A fear of answering the phone

I had a rather upsetting phone call last night from a young lady from Bristol, England. She has had a stutter for as long as she can remember and is now eighteen years of age. Her overall confidence has unfortunately fallen to a new low recently to such an extent that she has now developed a fear of answering the telephone.

She was very emotional as she spoke to me and I could really hear the pain in her voice. I went through a similar experience when I was aged about twenty. I lived with my parents at the time and when they were out I would not even bother to answer the phone. Why? Because I could not even say the first word of "Hello", that's why. I would just have a total block where nothing would come out. It was most frustrating as "h" words were amongst my favourite words especially in comparison to ones beginning with "b", "d", "g", "k" and "v".

This is one example of the way that stuttering can really drag you down.

Steve  http://www.stammering-stuttering.co.uk