Laurent Lagarde

I started stuttering when I was six. My parents went to see a physician, who said “he’ll grow out of it”. But I didn’t grow out of it. I grew up with it. My mother moved heaven and earth searching for a solution, and so I tried many things: speech therapy, medicines, acupuncture, homeopathy, and more. Once, utterly desperate, she even took me to a healer! I remember a friendly little man with a pot belly wearing a three-piece suit. He swung his pendulum in front of my stomach, placing his hand on my throat to transfer the waves of positive energy. It makes me smile now, but it shows the extent of my parents’ hopeless confusion. As a young man, I continued this desperate search, going on a course given by a man who had cured his stuttering, trying sophrology and osteopathy. At that time you were left to your own devices. In the first place, it was difficult to find information on stuttering. Then, when you’d found it, it wasn’t always pitched at the right level; often it was intended for professionals.

So I continued with my life, stuttering, letting it dictate my choices: what I ordered in restaurants, my studies, my profession. At work, group discussions were a real ordeal, as was the telephone. I preferred walking along the corridors and talking face-to-face, rather than calling someone on the phone. I developed a real phobia about stuttering. I remember breaking down one day in my boss’ office when he asked me to stand in for him and make a speech in public.

By the time I was forty, I thought I would never find a solution; that I would continue to panic whenever I needed to make a phone call, to introduce myself or to speak in public. And then I was saved by the Internet.

Still thinking myself alone, misunderstood and with no hope of a cure, I suddenly discovered the stories of people who had gone through the same trials and tribulations as I had. And they explained how they had solved their problem! I was ecstatic. Here were people like me giving me what I needed: information, hope and a user manual. I had discovered a hidden world; I wanted to reveal its existence to French speakers.

So that’s what gave me the idea of creating the blog www.goodbye-begaiement.fr in 2009. I wanted to share my experience and above all others’ experiences, bring together useful information, and help other stutterers to save the time I had wasted.

Originally my aim was to write the kind of blog that I would have wanted to read: a colorful and light-hearted mishmash of constructive stories: I didn’t want it to be taken too seriously.

At first, I have to admit, I was a little afraid of the reactions of the french ‘VIPs’ of the world of stuttering. The only things I had to offer were my sincerity, my own story – which was undoubtedly interesting but not necessarily typical – and the fruits of my documentary research. My surprise at the feedback was as big as my fears had been.

From the beginning my fellow bloggers, Olivier and Alexandre, reacted by sharing my first articles. Daniel, the webmaster of Parole Bégaiement, a French association which gives a voice to those who stutter, also quickly put a link on their site.

Then, I was almost incredulous when I saw eminent specialists such as François Le Huche and Marie Claude Monfrais-Pfauwadel making comments on my articles, fueling my themes and shedding light on the subject with their experience and scientific rigor.

Encouraged by these first reactions, I started looking at Anglophone resources. I made contact with the Stuttering Foundation of America, without great hope that they would be interested in me. I felt like an amateur diver applying to join Jacques Cousteau’s team on its next underwater expedition. And there, too, I was surprised. It was the president, Jane Fraser, who kindly replied in person and in French (she has lived in France). She thanked me (thanked me!) for my first translations, and encouraged me to continue by giving me the translation rights for two American bestsellers published by her Foundation. You can’t imagine how much that motivated me.

I continued to make contact with numerous former stutterers and therapists who were working together to bring stuttering out of the closet. I shared new teachings and scientific discoveries. Each time, I was welcomed with open arms. These interactions meant a great deal to me.

Since I created the blog, I have read a great deal, discussed, written, and above all passed on the stories of stutterers who have solved their problem. I have been able to show that solutions exist and, above all, that there are people who have liberated themselves from their stuttering. This is a long way from the depressing resignation of sayings like: ‘once a stutterer always a stutterer’ and ‘every stutter is unique’.

Yes, stuttering is a complex subject, but through my reading, through all the discussions I have had, and in the translations I have done, I have discovered there are points which keep coming up again and again. I have also identified what stutterers with positive states of mind and winning attitudes have in common.

For seven years now, I have been sharing my revelations and enthusiasms on the blog. I have often been asked to write it all down in a book. I am both proud and happy to say that you have that book in front of you. In it, you will find many valuable views and suggestions expressed by numerous stutterers from around the world.

So in this book, you have everything I would have liked to have known at the age of twenty.

Laurent