Stuttering Success Story: Vickie's Story

Vickie has been getting stuck when she speaks her whole life. There is a history of it in her family. She was teased in elementary school, and in high school, it was even worse due to peer pressure. In college, she felt like she was starting over but still dealing with the same problems. She wanted more, and that’s why she sought out help from a professional speaking coach, Michael Williams.

She remembers crying in her bathroom in high school because she couldn’t say what she wanted to say. She felt like she couldn’t pursue her career dreams if she stuttered like she did. At the end, she looked at herself and said this problem would not stop her.

Vickie first started using the self-study stuttering therapy program. She had heard about fluent speaking coach Michael Williams when she was on the internet looking up how to stop stuttering. She didn’t think the program looked difficult and seemed like common sense. But then, she would start and then stop when doing the program. She watched the videos and even ordered Michael's book on how to stop stammering.

She then started graduate school and knew her presentations would increase, so she contacted Michael for one-on-one coaching. Before she reached out to Michael for how to stop stammering, Vickie described herself as the “typical stammerer.” She would clench up from how much she hated the habit of stammering.

Vickie isn’t 100% fixed, but she is so much better than she used to be. She is brought to tears thinking about how far she has come since she reached out for help. She is more fluent, and she is not getting stuck. She’s not thinking that she can’t say things certain ways because she can’t get the words out. She doesn’t need to dumb-down what she wants to say because of her speaking.

Vickie is an RN and is in school to be a nurse practitioner. With her family, it was hard because she would get stuck on certain words when talking with her husband. Even with her kids, she didn’t want them to end up like her. But now, they tell stories all the time, and she talks a lot more. She wants to talk about topics with her husband and initiate more. She is more confident and loves it. She was always somewhat confident, but she is a lot more confident now.

She recently did an online presentation for her nursing program. She would start off okay and then go downhill. She would hesitate when she was talking and not know what she had just said. She let her fellow students and teachers know she was in a stuttering treatment program to help her with speaking. She was distressed, not knowing how she was going to get through the program and then eventually talk to her clients. Toward the end of her program, she was on an almost 30-minute webinar with her group, and she was reading off instructions and giving input and ideas.

Afterward, she was so grateful to the program because she never thought she could accomplish such smoothness and fluency. It really raised her confidence. She can testify that the program, while it’s not easy and is hard work, really works.

Vickie believes she would never be where he is without the accountability of private coaching from a professional speaking coach well versed in stuttering therapy techniques. She did Michael’s self-study for three years before she did the Pro90D program and used the speech therapy for stutterers Michael taught. That’s when she really started to see improvement. You can see improvement in 8-12 weeks in the program that it might take years to achieve in self-study.

When Vickie first talked to her husband about paying for personal stuttering treatment coaching, he thought she could still get the same progress on her own, but that hadn’t been the case up to that point. She encourages you not to think about the cost because time will pass and you will still be in the same place without it.

She thinks of it as an investment in herself, her family, and her career. She doesn’t want her kids to have the same problems she does, and this was an investment in them and their future as well.