I find myself having difficulty breathing, almost as if I have forgotten how to. I wipe the sweat off my brow, grab my index cards tightly, and open my mouth to speak. But the words just will not come out as I hit a stuttering block. Those same forty pairs of eyes are gazing at me in wonderment. I avoid their scowls by looking down at my index cards, held by my excessively sweaty hands. The class is remarkably silent, waiting for me to continue. Nervously, I attempt to speak again, but again I block. I make a stronger effort to try to spit the words out.
I first realized I was different than the other students in my class during the fifth grade. While the thirty-four other students in my class could speak aloud in class without any trouble, I was not as fortunate. I noticed that sometimes when I spoke, I would suddenly get stuck on a word that I could not say. During my middle school days, I became shy because trying to hide this quirk of mine was my main concern. The childhood teasing proved to be a traumatic experience. So much so, that if I could avoid speaking aloud in class, I would. I did not want to subject myself to a class full of students laughing at me. I was so upset at my lack of fluency in speech that I thought something was seriously wrong with me. I remember thinking that if I was ever granted one wish, I would not wish to be the richest person in the world or to be the smartest person in the world, but rather I knew with clarity that I would wish I could speak clearly, without any stuttering problem. But no matter how much I wished, it did not