The Why and the How of Voluntary Stuttering

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Re: How to get back on track

From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 11 Oct 2005
Time: 15:11:42 -0500
Remote Name: 165.155.160.137

Comments

Sophie, you ask fantastic questions that will surely benefit others. I hope you ask as many questions as you like. First of all I want to congratulate you for having the courage to use voluntary stuttering. You should be very proud of yourself. My best advice to you is to remember to be good to yourself. This means, try not beating yourself up when you slip into avoidance behaviors. You should remind yourself how brave you are for using voluntary stuttering and for facing stuttering. It is great that you want to be open about stuttering, but that is not going to happen overnight. You have taken some very brave steps and will learn to build on them. Slipping into avoidance behavior is a normal part of the process. For example, a few weeks ago I was talking with my girlfriend and I was trying to say some word that I felt I was going to stutter on. So I used a different word instead. While I very rarely do this anymore, every now and then I slip back into old avoidance patterns. Rather than beat myself up over this, I quickly explained what just happened to my girlfriend. Perhaps you may want to challenge yourself by using your recent avoidance behaviors to formulate new goals. You may wish to make some phone calls while using voluntary stuttering. Or next time you are in public, you may wish to challenge yourself to use noticeable voluntary stuttering. Above all else, be good to yourself. You deserve it.


Last changed: 10/24/05