My Speech Impediment

[Davey]

Well, this is my first thread in quite some time. I'd say it feels good to be back, but that remains to be seen. I'll try not to bore you guys with endless drivel, but we'll see how it goes.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a speech impediment. Somewhere around the beginning of highschool, it turned from a stutter into more of a pause before the word I was attempting to say, followed by some contortionist facial ticks and finally - the word! This is basically how it remains to this day. I work full-time for an auto parts company as a Sales Rep., so I am dealing with customers 8-10 hours a day, every day. It rarely holds me back in any interaction. Some days are worse than others. I've gone entire relationships without a girl realizing there was even an issue with my speech, and I've had people become completely taken aback the instant I opened my mouth to speak with them. So like I said - it comes and goes. When I am stressed out/angry/upset, it tends to get much worse.

I'll spare you guys with the endless stories of ridicule and fun had at my expense growing up and just say that despite this, I am probably the most successful guy with women that I know. But it was no small hurdle to overcome. That being said, there is still an issue, one which I would very much like to address:

Cold Approach

I rarely, if ever, cold approach. As someone who has nerves of steel behind the wheel of his 400HP Camaro, it is fairly safe to say that I am not easily rattled. In my head, I always know what to say, how to say it, the proper body language to exhibit, etc. It seems like I've been doing this for a long time now, but 90% of my pick ups come via my social circle. I am a master of social circle game. However, when I'm out with a girl who I'm interested in, I already have the level of comfort established that allows me to relax and my speech to flow smoothly and naturally. My friends often comment to me, 'Dude, it's amazing how the minute you open your mouth to talk to a girl, your voice gets deeper and smoother. You'd never even know you had a speech impediment'

This is where I want to get to with cold approach. I feel that despite my established success with women and my knowledge/experience, my anxiety is ratcheted up a couple of notches in a cold approach situation; which both makes me apprehensive about it, and has a debilitating effect on my speech.

When I was younger, I tried a couple different speech pathologists, with little success. Lately I have been thinking more and more about trying hypnotherapy, as every time I read more about it, I am amazed by the enormous potential it has in terms of controlling the human brain. I often wonder if I could just be hyponotized into 'forgetting' I have an issue with my speech, or something along those lines. Perhaps the key will come with learning how to find the same calm approach I have in other interactions, when I cold approach.

Don't get me wrong, I've had some successful cold approach pick-ups (my favourite one being while waiting in a rediculously long line for Customs check at Halifax Airport) but it really remains the only area of my game that I'm unhappy with. And given the fact that I'm about to enter a University program where I will be doing a tonne of public speaking, I feel like the benefits of finally getting this issue sorted out (2 decades later) has benefits far beyond increased success with women.

If any of you guys have information/thoughts/insight/knowledge on this issue, it would be great to hear from you. Like I said, I'm currently thinking about hypnotherapy to address this. Let me know what you think.

Davey

[Edmond Dantès]

First of all: relax, take it easy and try to get as comfortable with your speech impediment as possible. I know it sucks and you'll think "C'mon, man. I heard this advice a thousand times".

Sometimes I repeat a word in a sentence, when I'm extremely excited about something and talk faster than I propably should, so I'm a bit familiar with your problem and this advice helped me quite a bit.

My guess is that your speech impediment becomes worse when you're really concious about it and you try not to stutter. Well you even wrote it.

Quote:This is where I want to get to with cold approach. I feel that despite my established success with women and my knowledge/experience, my anxiety is ratcheted up a couple of notches in a cold approach situation; which both makes me apprehensive about it, and has a debilitating effect on my speech.

So we have to find a way to lower your fear of speech impediment in cold approaching. A fear coming up in a stressful/fearfull situation. "Double-fear" so to speak.

The first fear, approach anxiety is easy to overcome. We all know the concept of desensibilisation now. Mark wrote several times about it and the program is out, so let's focus on your fear of speech impediment.

There are two interesting concepts in logotherapy called paradoxial intention and hyperintention.

I quote here an excerpt of Viktor Frankl's book "Man's search for meaning", where he talks about hyperintention and paradoxial intentions and their effect.

Quote:A realistic fear, like the fear of death, cannot be tran-quilized away by its psychodynamic interpretation; on the other hand, a neurotic fear, such as agoraphobia, cannot be cured by philosophical understanding. However, logotherapy has developed a special technique to handle such cases, too.

To understand what is going on whenever this technique is used, we take as a starting point a condition which is frequently observed in neurotic individuals, namely, anticipatory anxiety. It is characteristic of this fear that it produces precisely that of which the patient is afraid. An individual, for example, who is afraid of blushing when he enters a large room and faces many people will actually be more prone to blush under these circumstances. In this context, one might amend the saying "The wish is father to the thought" to "The fear is mother of the event."
Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes. This excessive intention, or "hyper-intention," as I call it, can be observed particularly in cases of sexual neurosis. The more a man tries to demonstrate his sexual potency or a woman her ability to experience orgasm, the less they are able to succeed. Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.

In addition to excessive intention as described above, excessive attention, or "hyper-reflection," as it is called in logotherapy, may also be pathogenic (that is, lead to sickness). The following clinical report will indicate what I mean: A young woman came to me complaining of being frigid. The case history showed that in her childhood she had been sexually abused by her father. However, it had not been this traumatic experience in itself which had eventuated in her sexual neurosis, as could easily be evidenced. For it turned out that, through reading popular psychoanalytic literature, the patient had lived constantly with the fearful expectation of the toll which her traumatic experience would someday take. This anticipatory anxiety resulted both in excessive intention to confirm her femininity and excessive attention centered upon herself rather than upon her partner. This was enough to incapacitate the patient for the peak experience of sexual pleasure, since the orgasm was made an object of intention, and an object of attention as well, instead of remaining an unintended effect of unreflected dedication and surrender to the partner. After undergoing short-term logotherapy, the patient's excessive attention and intention of her ability to experience orgasm had been "dereflected," to introduce another logo-therapeutic term. When her attention was refocused toward the proper object, i.e., the partner, orgasm established itself spontaneously.9
Logotherapy bases its technique called "paradoxical intention" on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes.

In German I described paradoxical intention as early as 1939.In this approach the phobic patient is invited to intend, even if only for a moment, precisely that which he fears.
Let me recall a case. A young physician consulted me because of his fear of perspiring. Whenever he expected an outbreak of perspiration, this anticipatory anxiety was enough to precipitate excessive sweating. In order to cut this circle formation I advised the patient, in the event that sweating should recur, to resolve deliberately to show people how much he could sweat. A week later he returned to report that whenever he met anyone who triggered his anticipatory anxiety, he said to himself, "I only sweated out a quart before, but now I'm going to pour at least ten quarts!" The result was that, after suffering from his phobia for four years, he was able, after a single session, to free himself permanently of it within one week.
The reader will note that this procedure consists of a reversal of the patient's attitude, inasmuch as his fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish. By this treatment, the wind is taken out of the sails of the anxiety.
Such a procedure, however, must make use of the specifically human capacity for self-detachment inherent in a sense of humor. This basic capacity to detach one from oneself is actualized whenever the logotherapeutic technique called paradoxical intention is applied. At the same time, the patient is enabled to put himself at a distance from his own neurosis. A statement consistent with this is found in Gordon W. Allport's book, The Individual and His Religion: "The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure."

Viktor Frankl, Man's search for meaning, Pages 77 - 79

[Davey]

Thanks for the reply bud. I feel like I should clarify a couple of things. #1 - it's not cold approach situations by nature that cause my anxiety. I love to meet new people (especially girls) and I'm very outgoing and have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. The problem I have with cold approaching is getting anxious about my speech, not by the approach itself.

#2 - I went to school for journalism and that article was almost over my head lol BUT i take it to mean that I should just embrace the shit out of it and hope it goes away after 20 years? lol

[Edmond Dantès]

Davey Wrote:I should just embrace the shit out of it and hope it goes away after 20 years? lol

Yeah, something like that. I'll highlight the important sentences. If you still don't get the concept, ask again.

Other tips:

-speak to people who suffer from speech impediment as well and ask how they deal with it
-read a bunch of speech impediment self-help books or whatever is out there about the topic
-improve your non-verbal game and become a pantomime

I'm no expert when it comes to speech impediment, but my guess is that it's psychological. But as I said, I'm no expert

[Davey]

You're right, man. It is 100% psychological. There is no physical ailment or disability. I'll give that technique a shot, though. Just have to figure out how I'm going to go about it. I don't really want to TRY and lack fluency lol

[Edmond Dantès]

A good way to start it is to exaggerate your speech impediment while you see yourself from a point of view outside of your body. If you do this right, you'll start laughing about yourself and relax automatically.

So you should have the ability to laugh about yourself. If you haven't got that, you should start there

I did this "exercise/method" fighting my perfectionism and other stuff It's fun and it works.

Would be interested in your feedback! Give it a try.

[Davey]

Oh yeah I definitely have the ability to laugh about myself. I didn't use to when I was younger, though. That's probably why it's improved so much as I've gotten older, to the point where I can go long stretches without people even noticing it.

That being said though, I want to get rid of this completely, hence why I'm considering trying alternative methods of therapy again.

[Edmond Dantès]

(02-28-2012 04:39 PM)Davey Wrote:  That being said though, I want to get rid of this completely, hence why I'm considering trying alternative methods of therapy again.

Great. Keep me up to date

[Zac]

There is a guy in my local "lair" (we call it a symposium) that has a serious stutter that has improved over time.

I've known him for about 2 years now. He used to stutter a lot more 2 years ago than he did now.

This is a guy that went out really often to work on his skills. He made a lot of friends interested in getting to know him and working on this area of his life and spent a lot of time just hanging out with them or going out to pick up girls with them.

2 years later I've seen him approach way more girls than I ever have and already have a pretty amazing long term relationship with one.

He runs our night events now. He is one of the most talkative guys in our group. He still stutters from time to time. None of us care though. He is the man. That's what we care about. He is an awesome dude who works hard to improve himself and has through that hard work.

Now I know you aren't the same people. I know it might be different for you and you have a different path. I just wanted to say I know a guy who had a problem really similar and everyone that knows him is glad they took the time to because how great of a guy he is has always shown and that's what people who matter care most about (imo).

I don't know how to fix it, but I'd say the first thing to do is stop letting it bother you at all that that is you. I walk slightly funny. It bothered me for a really long time. It still kind of does. As soon as I learned to not be in my head about it the sooner I learned I could walk slightly less funny when I was relaxed. Whenever I'd begin to get self conscious I would walk even sillier lol. Took me a really long time to get to a point where even 50% of the time I'm walking I don't look silly but I did it by learning not to let it bother me at all that I walked silly in the first place.

I see it's the same way for you too. I just wanted to express that it's all going to be OK lol. I think that it probably stresses you out more when you cold approach. I think the best thing to do is go out with other guys that want to get better so they can help keep you distracted and in a good mood. That's my #1 piece of advice. The more things you have to distract you from thinking about it the better.

I don't know. I spent a lot of time after I wrote this wondering if it is even helpful. You want to work on cold approaching. It's better to not need the "crutch" of friends than to need them. It's not bad to learn that way though. I think basically it comes down to what was said above. Just keep doing it until it becomes like anything else you are comfortable with. That's all I can say really. You can do a lot of things to make doing so easier, but I think fundamentally if you have anxiety cold approaching your stutter is probably only 1 of 100 different things I guy can do to telegraph how anxious he is and isn't necessarily any worse than just looking like you aren't confident in general.

Shit man, if you stutter, stutter like a fucking boss. Look that girl in the eye and let her know that yeah, you do stutter, and no, you don't give a shit. I know you say you don't care but if it's bothering you during your cold approach especially then maybe you do give a shit. Own it. Use it to help create conversation.

I know you kind of want to fix your problem. I hope you can. I think I kind of went off in a few directions here. I didn't know what to say to help you fix your problem talking so I just wanted to say a bunch of stuff to help you realize you are probably awesome because this kind of touched on some personal stuff lol so sorry if it didn't all pertain to you.