Dear Ralph: Depressed and sad boy

Hi Mr Ralph.
    Good evening sir. I am having a problem that I want you to help me with. I am 17 years old and I have always been socially awkward. Maybe it is because I stutter or because I let things get to me. My self confidence is no where to be found and I cannot do anything in public. My stuttering is embarrassing and gets worse when I am having tension. You can imagine what happens to me when we have to pray at the assembly in school and the prefects purposely pick me every time.
I would stutter and everybody would laugh, I don't know what to do. The school is making it hard for me to continue and concentrate on my studies. Even the people that say they are my friends don't help me. They laugh the most at me and make fun of me. They imitate the way I stutter and use it to tease me all the time. I am always depressed and on my own these day. When the so called friends come around to see me, I refuse to go with them because I don't know if they are my real friends. Will real friends laugh at me? Will they make fun of my problem and use it as a joke? Please help me.

                                                                                                                                                      Nnamdi
















Hello Nnamdi,
       I am sorry to hear about your issues but I need you to know that we can sort through this. I have actually helped another person through this same problem of stuttering. You can find his own post HERE. So I need you to trust me and know you can control this. First of all, I want you to try and talk slowly, you need to learn to count your words. At first it'g going to sound like you don't know how to speak well but with time, you would do it so well that no one would notice you counting your words. You wold so easily with it. So just try this out and see. If you read the post you would see that I recommended to the other person to record himself every once in a while and play back after some time to track his progress. So just try this out and take it easy.

This assembly prayers that are being used to torture you might be bad right now but what they don't know is that they are building you. You might not know it now but this would help you in the future to overcome fear when you have to address the public. You just need the right kind of mind state to follow this up. Try to forget about the people in front of you first of all then use this technique I told you about to speak. Even if you don't do it right the first time just forget about the fun they are making of you. Always have it in mind that you are improving yourself. Their are people in that assembly that won't be able to stand up in front of a crowd and you are improving yourself on it daily. Just forget about their intentions to embarrass you and embrace this to make yourself better.

Friends, especially guys can be really strange I know. Sometimes it could mean that they aren't really your friends. This is mostly if all they do is make fun of you and that's all. They could really be your friends but boys have this strange behavior where they use their flaws to make fun of each other. You don't have to take it to heart. When they do this, just dust it off and laugh along. Try to redirect your attention to something else and don't dwell on it. The truth is that boys would always be boys and they would keep doing this. Even if you all meet in the future they would continue so the best way is to just not take it to heart. Instead don't let them have all the fun, do the same to them.

Just take it easy Nnamdi, everything is going to be okay. Use these tips I just gave you and see if you would be able to handle it. If you can't then don't worry, ill still be here to help you as much as you need. Take care and don't forget to write when you need me.


                                                                                                                                                       Ralph