I work in London's financial sector and I've used vlogs and blogs to help overcome my fear of stuttering. On this channel I'll be documenting and sharing to hopefully help you tackle some of your insecurities.
If you like to nerd out on fitness, public speaking and general growth like me, feel free to follow my journey to see how I get along.
I am at the age (71 in 2024) that I enjoy sharing my own life experiences with younger people, in the hope that they may somehow benefit. I will take this opportunity now. I should first say - indeed, stress - that I have no formal education in medicine or psychology. I can only share what I have learned by my own experience and reading about stuttering. I should also say that my stuttering was especially severe and very resistant to treatment. I have stuttered since early childhood. During childhood and into my early 20’s, I was treated by several speech therapists. They used what was then called “behavioral modification”, which I believe was a rudimentary form of what is now called “cognitive behavioral therapy”. The therapy had no effect during childhood. It had some effect in my early 20’s, but was temporary. My stuttering became even more of an issue in my 30’s, because it was causing even greater difficulty for me, especially professionally. Because of my prior experiences, I believed that resuming speech therapy would be fruitless, so I decided to “be my own doctor”. I read widely and deeply, including medical journals, and learned that some physicians had found by accident or trial-and-error that certain medications helped some adult stutterers. I did not recognize any pattern as to which ones helped which people, but God intervened by giving me a primary care physician who agreed to prescribe whatever medications I requested. By trial-and-error, I found that a combination of some type of SSRI and a medication specifically designed to treat anxiety helped me a great deal. Regarding anxiety, buspirone works for some stutterers, but did not for me. Had Xanax been available, I would have then tried it. But it was not, so I tried Clorazepate. It has helped me a great deal; indeed “it changed my life”. But I do not recommend it, because of its side-effects; early on, Clorazepate had a sedative effect, and I once fell asleep while driving on an interstate at 70mph and was almost killed. I had a second traffic accident that could have ended badly, but did not. Clorazepate also slows down cognitive functioning among people my age, which is a very serious issue. Regarding an SSRI, Prozac worked. But what will work for some people may not for others. My guess would be to first try Prozac; if that does not work, try Zoloft. If that does not work, consider Paxil. But exercise caution with Paxil; it is the strongest SSRI that I know of. I later recognized that the many years of stuttering and associated experiences had caused me to have mental health problems. Those problems were unknowingly (by me) being alleviated by the SSRI and anti-anxiety meds. Consequently, I do not know to what degree the effect of those meds on my stuttering was direct or indirect. I wish I did. On the other hand, depending on your situation, this question may be irrelevant. It is my understanding that new research has found that two medications of a very different type may help, those are Olanzapine and Risperidone. Warning: people my age are recommended not to take Olanzapine. A type of medication very different from those I have discussed, Memantine, does help some stutterers. (This is consistent with recent medical research that suggests that blood flow within the brain may influence stuttering). Even at this time (2024), the FDA has not approved any medications for treatment of stuttering. Given my own experience and reading, I would say the following: • In the majority of cases, children who begin stuttering in early childhood, for reasons not fully understood by experts in this field, will permanently cease stuttering without any type of speech therapy. In my opinion, it depends in part on the parenting abilities of the parents, the degree to which they have educated themselves about raising children who stutter, overall conditions within the home, bullying at school, and the severity of the biological basis of the child’s stuttering. If your child’s stuttering does not improve and becomes a problem, I recommend speech therapy. But not just “speech therapy”, get speech therapy designed for stuttering. If that is not effective, I recommend further intervention of some type; perhaps family counseling or psychological counseling of the child that is focused on the “entire child”, not the stuttering. • Bullying during childhood is even more of a problem now than when I was a child, because of social media. Preteen and teenage girls can be especially hurtful, usually to other girls. I have read of social media dialogue so vicious that I was appalled; there have even been cases that ended with suicide by the child being bullied. (Yes, this is the society in which we now live). I recommend that you monitor your child’s online activity. • If a person has stuttered since childhood and still does by his early 20’s, and received lengthy cognitive behavioral therapy in both of those times, continuing that type of therapy alone is very unlikely to be fruitful. • If you have stuttered since childhood and still do by your early 20’s, you need to take responsibility for your life. It is YOU who has to identify what type of help you need, where to obtain that help, and how to pay for it. (Acquiring the help may entail additional health care insurance). • If a person has stuttered since childhood and still does by his early 20’s, the continued stuttering may have caused mental health disorders. Perhaps depression, PTSD, or some type of personality disorder regarding having normal relationships with other people. If so, he needs help from a psychologist or even a psychiatrist. In either case, try to find one who has patients who stutter. I recommend that the person seek that help NOW. The older he gets, the more emotional damage he will have incurred, and the more damage he will have done to his life. • Employment is a very important and very difficult issue. The “wisdom of Solomon” is needed here. My best advice is to begin by identifying occupations that are hiring sizeable numbers of people. Look as broadly geographically as is feasible for you. Then identify an aptitude you have that matches one of those occupations, and is an occupation in which the need for speaking is not as great as in other occupations. Then get twice as good at that type of work as non-stutterers. Also do extensive reading on how to get a job; dozens of books about this are widely available. • I will offer some free psychological help to a stutterer: (A) Accept yourself. As a person, you are probably no worse or better than the average person. Indeed, you may be better, in that you will have developed greater compassion for people than you have otherwise. (B) Step out of your comfort zone and make friends. (C) Find an activity in which you help other people in some way. (D) Exercise. If you do so by walking, I recommend using a treadmill or grass, because it places much less impact on your knees than pavement. This is advice from someone who “has been there”, and for a long time.
Man I get so self conscious when I've just made a mistake pronouncing something, it can, at least in my own mind, ruin a conversation in its' entirety so I can't imagine how much gumption it takes to live with a stutter, let alone speaking in front of a camera, and you do it so naturally. Kudos my brother.
Thanks my bro it wasn't always this way but years of overcoming the 'cringe' of listening to my own voice and filming myself. I'm going to be uploading some older videos so stay tuned for poor audio and video 😅
I also go through the same, we are much more stronger to deal with it. Watching this got me teary. Just few days back, a girl said no to me for marriage just coz i stammer.
Unfortunately it's pretty much practice and keep going. This was a common issue during covid as suddenly everyone could see their own face in gallery view as they stuttered. On the other hand I surprised myself as some blocks felt a lot longer in my head than how it sounded video. Experiment and see what happens
Hey Ruban , really nice video! I was wondering if I could help you enhance Editing in your videos which will make your video more interesting & engaging ?
MLK's I have a dream... Churchil'ls fight them on the beaches... Ruban Pillai. Great message man! I resonate so much especially about being protective- keep it up brother!
