This is what worked for me...

pog it

Hey everyone
I just came across this forum and wanted to post. I thought I'd tell you about my situation in case it can help or at least throw another perspective into improving their speech.

I lived with a speech problem until I was 23-three years ago- and it was a major problem for me when I was in school, as although I was able to hold a conversation with people cause I could choose the words, when it came to reading aloud in class where you couldn't change/skip over words as much, I was a wreck and to be honest it almost ruined my life. Like wise with phonecalls where I would have to introduce myself to the person I was speaking to..
Anyway, I was in a work situation after college where all day involved working with a big team of people and where you had to talk...as in, it was a job that attracted outgoing people who for the most part had done a lot of living and were very good communicators. You get what I mean..anyway I'm an outgoing and friendly person, but as time went on I was increasingly becoming paranoid about my speech with this pressure...and it got to a stage where I became really aware of how limited my fluency was compared to when I was just chatting with friends, etc. Anyway it got really bad for me, I didn't talk very much after a while, or well I was very careful about what I said to make sure it was all was fluent...and eventually I was in knots. It went on for about two solid months, day after day I preservered. Eventually I decided to take a trip away to Holland for a month to be by myself and relax...and when I came home, I was cured.
So, what I'm saying is, I didn't intentionally put pressure on myself but it turned out that it happened, and it got so bad that the release I finally got is what it took to cure me. That is, the relieving of the tension that had built up and it was seriously intense.

I'd love to know if something similar happened to anyone else, or would people who are still going through it...would you consider trying this method? I know how it feels, you would do anything to get rid of this problem. So I had to share my experience.

xx

SimpleSam06

pog it wrote: »

Eventually I decided to take a trip away to Holland for a month to be by myself and relax...and when I came home, I was cured.
So, what I'm saying is, I didn't intentionally put pressure on myself but it turned out that it happened, and it got so bad that the release I finally got is what it took to cure me. That is, the relieving of the tension that had built up and it was seriously intense.

But if you had taken a trip to Holland specifically just to cure the stammer, would it have gone away do you think? Or did you just completely forget about it immersed in the sights and sounds of a new culture? The tension was the symptom, in my humble opinion, the cure was learning how to forget about it.

Stephen P

pog it wrote: »

....Eventually I decided to take a trip away to Holland for a month to be by myself and relax...and when I came home, I was cured.

I've never really heard of anyone who has completely been cured. It's an interesting story. Do you stutter at all now? Even now and again?

Charlie_Boswell

I hear the women in Holland can have that affect on a man.:D

especially if you have more than one at a time!!:eek:

pog it

Hey Stephen P: yes I do, but it is very very occasional and only happens when I get unbearably excited about what I'm talking about and I let my mind race! Of course it has been gradually progressing too, in that I get better at talking all the time, like I have only been fluent for three years after all and I'm just getting a really true natural power of speech more recently.

And no I don't think that going anywhere be it Holland or wherever with the intentions of curing your problem would work! What I'm saying is that being under serious tension and pressure with it, and especially Suppressing it..well that came to a peak and the ultimate release was getting away from it. And while in Holland I never thought about it either.. it was when I came back that I had changed and so had this control over my speech.

My point was that it worked! I really have to recommend doing this to yourself on purpose (I never would have imagined trying it even!). Get a job where you are constantly feeling like you must talk, where you will have to suppress what you're saying cause you've imposed this 'rule' on yourself where you just speak when you know you are going to sound fluent...not when you're trying to tell yourself you will be fluent... and the suppression is what will do it...Also i should think it would need to be strangers you are working with and who don't know you have the problem. Possibly.

There is no easy cure.