age 13 and lasting until recently (I'm 19). I'm the kind of stutterer that could talk perfect when alone, singing, etc. but talking to others was a train wreck. I've tried speech therapy and many techniques, all of which made no discernible difference. Now I've gotten to a point where, I'm still scared as hell to talk to people, but can now make it through a conversation. It's not that I've been practicing nonstop, but I've been doing this sort of “technique”. Here's what I've been doing: I first made the choice to never make repetitions or say “uh”. Even when trying to stop these things, they often came out on their own. I did this for a bit and I thought I began to speak a bit better. Next what I do now is put my mouth into the position of the first sound and then move my mouth into position of the second sound. I do this a few times and the word just seems to come out on its own. While doing this I practically ignore the vowel sound entirely and just focus on putting my mouth into the appropriate position to make the sound. For example, if I were blocking on the word "pencil" I would put my mouth into the position of the "p" sound. I would then put my mouth into the position of the "n" sound. There is no audible sound when doing this. Also there is no forceful airflow, like trying to squeeze a word out. I go back and forth between these two mouth positions and the word just seems to come out. At first I wasn't so sure that this was really working, but I did notice that speech took a lot less energy and, while I still stuttered, (mainly blocked) it was pretty easy to do. Overtime (within a few days) I started to notice that my speech was getting better. The more I did the combination of these two things the more that I felt that it helped me. I had some other contributing factors that probably helped, but I didn't notice any change until I started doing my “technique”. I'm not going to act like this is some kind of revelation to all stutterers but it sure helped me and I hope it can help a few others. If you want me to clarify on something or have a question, ask away. edit: added an example