Joaquín Becerra

“We all have a voice and we deserve to be heard.” For many years of my life I did not understand the meaning of this phrase, many times I thought that those who had the power of speech were the speakers, and I always wanted to be one of them to express my ideas without stuttering and that they understood me when I communicated.

I started to stutter from the moment I can remember, from the moment I uttered the first words, at the beginning I did not know what it was called what was happening to me, I simply had trouble communicating.

During my childhood, I went with psychologists and speech therapists to control my stuttering but I did not see any feasible results. Since I was little I became aware of my condition with phrases such as: Quiet! Do not get nervous! Think before you speak! and therefore the situation that I lived daily in school, ridicule and rejection from my classmates.

I always bothered to stutter, it was unpleasant for me, in the course of secondary school and high school I was researching on the Internet about its control and I could not find something that would help me. 

I learned to live with my stutter, I got in university, I studied a 100% spoken career, communication. A great challenge for me, the road was not easy, that’s when I realized that society is not aware of stuttering, I studied in two universities. I never let my stutter stop me from achieving my goals, although I do not deny that it caused me a lot of pain not to speak fluently.

In the second university where I studied, for talking to a teacher about my condition she gave me help and recommended that I talk to a person who had taken the course of the “McGuire” programme. I contacted him, he told me about the programme, I saw videos of graduates who had control of their stuttering. I was afraid to sign up but I got involved and it was the best decision I’ve made in my life. Now I control my stutter more but I have mainly accepted the condition completely.

It is necessary that people love their condition above all things because it is something that makes them unique, it is what distinguishes them from the rest. On the other hand, society needs to be made aware of stuttering, about what it is and in the same way about what someone who stutters feels.

I no longer look for perfection when I speak, if I stutter, it’s okay! I continue to express myself, doing my techniques and formulating before speaking but mainly, enjoying the speech process focusing on the process, not on the result!

Now I can present my ideas in front of an audience! Speak without fear and with discipline, tenacity and dedication! Continue with my process of becoming the speaker I have always wanted to be, but never forget that my stuttering is “my great virtue, my greatest strength”.