My Stuttering Story
Hi. My name is Mark Power and for 35 years I felt like a misfit and an alien. No matter where I went, I could not escape my stuttering problem and my hatred of talking. I hated the sound of my own voice.
At my school there was one other kid who stuttered and he didn’t have a clue either. We didn’t know why we did this. We just knew we were ashamed of ourselves. The school would set us up with another therapist every year. We would lumber through their suggestions about taking deep breaths, making eye contact, talking about how I FEEL about stuttering…
It was a total waste of time.
On my way to the first stuttering program that actually worked, I stopped at a lonely gas station in the middle of the night. When I walked into the office to ask for the key to the restroom, I stuttered so bad that the attendant panicked (he thought I was crazy) He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a .45 automatic.
When he pointed the gun at my head and I stammered, “I’m a stu-stu-stu-stu-stutterer.”
I didn’t know it then but the tunnel of darkness was about to come to an end. Dr. George Shames and his wonderful staff at the University of Pittsburgh changed my life. After one week of intensive therapy I found myself striking up conversations with…. yes, even gas station attendants who I would have never talked to before, just because I could. (And none of them pulled a gun on me!)
I was liberated.
After 35 years of communication prison, I had a LOT to say. I was making up for lost time.
You will too. When you discover what I discovered: That it’s not your fault. That the ineffective therapists were trying their best but the knowledge they’d been given was inadequate.
“For The First Time In My Life, I Could Say Anything I Wanted To Say.”
I want you to say what YOU want to say. Anytime. Anywhere. With anybody.
I would like the opportunity to tell you the whole story. Exactly how it happened, from the rocky road of failed efforts and well-meaning therapists to the breakthrough that re-programmed my brain and enabled me to set hundreds of other stutterers free – being stutter-free for 26 years now and now able to help people like you too.
