Everyone's stammer is different, and everyone handles it in different ways.
Here, you can read some stories about some people's stammers, how they handle it, and what they've learnt!
If you have your own story, which you'd like to share, feel free to email stories@stammeringsupport.org.
I have suffered with a stammer since I was 7 years old and since then I have had to overcome many obstacles to get to where I am today.
When I first developed my stammer, I was too embarrassed to talk in front of large groups of people and it made me distant from my friends and family as it was new to me and I wasn’t sure how people would react it.
Growing up I never felt there was sufficient knowledge or support to help me get to where I wanted to be. I attended multiple stammering support clinics who helped me through the early times when I needed help the most, however as I got older I started to want to get to know my stammer more and different things about it such why they develop and what causes them, but they were never able to give me an answer. I learned to deal with my stammer through leadership tasks, I realized that I could achieve this as I had always played football so I would captain the team and I would take leadership in other activities such as group work in school and eventually my confidence grew and I was able to talk in front of more and more people until eventually I stood up in front of my entire school when I was in Year 12 to give three talks about stammering.
This brings me up to date and my charity I have formed out of what I have been though because I want to make sure that as many people as possible with a stammer gets the support they need to help them conquer their Stammer.
Have a chat with Scott: scott@stammeringsupport.org
I was lucky enough to meet someone with a stutter while volunteering in Africa. Up to that point I'd never met anyone else with a stutter and I'm not embarrassed to say that I had the view that those with a stutter were quite shy and nervous, as I'm sure many other people do.
But after spending just a couple of hours with them I can happily say I was proven wrong. Not only were they as confident and outgoing as anyone else they didn't let their stutter get in the way of anything.
After 4 weeks volunteering together they turned out to be one of the funniest and most genuine people I have met. They continue to change my opinions on those with a stutter and are still a close friend to this day. All I can say is I'm glad my initial opinion was proven wrong and I just wish everyone could have the experience that I had and would have the time and patience to sit and listen to those with speech impediments.
Have a chat with Dan: dan@stories.stammeringsupport.org
My stammer developed later than most peoples - when I was starting Year 5 at 9 years old. Before this, I had never stammered, and when it started, it wasn't very frequent, however when I did get stuck on a sound, it got really really stuck on a sound, and it would take me what seemed like an age to say it.
Initially, I didn't think much of it, and whenever I got stuck, I would just find another word. However, especially going in to secondary school, my stammer got more and more frequent, and it started to occur a few times in each sentence, and it still took me longer to get over 1 stammer, then it did to say the rest of the sentence. This is when I started speech therapy.
At the start, techniques I learnt at speech therapy weren't massively effective - probably because I didn't practice them enough in real speech, because I just wanted to say the word! I worked out my own little technique, which was to start every word which I started to stammer on with a very strong 'h' sound, and although this didn't sound very good, it allowed me to say what I wanted much faster, so I used it every time I would stammer, instead of trying some of the techniques I was being taught.
I also identified sounds that I stammered on much more than others, and I started to avoid words starting with these sounds, which, over time, led to my vocabulary actually changing quite significantly, reflecting which sounds I found easier to say. And this is still very much present now.
I still had to say some words however, and there are also some situations where I had to say certain words, for example when reading aloud, or when giving information. At these times, my stammer was noticeably worse. And since this was less common, and I was thinking about it more at the time, I started to practice some of the techniques I learnt at speech therapy.
Some obviously worked with some sounds, and not others, and I became quite good at sliding onto softer sounds, and I started to be able to predict when I was going to stammer, and I could slide onto some sounds without having to encounter a block first, which helped the fluency of my speech a lot, as I wouldn't pause, but instead, a few sounds would be prolonged!
I still stammer, however through word avoidance in my every day speech, and a couple of techniques, it is much less frequent, and much less noticeable. I do still struggle to read other peoples writing aloud, purely because there are some sounds that I find exceptionally difficult, that I have to say, and I have to concentrate on understanding what I'm reading at the same time as my speech. which makes using some techniques that I would otherwise use harder. And I do occasionally get stuck in my everyday speech, however I have a variety of ways to get over this when it does happen.
I was lucky to have a very good group of friends, who although made fun of my stammer, never meant it in a bad way, and honestly, it is quite funny most of the time!
Some people will always say rude and offensive things about other peoples difficulties, and it can sometimes get to me (more so in the past than now), however I am very fortunate in that this hardly ever happens to me, and it's something I can't help, and it doesn't make me wrong, or worse, in any way, and I know that, and it may be hard to think that sometimes, but it's always true!
Having my stammer is part of who I am, and I wouldn't change it (most of the time anyway).
Have a chat with Jacob: jacob@stammeringsupport.org