Phobia Of Speech

							Title:
Phobia Of Speech

Word Count:
433

Summary:
This article is about the fear and
phobia of speech. Not everybody is
able to talk fluently in all situat
ions and for people who aren't, lif
e can be quite tough. I hope you en
joy reading the article.


Keywords:
phobia, speech, stutter, stuttering
, speech therapy, stuttering cure,
stuttering course, stuttering treat
ment


Article Body:
This article is about the fear and
phobia of speech. Not everybody is
able to talk fluently in all situat
ions and for people who aren't, lif
e can be quite tough. I hope you en
joy reading the article.

My name is Steve Hill from Birmingh
am in England. I developed a stutte
r or as some people call it a stamm
er in childhood. From what my paren
ts tell me it started when I was fo
ur years of age.

Speaking phobia at school

Despite regular speech therapy over
 the next fourteen years the stutte
r became worse. I remember quite cl
early the fear of having to read ou
t from a book in class. Walking int
o the classroom, for example an Eng
lish lesson, I would see that there
 was a book on each desk. I would s
tart to panic straight away believi
ng the teacher would make me read a
 paragraph. Just waiting my turn, k
nowing that it would result in yet
another one of stuttering moments w
ould be torture.

Socialising phobia

Socialising with friends was not ex
actly easy for me either. Most peop
le look forward to their Friday or
Saturday night outs with their mate
s. For me though this was not the c
ase, I would be counting down the d
ays as the week went on. Three days
 to go, two days to go, oh no, I ha
ve to go out tomorrow. You may be t
hinking why this would fill me with
 so much dread. Being unable to say
 certain words beginning with certa
in letters made it difficult to ord
er a round of drinks and the whole
conversation thing was something I
was not at all confident about.

Telephone phobia

My worst area of speech was using t
he telephone. I certainly had a pho
bia to the phone and was quite luck
y as my father would make a lot of
my calls for me. Some people may sa
y that this was not exactly helping
 me in the long run. This may be co
rrect and I was very grateful at th
e time.

Interview phobia

After leaving school, I started to
attend interviews to try to find em
ployment. I would normally stutter
more when under pressure or when me
eting new people and both of these
situations are prevalent in an inte
rview situation. I would normally a
rrive at the interview very tired a
fter a lack of sleep through the st
ress of it all and I have to say fo
und it very difficult to convince a
ny employer to take me on.

At the age of twenty-two I managed
to overcome the stutter and now run
 The How To Stop Stammering Centre
in Birmingham.

Steve Hill