GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Anyone have a speech impediment? Slurr? Stutter etc?

I have been suffering with a stutter since I was 8 years old.

It started out mildly then went full blown. I could hardly talk. For me to say "The quick brown fox jumped over the log" would come out "thhhhhhthe q-q-q-q-q--qq--q-q-qq-ick BRooooown fox j-jumped roover the l-lllllog" it would take me 5 times as long to say it. Reading aloud in class was impossible. I got teased and made fun of so much by everyone including the teachers that I just refused to do oral presentations and read aloud.

It was really serious. It was impossible to communicate. Speech therapists made me feel like it was all my fault telling me it was because I wasen't thinking before I spoke. Even my family jumped on the bandwagon and blamed me. Truth is, the more I thought about what I was going to say the worse the stutter was. When I just blurted things out without thinking they always came out clear as day.

5 years later a specialist found the problem. Tourettes.

With a bit of medication and as I got older it got better and it's pretty much dissapeared.

It still happens occasionally though. If I am talking to someone I don't know I am a bit nervous that I may stutter so it happens. It's nearly impossible for me to say my cell number and my street adress and my name. it doesn;t help that my last name is hard to pronouce for most people too.

My street name comes out as "eee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e--e-e-e--e-e-e-e-ee-mmanuel"

Phone number as "a-a-a--a--a 'long pause' eight 71.. etc

Who else has this affliction and how to you cope with it? It's extremely embarassing. Especially when it's someone my age who's cocky as fuck standing behind the counter or on the other end of the phone. Today I just gave up and said "I'm sorry, I have a speech impediment and am unable to pronouce my street name. Forget it. CLICK" on the phone. talk about being embarassed. I wanted to just crawl under a rock and die.