Stuttering problem when using the telephone

Last night I was e-mailed by a man from London. He was asking me a number of questions about the different types of therapy that I offer and went into great detail about the problems he was having to cope with.

The majority of what he wrote in the e-mails struck a chord with me as I went through similar problems.

One aspect which he continued to write about was his struggles when speaking on the telephone. He found that at times he could not even face answering his phone at home and would simply let it ring and ring until it stopped. To a fluent speaker this would just seem like the actions of a crazy person. I however have left the telephone to ring out in this way on numerous occasions, when I had this form of speech impediment. The sheer lack of belief of even saying "Hello" was quite overwhelming at times - even bordering on the scary! I would be standing there shaking for some reason - and I hadn't even answered the phone!