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MY hypothesis on MY stuttering Before I get to what I think, i feel like some background is necessary. I'm not a long-time stutterer; in fact, I only became aware of my stutter late last year. Eversince, I've been dying to find some sort of cure. I started looking online and came across information that can be classified into two: 1. stuff that helps you hide your stutter, exercises that changes the way you speak: modification, shaping, whatever. 2. stuff that helps you deal with stuttering emotionally, learning to accept, etc. As stubborn as I sound, I ignored everything I found for 2 since I'm the type of person that doesn't give up easily, especially(certainly) not to stuttering--the thing that could put my envisioned future at risk(there are also other factors like parental pressure etc.) To make things worse, the things I found for 1 didn't help me at all either. Everytime I saw a possible "cure," I would simply try it out at school the next day to see if it works. Disappointedly, none did. So, after depleting every internet resource I could find, I realized that it's now a personal battle. I started coming up with numerous hypotheses on why I stutter and applied them in public. However, It again got to the point where nothing worked and I really began to lose hope. Until a few days ago. The main difference between me and long-time stutters is that I remember a time when I never stuttered. I remember having casual conversations with friends. I remember not having to think about what I have to say before saying it. In addition, my stutter didn't just appear overnight; I'm very certain that it happened through a gradual process. Indeed, during 7th grade, I went through a personality change. Instead of being the open and talkative person I was, I became self-concious and timid. As an english learner at the time(still am), I began to hold back anything I wanted to say because I worried too much about it, e.g. grammar, how it sounds, word choice, etc. In short, this continued for 3 years and here I am, a stutterer. So why was that worth mentioning? because I remember how to talk normally and how it transcended into this. I've found the root of the problem and possibly a way to fix it: speak more confidently,be more spontaneous, and don't think about what you have to say, especially anything that has to do with your stutter. Example of what not to do: http://imgur.com/57twZ49. lol I believe thinking about stuttering when you're about to say something triggers some sort of "side effect" in your mind. For me it's this weird headache that I get either after I stutter or become nervous. The worst part is as long as the headache is there I'm more likely to stutter. Well guess what, after adapting to my new hypothesis on my stuttering the headache seems to be gone! EDIT: [Here's a bad analogy I feel is best to describes the process of speech and how the hypothesis applies: Consider a mountain, one which I have to climb in order to speak. If I stutter, then I have to start at the very bottom and work my way up by overcoming obstacles. If I'm fluent, I get magically teleported to the top without any trouble. Now if you are spontaneous about it, then you get teleported halfway and you climb is shorten, you are half way to the top. As you keep being spontaneous, the starting point of your climb gets closer and closer to the top, until you are able to teleport yourself to the top everytime.] Based on my experience, I guess one could characterize the cause of my stuttering as a mixture of persistent habits due to psychological issues. Therefore, I believe it possible to reverse that by getting rid of the habit. END PS: I wish I could elaborate on the part where I said don't think about what you have to say, there's more things I'd like to add to that, but that's all the time I have for today. NOTICE that throughout this post I emphasized on the word "my", meaning that I'm aware of the fact that stuttering(a broad word in a way) is different for everyone. Personally I'm a blocker. Sorry for my bad english, which I hypothesize to be a result of the lack of familiarity on the language due to always holding back. If you didn't get anything out of this post(I'm not surprised), then consider the following book: "Speech is a River" by Ruth Mead. It's definitely worth reading and I promise you it's different. The book actually inspired me to keep coming up with my own hypotheses about stuttering; the current one happens to be very similar to the author's claim. For those who have read the book tell me what you think of it. It had a huge impact on me as it gave me hope.