Stutter Changed My Life

T-t-t-twelve years ago, my life ch-ch-ch-changed. When I was four years old, I was diagnosed with a severe stutter. At the time, I had no idea how much it would impact my life. I never really accepted the fact that I had the stutter until middle school, when it began to affect my everyday life. Only one percent of the world's population has a severe, lifelong stutter, and many people thought I would just grow out of it. I thought I would, too, but it never happened.
My stutter did not bother me until 7th grade when I started becoming insecure and realized that, if I wanted to improve my speech, I had to work hard. I have been going to speech therapy on and off since my diagnosis. I heard it has to get worse before it gets better, and I feared it getting worse, as it is already severe. Since I could not overcome the stutter, I decided to email all of my teachers from seventh grade on, asking them not to call on me in class and to let me give oral presentations one-on-one or do an alternate assignment.
In addition to speech therapy, I have tried …show more content…
I started getting used to it; if I were them I would be curious, too. Most people were accepting of me regardless of our differences, but in tenth grade, someone I had considered a friend sent a text to my phone saying things in an attempt to hurt me. “Your stutter is a deal breaker.” “No one actually likes you. They just feel bad for you.” I tried not to let his words affect me, but my anxieties worsened. I took his words to heart and thought, what would I be like without my stutter? Would I have more friends? Be more popular? Would I be better in school because I could actually ask the questions I had? But, as much as that hurt, it made me realize that I need to work on it to get where I want to go in life. It was a reality check. So, I started working on it, it improved a lot, but then life got in the way and I was back to square