For those of you who have never had a stammer, it will no doubt be quite difficult for you to comprehend what I mean by a fear of speaking, you may even think that I was slightly crazy. You would not be alone in your thinking if this is your viewpoint as I have personal experience of such an attitude, from my own friends. I will never forget a night out that I had when I was in my early twenties. During the evening the conversation turned to talking about my stammer, I had actually bought the subject up myself as I wanted to know how much awareness my friends had about this form of speech impediment.

A response from one of my friends came as a bit of a shock to me. He stated that he had thought that I was a bit of a coward in the fact that I asked other people to order food and drinks for me. He continued by saying that I had hidden behind the fact that I had a stammer and that it was always the excuse for why I could or would not do certain things.

I challenged this friend to go to the bar and to stammer when ordering the drinks, just so that he could see how it felt. He declined to do this for obvious reasons. I think it would have been a worthwhile exercise for him to do this as it would have opened up his eyes to the world of stammering and would have helped him to understand why I had such a fear of speaking in certain situations.