My broken mouth

Sometimes I have a speech impediment. Which is a really hard word to say if you have one.

It’s kind of going now, I mean I still do it from time to time but it’s pretty much subsided. When I was about 12 it was terrible. After my dad died I didn’t think I spoke for like 2 weeks. I wanted to, I just couldn’t. It’s really hard to explain to someone that doesn’t have one. They’re just like “just talk! Spit it out!”. But you can’t. I used to answer the phone and the person at the end of the line is going “Hello? Hellooooo?” And I’m just stood there making mouth movements and nothing coming out. Then they hang up.

School was the worst part.

The register alone was an impossible task. There are certain letters that are harder to say than others, but I found vowels a bit easier as there’s less mouth movement involved.

So the teacher would say my name and I’d go “errrr Yes Miss” as the E in ‘err’ was easier than the Y in ‘Yes’. Sometimes the “errr” would go on for too long as I’m struggling with the next word so I’d be like “errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” for AGES. It looked so stupid.

Reading stuff out was just a no go too.

However, I did get taught this technique to use while you’re talking and it does actually work.

You stutter because your brain is going too fast for your mouth and you just talk too fast. So if you can slow that down, it’ll become much easier. The trick is to keep a slow beat somewhere on your body, like tap your foot or I dunno softly slap your thigh.

I was Best Man at my friend’s wedding and had to do a speech. Not only was that terrifying, I didn’t have a microphone so I’ve got to do a Best Man Shout essentially. I used this technique, and it worked. I think I did it a bit too much though, as my friend came up to me after and goes “what were doing up there, it looked mental”

I must have looked like I was line dancing or something.

So if you have kids and they acquire a speech impediment, just promise me you won’t finish their sentences for them.

They will want to punch you in your silver tongued mouth.