My Life As a Stammerer, Stutterer

By Stephen Hill

When I was born, my mother left work to look after me and in the early years of my life I had very little pressure to endure. For example, evening meals would involve eating dinner off our laps watching the television, and social gatherings were limited to close friends and family.

At the age of four, my mother needed to return to work and made arrangements for a friend of hers, who also had a boy of the same age, to pick me up from school and cook my evening meal. Her family life was totally different to what I had been used to. For their evening meal they would sit around a large table to eat and discuss the events of the day. They would try to involve me in their conversations by asking general questions i.e. what my hobbies were, favourite football team and who my favourite teacher at school was etc. The change of environment and added pressure of talking to new people was too much for me and it resulted with me speaking too fast without breathing and stammering the words out.

My mother was informed by her friend of my stammer. She was totally shocked as she had never noticed such a problem. That night she made a conscious effort to listen to my speech, but as I was comfortable at home, it did not occur.

I continued to be looked after by her friend and continued to stammer. She put pressure on my mother to do something about the problem before it escalated. Reluctantly my mother took me to a speech therapist. During this period I knew I was doing something wrong but felt totally confused. I believed it was something to do with my speech and this first trip to the speech therapist confirmed my fears.

I analysed in my mind when and where the stammer occurred and came to the conclusion that it only happened around people who I did not know very well, or when I felt under pressure. The early speech therapy proved a complete waste of time as the sessions consisted mainly of useless tasks i.e. putting names to pictures etc. My mother then decided to leave work and continue looking after me, but by this time the stammering had become a psychological problem. I tried to avoid meeting new people and situations which would cause me anxiety. Luckily at that age, it was not too much of a problem.

During junior school, although I would stammer occasionally my best friend was fortunately known as being the toughest lad in school and protected me against other pupils. I was able to stop worrying about my stammer and that helped to limit the problem in this period of my life.

The situation changed again when moving to senior school, with my best friend attending a different school and having a lot of new classmates and teachers to meet. I knew in my mind that without my friend's support, the stammer would once again rear its ugly head. And it did!

My life in senior school was a complete nightmare. When having to read passages out aloud, I would count out which paragraph I was likely to have to read by working out how many people were speaking ahead of me. Then I would assess the paragraph 'praying' that there were not too many words beginning with the letters b, d, g or v etc. By the time it came to my turn I would be a complete nervous wreck and would stammer uncontrollably.

I was determined to leave school at the earliest opportunity but realised that to have any chance of a decent career I needed to gain a good education. I feel proud that I went on to achieve seven GCSE's, grades C and above. I still left school at sixteen, much to the disappointment of my family who hoped I would attend University.

At this point I had the challenge of finding a job which would not involve speaking. The ideal role appeared to be a filing clerk. After a few months of applying to various companies I was offered a position as filing clerk with an Insurance Company. The salary system at this company worked on a grading system with my position being the lowest, grade 2 (highest grade 8). The average time spent at grade 2 was 6 months, and to upgrade, application in writing was required when a position became available.

As promotion would have meant telephone liaison, I never applied for further positions and remained on grade 2 for 3 years. At this point, due to some successful examination results, my supervisor upgraded my position automatically. I was expected to be happy at this promotion, but it was in fact the beginning of a nightmare. As I was working in the Pensions Department, and could not pronounce the word Pensions, I found myself in a position of being an item of ridicule from my fellow colleagues on a daily basis.

My social life had fortunately taken a positive step. For instance, my friends realised that I found it embarrassing to order drinks in our local bar. They helped me by ordering my rounds for me and did not make an issue out of my stammering during conversation. I also realised that after drinking several pints I would be talking fluently and enjoyed chatting up the girls.

At the age of 18 I eventually met a girl who knew of my affliction and who was prepared to give me total support in controlling the stammer. We ended up dating for 2  years. Despite having an awful time at work, my social life was now looking up.

At the age of 22 to improve my quality of life, I decided I had to overcome the stammer. I decided to go through the process of re-training myself to speak. I concentrated on television personalities and my close friends, trying to work out what they were doing differently. I decided to no longer substitute words or have my friends order drinks for me. It proved a long, hard and depressing process, which most times seemed fruitless. After 6 months I found the break-though which turned out to be the final piece of the jigsaw. At this point the stammering stopped and three months later it became normal practice, so I was able to speak effortlessly without having to keep thinking of what I now call the "speech rules".

My reward for achieving fluency was to leave employment of the Insurance Company. In the following months I offered help to other sufferers free of charge. In the first instance I had not thought of making a career out of counselling, but three years on I am still passing on my knowledge to other fellow stammerers.

During the past years I was fortunate enough to have been featured in every National newspaper, including the front cover of the Daily Telegraph. I have also been interviewed on Radio 2, 4 and 5, plus many local radio stations. I sometimes cannot believe how much I have achieved over the past 4 years, and how many people's lives have improved as a result of finding a cure for my childhood disability.

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