Avoidances

Paul4As

Does anybody on here have any stories to tell about situations they avoid or have avoided in the past due to stammering!!! Or peculiar things they do/did due to their stammering!!!
I have a whole rake of them gathered up from meeting loads of other stammerers!!!
Like someone who gave in a fake name to a laundrette when leaving in clothes as they couldn't say their own name!!!
Like someone who approached the bar in a pub with an empty bottle and points to it...then raises two fingers to signal they want two bottles of that particular drink instead of having to say "Can I have two bottles of ..... please"!!!
I also heard a story of someone who burried their family's cordless telephone in the back garden to avoid answering the phone when their parents went out!!!
Any stories folks???

Paul4As

Not so much an avoidance as such, but I know of a guy who used to talk more fluently whenever there was background noise!!!
One day in work a new member of staff rang him up looking for volunteers for overtime...he was up for a few hours extra work and so said yes...this new girl asked him his surname and he got stuck...what he did next was totally mad!!! He realised his car was just parked outside the window of his office...so he picked up his car keys and set of the car alarm...with the siren in the background out popped his second name!!!
Us stammerers are geniuses!!!

Charlie_Boswell

It may come as a shock to some people but not only stammerers avoid speaking (or other situations) Its funny to watch other people, My Direct boss is someone that most people would consider a good speaker, He can articulate his ideas and get his point across quite well. However he avoids dealing with difficult issues when it comes to dealing with certain people.

If I was to watch these situations "without sound" I'd say he is afraid of these people! his body language changes, he lowers his posture, his body is almost constantly pointed towards the door!

So why is this? Everybody finds some situations difficult to handle, Not only people who stammer.

What situations do you find difficult? and especially if you do not normally stammer? Why? what else holds you back?

Charlie

pog it

Definitely in work you cannot avoid difficult people and I as a recovered speech-problemer find that holding things back in general causes me stress (this applies to most people I reckons!!) but I do have the extra problem that this stress might go to my speech a little bit (rem I was saying before about being 99.9% good- stress is that other percent), so I generally have to deal with these people or situations directly!! As in, go talk to them, and say what's bothering me, etc. so that it is resolved. I can't leave it not sorted out.

One hilarious thing that happened to me in the past was to pre-record a reply for when I had to answer the phone.. This is years ago when I was in school and my problem was at its worst. Also- mobiles were just set to come in the next year! So I had the little tape-recorder, with a pre-recorded 'Hello' as I had a block with this little word, and say if someone else had answered the phone that was in the hallway, and it was for me, I had to hide the tape-recorder, and wait for the way to be clear, and then play the bit that said 'Hello'.
The setting up of this to get the right timing was a nightmare.

Then you have the day that I had accidentally slid over the button that sets the play to <<< a triple/fast speed of normal, and so when I pressed play, the hello was this crazy maniac speed LOL

Oh my God I can laugh at this now but I had to start coughing/wheezing and pretend my voice had been shaky!!!

Ah I have tonnes more of those kinds of stories lol

themucaro

Was staying in a friend's house in Sandyford after an Ireland v France rugby match, hopping on the nitelink pissed I realised I couldn't say "Sandyford" ("Sandyfffffffffff")so I pretended to be a lost French person, using an "ack-sent" for "zis place, sandy-uhhhh?"

bohsboy

Classic. I did the tape recorder thing too. Was a nightmare trying to rewind when the person at the other end of the line said "Pardon?"!