Stutter

Like my braces, it’s probably something I notice more than other people do, but I always feel like my stutter is in the way.

It’s really comes out when I’m nervous, or excited, or talking quickly, or a combination of the three. But it really annoys me.

For example; I will be trying to tell a friend something important or exciting, and I can’t even get the first sentence out.  I always feel like I’m stood there for an age, stumbling and stuttering over a few meagre words, whilst the person to whom I am talking waits for me to make sense.

Or sometimes, it's not the stutter, but the order of my words. I've mixed them up a fair few times before. For example. I've said 'good quite' instead of 'quite good' several times, and today I said 'in his own on the corner'. I'm almost certain no one heard me, or at least people were nice enough not to comment on my mix up. But I noticed it, and I ended up getting a little angry at myself. Why is it that I can't manage to say my sentences properly when the people surrounding me have no trouble at all?

I know a lot of people have to deal with far worse, but I feel as though I’m the only one; I don’t know anyone who has real stutter. I mean, we all trip over our words every now and then, but no one has a proper, ‘diagnosed’ stutter.

As a child, I was taken to speech therapy sessions to try and improve my stutter. As I was three years old, I don’t remember this, but it clearly didn’t work. Or not for very long anyway.

As I’ve grown older, I think my impediment has grown more pronounced… maybe as I have grown bigger, it has too?

I think my biggest problem with my stutter is how it affects my day to day life; it’s not just when I’m nervous, although it does spike up in such situations. As I said before, I am aware people have to deal with far worse constantly, but it’s hard trying to talk to someone, just chatting, and having to restart what I’m trying to say.

It often leaves me dreading the next time I have to speak where my stutter is likely to make itself heard, and I almost always come away embarrassed over the fact it took me a while to say whatever it was I wanted to say.

I know it isn’t as noticeable to other people as it is to myself, but when I first noticed it, I couldn’t stop. It’s one of those things. I just hope that as I get older, my stutter doesn’t get worse. I feel that something like this, if worsened, could really affect me in all sorts of ways. And, I’m not going to lie, that worries me a little.

But I suppose it makes me individual. So that’s an upside I guess.