I think I may be in denial about blocking. I do not block, I find myself saying, a lot. When I hear other people who stutter talk about having blocks – both audible or silent – I think to myself, whew, glad that doesn’t happen to me.

But it does. For some reason, I just don’t want to call it a block. Sometimes I think of it as a spasm, others times a tremor or even a “stuck”. Whatever it is, I seem to be doing more of it lately.

Like yesterday at work – and this is really not a big deal – but at the moment, it was. Someone had rang the emergency bell from a classroom into the main office. The office clerk answers it, hears kids laughing, and she re-sets the bell. Kids had got access to the bell -they ring it again. She answers it again. Kids beep back, laughing. (Talk about crying wolf – but it is the last days of school for this year.)  Gym teacher walks by, he says, “well, that’s going well”, and a  couple of us chuckle. Clerk asks me what were we laughing about, and I tried to tell her, “Eric said ‘ that’s g **ing well’ , but I got stuck on the g, really stuck.  It came out “gggggggggggg” and nothing else. I couldn’t finish the word.

She got “the look” on her face -she got tired of waiting – and I just said “never mind.” I half-heartedly laughed it off, but I wasn’t buying it. I felt my face flush, that involuntary thing that always gives me away.  I hardly ever back down and say never mind, but I did. The “g” just wasn’t coming out. It was stuck.

Now, I am pretty sure that what really happened was a block. Its been happening more often lately. Not just on the phone, either. Maybe my stuttering pattern is changing a little bit. No big deal, right? After all, I am writing about making room for my stuttering, so I should be all right with these more frequent “stoppages.” I should be fine with accepting all of the different ways I stutter.

But guess what?  I’m not. I really don’t like this kind of stuttering. Really makes me feel like I am not in control. My repetitions are generally relaxed and easy, with a beat, as I recently discovered (!), but these abrupt stoppages are not my style at all. Not what I have been used to. Not what I have been OK with over the last three years.

I have put together a neat little package of what I call “my stuttering”. It hasn’t included this part. Why the denial? I can’t even call it “blocking”. I use other words. There must be something I still need to work on then, right?  We all have things we have to work on.

This is big for me – to write about and process something that I am presently conflicted about. Usually I feel more comfortable writing about something AFTER I have figured it out. Safer. So, where do I put the blocks?

Copyright © 2009