So, about me then. My name is Rehan Nasir, and I’m 44, an American engineer working in Lancaster, PA, USA. I have been stuttering since I was 7. I’m divorced and now remarried — we have five kids! Before moving back home to Lancaster, we lived in Indianapolis for two years. Before Indianapolis, we spent five years in Saudi Arabia. Before that, we lived in Omaha, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. I grew up in Pennsylvania and have a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Therapy
As for stuttering treatments and therapies, there has been little done. From elementary to high school, I saw speech therapists that were provided by the school. The first one who I saw in elementary and junior high didn’t make much of a difference. I remember just having casual conversations (and not stuttering) and then having her tell me words and sounds to repeat. I do remember feeling very comfortable during those one-on-ones. And in hindsight, maybe that’s why I didn’t stutter as much.
During high school, I had a different therapist who suggested some improvements to my breathing. She described it as a balloon. You have a balloon full of air, and if you want to speak, you slowly let the air out of the balloon. This is a technique that I try to use every time I open my mouth. Before ordering food, before saying hello on the phone, and before talking with friends and family.
Drug Trials
After college at Pitt I was able to get on the Pagoclone trials. I did that for about a year. I personally noticed some improvement, but can’t honestly remember if I could have been on a placebo or not. But I remember feeling more calm before speaking. I had a stressful job at the time, so I figured it must have been doing something. We moved toward the end of the trial, and I didn’t continue after that. While it’s not a cure, it certainly helped a little. Since then I’ve not tried any more drugs for my stuttering. I hear that anti-depressants may help, but I haven’t dug into it further.
This Site
My objective for this site is to have a conversation about stuttering on a regular basis. It’s taken me this long to get online with this because I’m a closet stutterer — that is, I don’t want people to know that I stutter. It can also be referred to as covert stuttering. But enough is enough. Time to get on with helping people and making someone else’s journey less painful. My attitude toward stuttering is that of acceptance. This is what the National Stuttering Association here in the States promotes, and I think it’s worked well for me.
Acceptance has been a very long time coming, but it’s helped me mentally so much. Now that stuttering isn’t taking up so much of my daily headspace, I have room for work, family and growth. Does that mean I think it’s ok to stutter?
Well, stuttering to me is when you don’t say what you wanted to out of fear of how you’d sound.
So now I’m not as afraid of speaking. But I still have hard days like we all do. Sometimes I put myself out there (more often now) and sometimes I just want to be quiet.
I tried at first to post every day. That sort of worked, but then got to be too much with family, work and kids. I wanted to make sure the quality of the content remained high. So now I’m down to maybe once or twice a week. I have, however, written over a hundred thousand words on stuttering through this blog. Now it’s 2024, and I’m focusing on it again. I want to keep the conversations going.
I went to my first NSA Conference in Washington DC. If you stutter and haven’t been, you absolutely must go. I can’t speak of it highly enough. I have since gone two more times — to Baltimore (when it was supposed to be in Chicago) and then in Atlanta.
Subscriptions
When I started this site almost ten years ago, I didn’t want to put ads on it at all. I could afford to pay the hosting fees and whatever else. I just wanted to get everything in my head out into the world, and I wanted to have those conversations about stuttering. I’ve done a lot of that, but now I want to increase the engagement and the quality. I hope that you will find the subscription model valuable. Specifically what you will get are the link round ups, additional commentary on stuttering articles, and reviews of podcasts, research, and books. I will try to keep a lot of what I’m going through and have gone through free.
You can reach me at rehan.nasir at gmail dot com.
Hello. I stutter. 
Returned after some gap! The blog is doing great! Thoughtful writing. I have a Mooc in India. The participants and myself have thoroughly enjoyed browsing your blog. Keep sharing your thoughts!
Sachin, TISA
(I must thank Dhruva for having introduced us!)
Hi Rehan – I’ve just discovered your blog and I’m so happy I did. There is so very little discussion I’ve found about and for adults who stutter. I’m a 30 year old woman living in Australia (originally from New Zealand). I’ve stuttered since I could talk, and all the men in my family stutter.
I hope it’s not inappropriate to ask…do your children stutter? I don’t have children, but I am so scared that if I do, they will stutter like me.
Lisa,
Thanks for reading and writing in! Sorry there haven’t been more updates to the site. You know how life is …
Anyway, no, my kids don’t stutter. They are 6, 8 and 12, boy, girl, boy. I thought for a little while that one of them might when they were learning the speak, but nothing came of it. It was definitely something I thought about when we had kids.
I have a cousin who stutters — on my dad’s side. So the chance was definitely there to carry on.
Let me know if that helps, and/or you’ve got something specific that I should write on in the blog.
Cheers,
Rehan
Hello Rehan, I’m Amol, 21 years old and i have been stuttering from my childhood itself. This has been a very big problem in my life since everytime i do some talking especially to a stranger, my mind gets occupied with the words i need to speak..mostly the very first word. This makes me panic and i get more stuck. I try to be more calm while speaking but this doesn’t solve the problem especially in intensified moments. Can you help in any way?
Hi, Amol. Thanks for writing and reading the blog. Are you able to practice more with friends and maybe their friends — they’d be strangers, but not as intimidating. I have a lot of the same problems — so sometimes I just avoid talking to them altogether. I think also you should notice how fast people talk — some are slow, some are fast. So if you go up to someone and have to take a moment to take a breath, it’s ok. You don’t have to immediately start talking. I think a lot of us think this. The other thing — and it won’t help you be more fluent — but it’s just to break down the barrier and feel like it’s safe to stutter. The more you do this, the more you’ll see people don’t mind.
I stutter too well it’s gone lesser now since I had to work on it to recover myself, .I am still anxious of the words I guess you understand the difficulties.
I really think you’re a doing a great job at embracing it. It’s healthy too. Your experiences are helpful for people who stutters out there.
I just started to blog about this too and people are reaching out to makes it feel important.
hey rehan, thanks for the advice and the earlier posts regaridn this subject. Definitely agree with everything you said, will read through, appreciate it ALOT.
Hey rehan, do you have any advice career wise? Did stuttering affect your career decision as far as pursuing what you wanted? I myself struggle with jumping from unversity strictly for that reason.
Hi Andre — I’ve written some about jobs — https://helloistutter.com/tag/jobs/
But let me go back through those and see if I can’t add anything more. As you know, it’s complicated finding a decent job even if you don’t stutter! So on the one hand there’s living within your stuttering limits and on the other there’s trying to find long-term happiness.
To answer your question briefly, though, stuttering did affect my career choice — but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Only after some serious reflection did I realize what my mind was up to all those years.
I’d say stick with getting a university degree no matter what. It’ll open so many more doors for you. Getting a job is about networking, but if you hand your resume to your best friend at the best company, he won’t be able to do anything for you if you don’t meet the minimum qualification — having a university degree.
Just came across this blog. Beyond grateful. I hope I can achieve a level of success like rehan in terms of accepting the “little” set back.#hope
Hey Andre — thanks for stopping by and reading! You definitely can achieve success. Just remember you can do it on your own terms. You’ll have good days and bad — but getting closer to full acceptance really does lift the burden. Look forward to hearing more from you!
I will be following your blog. My daughter just started stuttering this year. She is 10.
Thanks for the follow! I’m always open to replying to any questions as well about stuttering — you can send me an e-mail anytime.
Conversation on a daily basis helps us contuining with our efforts.also we feel unified with the peoples who are like us and want to share their journey and experience..
Good initiative Rehan sir..
-k kundan,india
Thanks for your kind words, Kumar, and thanks for reading. I hope you find some of the posts interesting and inspiring. And I certainly welcome your feedback at any time!
Thanks for reading, Kumar — please do feel free to share experiences on here through comments or e-mails!