My whole life. I certainly don't remember a time where I didn't stammer.  When I was very young, my stammer was no more significant than the colour of my hair or my favourite football team. I was aware of it, my friends were too, but it wasn't a negative thing. I went to speech therapy during primary school, which I enjoyed and it gave me a technique to help me be more fluent, so that is probably my earliest memory.

Primary school was largely fine, but secondary school was difficult. By then I was becoming more and more aware of my stammer, and the older I became the more I tried to hide it. It got to the point where my entire life revolved around hiding my stammer. I would do everything in my power to make sure the person I was talking to didn't know I stammered. To avoid stammering, I would quickly think about what I wanted to say before I said it, swap out any words I thought I would stammer on, and then decide if I would speak. If I couldn't find suitable words to swap, I just wouldn't say anything. Someone once said to me, that must be exhausting, doing that 24/7. Actually, it became second nature. I did it so much that I did it without realising.

There are so many sides to this. The short answer is that it is embarrassing, especially at school when teenagers can be cruel anyway, whether they mean to be or not. But it's also belittling, trying to do something and struggling in front of someone. Then there is the frustration, the more you block on a word, the harder you try to say it and the harder it becomes to say. But the worst part is the anxiety that comes before speaking. The moment before picking up the phone, or the moment before standing up in front of class. This is what drove me to avoid stammering, and I ended up avoiding situations entirely just in case I stammered. On the rare occasion I did stammer, it would ruin the rest of my day. I felt ashamed and would retreat into my shell. I was fortunate that my family were 100% supportive throughout, so it meant I could always talk to them about it. Not everyone has this kind of support, and for them the world can become a very lonely place. 

Using the phone has always been a challenge. When I joined Alex Picot this was my biggest concern, made worse by the fact I find 'Alex Picot' nearly impossible to say! Early on I would avoid the phone like the plague, it genuinely terrified me. But over the years I have developed ways to answer the phone that suit me and make me feel more comfortable. When speaking to clients I want to make the best impression I can, not just for me but for the company as well.

They have always supported me. I am lucky to work with some amazing people who genuinely care, and I've had lots of great conversations with colleagues over the years about stammering so the awareness has grown.

Everyone is different. For me, longer words are more difficult. I spent most of my teenage years talking entirely in one syllable words, and this is a good example of how I would swap words before I said anything. Difficult would be swapped for hard, little swapped for small, Thomas swapped for Tom. Lots of people find their name really difficult to say, but fortunately for me Tom is a nice short word. Ironically, and somewhat amusingly, International Stammering Awareness Day has got to be one of the more difficult things to say. 

Towards the end of 2015 I helped form the Jersey Stammering Support Group. It was set up as a place for islanders with a stammer to come and talk to people who have had similar experiences. Over the years the group changed, but numbers rarely reached double figures. Statistics suggest that 1% of the population have a stammer, and there are over 100,000 people in Jersey, so that would suggest there are around 1,000 islanders with a stammer. I think this is a great representation of how difficult it can be for some people to talk about their stammer.

I spent most of my younger life ensuring nobody knew I had a stammer. At 18 years old, the thought of a support group would have made me run a mile, so I understand how personal it can be. It is so easy to suffer in silence, but there is support out there. 

For me, the best thing also happens to be the hardest thing. Telling people. One of the best decisions I ever made was telling my workplace about my stammer. I was in my late 20s at this point, but even at that age I still tried to hide my stammer every time I spoke. After much consideration, I decided to tell my colleagues. The way I told everyone (via an email) was by promoting the support group, which had just formed. This meant I could tell people I had a stammer without directly saying it. Suddenly I had something to be proud of, and a reason to talk about stammering in a positive light. It felt a little like I was doing it for the greater good, as much as it was for me. We've since made several appearances on local media.

Only people with a stammer will truly understand what it is like. As a group of people who stammer, there is no judgement, no expectations, just support and understanding. You may be surprised to hear that during our catch-ups we rarely talk about having a stammer. But just knowing that everyone in the support group understands, means you can relax and be yourself. 

The more you see something, the more normal it becomes. When I was growing up, the only person on TV with a stammer was Gareth Gates. Other than that, you were looking at comedy characters where the stammer was the centre of joke. So, unless you knew someone with a stammer, it was alien to most people I came across. In recent years there has been more publicity, notably Jessie on Traitors. For someone with a stammer to be on prime-time TV is incredibly rare, despite 1% of the population having a stammer. This is the biggest step forward in my opinion, not only because it showed Jessie being happy and positive, but also because everyone else gave her time and respect to speak. Her voice was equal to everyone else, something many people with a stammer don't often feel. But we need to see more on TV, the more we see it, the more it normalises it. 

I started recording a podcast with a friend from the support group, where we discussed all things stammering. It is called Breaking the Ice, and the name refers to the iceberg analogy that is often used to represent stammering, and also mental health. Above the water you can only see a small portion of the iceberg, this represents what you can see and hear. However, the majority of the iceberg is under the water and this represents everything you can't see, i.e the anxiety, the shame, the fear, the avoidance, the list goes on. I was also fortunate enough to co-write a charity song, with another friend in the UK. It's called My Truth, by Stammerun. Both Breaking the Ice Podcast and My Truth can be found on all major platforms. 

Just let them speak. Don't try and finish their sentences for them, allow them to talk at their own pace, in their own time. It is frustrating enough not being able to say what you want to say, but if someone is talking over you or finishing your sentences, it only adds to the frustration.