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| Phobia Of Speech |
This article is about the fear and phobia of speech. Not everybody can talk fluently in all situations, and life can be pretty tough for people who aren’t. I hope you enjoy reading the article.
My name is Steve Hill from Birmingham in England. In childhood, I developed a stutter, or as some people call it, a stammer. My parents tell me it started when I was four years of age.
Speaking phobia at school
Despite regular speech therapy over the next fourteen years, the stutter became worse. I remember pretty clearly the fear of reading out from a book in class. Walking into the classroom, for example, an English lesson, I would see a book on each desk. I would start to panic straight away, believing the teacher would make me read a paragraph. Just waiting my turn, knowing that it would result in yet another one of stuttering moments, would be torture.
Socializing phobia
Socializing with friends was not exactly easy for me either. Most people look forward to their Friday or Saturday night outs with their mates. For me, though this was not the case, I would be counting down the days as the week went on. Three days to go, two days to go, oh no, I have to go out tomorrow. You may be thinking why this would fill me with so much dread. Being unable to say certain words beginning with certain letters made it challenging to order a round of drinks, and the whole conversation was something I was not at all confident about.
Telephone phobia
My worst area of speech was using the telephone. I certainly had a phobia of the phone and was quite lucky as my father would make many of my calls for me. Some people may say that this was not helping me in the long run. This may be correct, and I was very grateful at the time.
Interview phobia
After leaving school, I started to attend interviews to find employment. I would typically arrive at the interview very tired after a lack of sleep through the stress of it all, and I have to say I found it very difficult to convince an employer to take me on. I would generally stutter more when under pressure or when meeting new people and both of these situations are prevalent in an interview situation.
At the age of twenty-two, I overcame the stutter and now run The How To Stop Stammering Centre in Birmingham.
Photo: https://pixabay.com
