r/Stutter

I’m a 50 yr old man who has stuttered since grade school. Yesterday I had a give a presentation in front of one of our big clients. It went as well as it could have, I stammered a bit, but got thru it and that’s a big win for me. My Creative Director sent me a message afterwards saying how great it went, so that’s a win 👍

hello. im about to go into my freshmen year at my high school does anyone have any tips or things to watch out for?

I was wondering, do you know someone who works in police with stuttering or someone of you are working in police? i wanted to work in police but i wonder if my stuttering will be in the way to achieve that and if they would take me with stutter.

There are many types of stuttering and causes for it so this wont apply to everyone.

I’m 21. My whole life everyone has told me that there is something wrong with the way I say words or the regions in my brain responsible for communication. I had speech therapy in school from a very young age and this engrained that idea in me. For years, it was no question that the cause of my stuttering was simply a flaw of my physical body/brain and the best I could do was use speech therapy to find ways to make it easier.

It started with repetitions and elongations and eventually turned into purely blocking. I became a max prestige covert stutterer and the true severity of it has become hidden by the fact that I avoid speaking entirely when I am uncertain and have an arsenal of handicaps like switching words out and playing it off. The staying quiet in groups, choosing not to order, not making phone calls, all of
this leads to most people not even knowing I stutter and having no idea of the level of engineering I do everyday to make it seem like I don’t stutter much at all. Underneath is an entire life organized around avoiding speech.

Like most people who deal with this daily torture, i’ve tried to learn as much as possible about it and find any possible causes I might not know about. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of dopamine levels being a big variable, Using alcohol to help, avoiding social situations when hung over, even dopamine detoxing to try to make it better. This all helped and made real changes, but not for the reasons I thought

This whole time I’ve been under the impression that there is something wrong with me on a physical level, but the reality is that this entire hellish loop of anxiety and shame and stuttering every single day stemmed from negative childhood experiences. I was a very sensitive kid (I bet that many of you were too) and because kids’ brains are so malleable, one little bad experience can cause a hardwired trauma response that carries on into adulthood with the source being forgotten. Long story short, I had grown up in an environment where I felt as if speaking was unsafe with certain people. The stuttering itself was NEVER the source, but a symptom. My body installed a defense mechanism: “disconnect from the voice, monitor all social situations for threats, and freeze the entire vocal system when a threat is detected.” Normal people think about what they want to say and make the choice to say the word, but from then on it is automatic and flows perfectly. For us, we make the choice and there is this extra step/hurdle where we are hesitating and monitoring ourselves even after we already made the choice to speak. This may have worked well when I was little and kept me “safe” but it has no place in adult life. I’m always monitoring, always playing conversations in my head before they happen, always anticipating blocks and as soon as the doubt and fear comes in my nervous system shuts down because it feels as if it is unsafe to speak.

And the interesting thing is that the evidence for this has always been right in front of me. I don’t stutter when I’m alone (no threat monitoring so no nervous system shutdown), I don’t stutter when I sing or act or put on an accent (This isnt technically me, it’s a character so threat monitoring not needed), alcohol helps and anxiety makes it worse (dampened threat monitoring versus enhanced threat monitoring), etc. The first one, being alone, should be the most obvious sign that this stutter is something deeper. If I can speak FLAWLESSLY alone then there is nothing wrong with my mouth, my larynx, my speaking part of the brain; It’s something else.

The reason this whole realization came to me? Was through an experience where the threat monitoring and childhood trauma response was temporarily shut off. I want to preface that I am not encouraging drug use but just want to explain my experience. I recently tried MDMA with my friends and it genuinely opened my eyes to what has been really going on this entire time. At some point after taking it I felt a “shift”, and this shift took me out of my over analyzing head and put me purely in the present with no threat monitoring trauma response whatsoever. The few hours this lasted I was completely fluent. No matter the situation. Talking to everyone for hours flawlessly with a perfect connection between my brain and mouth. Being the center of attention and telling stories with no effort. Calling people on the phone with no problem. No anxiety, no shame, no fear, no anticipation. I for the first time in years felt how it feels for normal people to speak to others. It almost felt like undoing some type of disassociation.

The experience made me realize that I genuinely don’t have to live like this. I am capable of speaking normally. I am capable of living without this crippling fear. I’m not cured from taking a drug one time. These years of repeating the same trauma induced speaking habits will take work to undo. But the amazing thing is that I now know what I need to do to genuinely improve. It reinforces why some of the popular methods for getting over a stutter work. By forcing yourself into hard situations you weaken the threat detection habits and things feel less and less scary. By reading out loud to yourself consistently you tell your brain that the fluent state is real, not the social disfluency.

The path forward is not speech therapy for me. Traditional speech therapy would be like teaching me fancy techniques for getting through a locked door when the real issue is that someone keeps locking it. The path forward is convincing my nervous system that the door doesn’t need to be locked anymore.

And this is the part that genuinely frustrates me. There are so many people out there who stutter exactly like I do. same patterns, same situational fluency, same evidence staring them in the face - and they’ve been told their whole lives that this is just how their brain works. That it’s a neurological condition they manage, not something they can actually resolve. The professional consensus is literally “stuttering is something you manage, not something you cure” and most people accept that as a life sentence without ever questioning it.

If you stutter and you can speak perfectly fine alone, that should be the biggest red flag that this is might not be a mouth problem. That’s not always how speech disorders work. A real vocal or motor issue doesn’t magically fix itself because no one is listening. The fact that it changes based on the situation IS the diagnosis and it’s pointing directly at your nervous system, not your vocal cords.

I’m not saying this applies to every single person who stutters. There are different types and different causes. But if your experience looks anything like mine, please at least consider that the thing you’ve been fighting all these years might not be what you were told it was. The stutter might just be the smoke and the fire is something deeper inside.

I hope this makes sense to some of you and again I am not encouraging the use of drugs and I am not advertising this as a cure. I am simply telling you all my experience. Thank you

In my country, when asked about the cause of stuttering, parents often reply, "A dog scared you." In the stuttering community, this is kind of a meme, because almost everyone who stutters has heard it. What do parents say in your country?

A lot has changed since my last post on Reddit... I uhh, I discovered something that was kept secret from me for a long time.

And I'll share it with you, and fortunately atleast my message will reach 1 person who may get it.
Now before I say this, I want to make a big disclaimer. I'm not claiming that this will quote on quote "fix" your life, but it will hopefully put in some perspective.

I have come to fully believe that Happiness is a choice. It's a choice we must actively choose every moment that we can. And I know this might sound like "cope" or just "wishful thinking".
But if you look at it from a more philosophical perspective It starts to make sense.

Humans are animals... we are not special, we are not better, we are not anything... we just "are".
The difference between Us, and an Ant is physiological (obviously). but on a metaphysical level i beleive there is no "difference" on the hierarchy. Our worth is just as much as theirs.

I'm not trying to push any weird spiritual stuff on you guys, I'm actually not spiritual at all, I'm not Religious at all. I think that Humans are largely wrong about the reality around them. I think that our minds are limited to our biology, therefore making truth claims on things such as religion makes little sense to me. It's like putting the cart before the horse.

If you can change the "vibes" you can change the logic. Imagine being on a beach listening to some of your favorite songs in a beautiful sunset... that doesn't make you depressed does it? Because you're experiencing something that changes your vibes. versus being alone in your room late at night having an existential crisis because you are part of the 1% who can't talk "properly".

What happened with me was that i realized that my vibes... led directly to my thoughts... my extremely dark and pessimistic thoughts. So I choose to think happily... imagine myself on a beach... i listen to uplifting music. Younger me, would be laughing at this post rightnow. And hearing myself say "Think more positive thoughts" sounds crazy. But I truly mean it. This is not some attention seeking post, this is me being genuine. like I seriously intend on thinking positively instead of negative.

This is sort of how CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy ) works, you go to the therapist... and overtime they make you change your perspective on things, but they let you lead yourself to that.

I'm still a nihilist... I don't think any of this matters, but I most definitely refuse to be miserable. If I could go to the beach and be happy... why can't i sit in my dark room at 1Am on reddit... and choose to be happy?

I wish you guys well, Im not sure if i will make another post on here.... Im not sure about many things. But stuttering is one of those things that.... you could choose to be fine with... even happy about.

It's okay to feel emotions... just don't let the bad ones take over your life. Remember you are just human... not perfection.. and that's okay.

Farewell, my friend. 🙂

Im talking about adults.

How? Is it years of weekly speech therapy? Constant daily speech exercises and exposure?

Is it realistic to expect that if you work on it it will improve so much you'll most probably pass as fluent and it'll just be an afterthought?

Id rather st-st-stutter once in a while, than block every milli second.

I'm 26F btw

I was ordering my starter and stammered heavily on the first syllable. I eventually got it out and as he was writing it down on his notepad he mimicked my stutter. We let it slide but as he was placing my order down he did it again. I told him it wasn’t funny and we all got up from the table and started walking out. Immediately he was extremely apologetic. We spoke to the restaurant manager about it and left.

I’m now sat in my cabin extremely anxious to head back out.

I can't talk anymore,my stutter has become severe.

I'm 5'7 and weigh 190lbs, I've become SO fat it'll take ages to be fit again.

I'm still in college, failing it because I never attended class and hate Computer Science.

Im still fully reliant on my.. mommy. Fucking adult and haven't had a job in 7 mo.

This has been going on for almost 10 years, I'm stuck.

I have no friends and no boyfriend.

I've wasted my life. I turn 26 in 3 months,I just hate my existence.

I've wasted my best years, lost my youth and have stolen my future. I'll be a 30yo grown up woman in 4 years! And I'm mentally stuck at 16

i don't know how to get out of this mess.

Hey everyone, I’ve been dealing with a stutter for a long time now, and honestly, it gets lonely. I’m not here to promote a "program" or act like a therapist, I’m just looking to make some actual friends who understand what it’s like to struggle with a sentence.

I know there are already big Discords and groups out there, but sometimes those can feel a bit overwhelming or impersonal. I’m just looking for something smaller and more genuine—maybe a few people who want to hop on a voice call to practice, build some confidence, or just vent about a bad speech day without feeling judged.
No money, no "courses," no weird "cures." Just us helping each other out. If you've been feeling isolated or just want a low-pressure way to practice speaking with someone who gets it, I’d love to connect.

We can chat on whatever works best—Discord, WhatsApp, or even just DMs. If you’re interested in just being friends and supporting each other, let me know! ❤️

I (M22) don’t know what to do because I recently had to quit my job due to tons of customers discriminating against me all the time because of my stutter at this one spot and now around me all the jobs that are open are just cashier roles

Like, the only places around me that are hiring is either maybe like cashier jobs at the mall or it’s like places that I’ll have to be speaking tons like on the phone with people kind of professionally

I’m just not sure what to do because every place that I thought would have a job or did have a job apparently doesn’t now

I think there might be a car place that sells car parts by me that might be hiring and I would have to talk to customers on the phone quite a bit as well and I just don’t know what to do

I have a lot of work to do but years are passing I'm almost 26F now

I don't know how girls with a severe stutter date.

I can't talk like at all anymore, over the years it went from mild to blocks.

I feel embarrassed about it.

People say use Tinder etc I'm almost thinking how the person might make fun of me, or cringe but I don't want to be the person who before even meeting someone says Hey, I stutter! This isn't confidence!

Some people stutter every 5 words and life is really hard but some people stutter every now and then. Thats why you have so many different opinions on here. Some people act like oh it’s not big deal but it is. If you don’t stutter every 5 to 10 words, then you’re not a real stutterer by the way this is why I see so many bullshit post on here of people posing. I can tell you guys don’t stutter because it’s not a big deal.

Has anyone here attended an NSA event? If you did how was it? Is it worth going for the full week or should you just go for a day or 2?