My Parents Hoped to Hypnotize My Stutter Away

When speaking to my sisters and me, my father often started with a sort of roll call. “Anything to report?” he’d say, as though he was still an active Marine or a police supervisor addressing a subordinate. If we did start a conversation, I got the sense he just wanted to get it over with. Growing up with a stutter, I was painfully aware of how inarticulate I was. It was a constant source of shame. My father’s authoritative tone only inflamed my anxieties, which exacerbated my stutter, and the more I stuttered, the more frustrated my father became, causing me to become more nervous and stutter even worse. It was a ridiculous loop that I didn’t know I was stuck in. If I’d known, I think I would have laughed at how absurd it was. I also would have stopped trying to talk to my dad. <a href="https://medium.com/black-bear-recovery/my-parents-hoped-to-hypnotize-my-stutter-away-3f0c670df2ee">Website</a>