I’m 23. I’m in the U.S. Army and I’m stationed in Germany. My name is Braxton, and I began stuttering around at age 4. I considered myself a medium level blocker with quite a bit of anxiety about my speech and I had the most problems dealing with strangers and authority figures. Any kind of speaking to groups was the hardest. My stuttering has always plagued me, but I never had therapy. I finally decided to do something about it, and I began searching the internet.
I found Lee’s book on Amazon, and it gave me so much hope. I started doing auto suggestions and I got some immediate relief. I read aloud a great deal too. Lee put his email address in his book, so I emailed him and he surprised me by replying and we began Skyping in May 2018. He helped me apply his crutches to stop the stutters. We didn’t Skype for a few months but we began again in September. I began to feel dramatic improvement. We Skyped about 8 times and each session has helped a lot. My favorite crutches are putting words or sounds in front of words and jamming the feared words into them and just thinking about smiling. I’m enjoying speaking now instead of fearing it. It’s such a relief.
I recently had to make a report to a group of 80 service men and women, and it went really well. By early November, I hadn’t had a stutter incident in a couple months. I feel really fluent, like I can avoid any stutter. I don’t feel the need to Skype with Lee anymore. So, I’m in a really good place now. I almost don’t think about my speech anymore. In our latest Skypes we have worked on anxiety in general, especially with strangers. I’m so pleased with myself and my progress. In this video, around the 26-minute mark, I explain how I have used the Crutches: https://youtu.be/qNXCrgK9Aoc. I can’t thank Lee enough for his great book and for all his time coaching. I just want to say to everyone that stuttering can be stopped. Get Lee’s book and get to work. If you’ll put in the time and effort you can do it to.
BRAXTON, Germany, November 2018