Stuttering Anxieties

I am often asked what it was like to have had a stutter. People who are fluent and who have always been fluent, find it difficult to comprehend what life is like for those who have this form of speech defect.
 
For me having a stutter was like living in some kind of constant nightmare. It was always there in the back of mind, I had a constant voice in my head. I called this voice my stuttering cancer.

I wanted somebody to operate and to remove this cancerous voice; if I could eradicate this demon from my head then surely I would be able to achieve fluency.

There is, of course, no such operation available and there are no real cancerous cells to remove in any case.
 
The majority of fluent people believe that people stutter when they are anxious or nervous, this is true however there is much more to in than just this.

I found it hard to talk in many different areas including: 
 
On the telephone
In front of a crowd for example public speaking
Reading out aloud
Socialising with friends
Introducing people
Answering questions
Attending an interview
Telling a joke
Ordering drinks and food at for example a bar
Speaking to people in authority
 
Looking at the list above I may well have just stated that I found it difficult to speak in nearly every situation.
 
Therapies for stuttering were quite basic, to say the least, during the period when I had the problem.

Fortunately these days there are far more options in place and with the birth of the internet the stuttering treatments are also much easier to locate.