Back in third grade I had the same issue and it was really limiting my freedom of speech, to the point where I would refuse to speak at all, believing that becoming mute was a fair trade off in turn to never embarrass myself again. See, I was a quick thinker, however in this case too quick for my own good. Often, my younger self would think ahead of what my tongue-tied lips were announcing, resulting in whole words or even sentences being accounted for only in mind but not in voice. My teacher, bless her soul, had the perfect solution as of how to buffer my brain when it came to speaking. Simply put, in order to pronounce every syllable of momentum without skipping a letter, one would split it into exactly three smaller words, forming a somewhat coherent sentence in place: Mow, Men, Tum. How is that a sentence you may ponder to yourself, well let me indulge you into what I now know as the begging of my own end. “I like to mow men’s tummies”, is the extended line of wording my teacher used. With the wits about me even at such a young age I quickly visualised lawnmowing a man’s stomach every time I spoke of momentum. A disturbing image that stuck with me for the rest of my life. Granted, the three seperated words and my brain processing the imagination required for such a scene did solve my inability to pronounce momentum, but it caused far more severe trauma than being mute ever could. For years after that faithful day, the one small lesson would follow me around like a cursed aroma. It began as just a flashback, a recollection of a unique way to say a word. Then as I started hearing it more frequently during physics classes, it become more prominent, an invasive thought that could materialise at a moment’s notice. Moment… Only two letters off, but it was similar enough to pose as my trigger phrase. Soon other words began to almost morph into the dreaded term, their parralel’s lacking in everything but a few shared letters. Hair started to make me feel nauseous on sight, exposed stomachs made me gag, everything and anything led me to that thought. I tried to hide my anxiety and fears, but of course my insanity was noticeable, especially to my parents. They inquired me of my situation, asking for answers but I was too embarrassed to reply, or perhaps I feared the vulnerability of giving them the key to my suffering. In either case not long after, during a mental breakdown, I had managed to cut and pull every hair from my body, granting me the ability to use mirrors again. This was too much for my dear parents and they sent me to therapy immediately, a generous offer in comparison to a psych ward. Though I never told my assigned therapist the issue at hand, I danced around the case with comparisons and metaphors. Now, perhaps my similes weren’t similar enough, but this doctor of mental help gave me possibly the worst advice: “embrace it”. Well I certainly embraced it alright. Day in day out I forced myself to chant momentum, I worked the courage to let my hair grow back, I looked at myself topless on the mirror. It was working at first, it began to numb the trauma, and it all seemed so insignificant, such a silly thing to get upset over. I wanted to finish it quickly, get rid of it completely, once and for all, demolish the control this demonic phrase had on me. This, if not for the original day in class, was the biggest mistake of my life. I started to look up men’s hairy stomachs on the internet. There’s exposure therapy for many topics, but I’m sure over exposure can also be applied to just as many, including this one. Perhaps it was the false sense of securing a strong mental balance after all this time, maybe it was due to it being such a taboo activity, or could it of just been destiny? In any case, I got addicted. Years later, to this day I still withhold this addiction to a much greater extent. I am not gay, but I have indulged with men for their hairy stomachs, not just online but in person too. I have accepted this is me, whether I like it or not.