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NSA Special Moments
Posted on: July 12, 2010
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I was at the NSA Conference in Cleveland Ohio last week, and as always it was an exciting, magical and inspirational weekend. I plan to write about some of the best moments and provide a summary of a couple of really great workshops I attended, plus one I gave!
In the meantime, Mike Bauer put together a fantastic video that was played during the closing ceremonies. It really summarizes how wonderful the conference was, and the magic feeling you get being around so many courageous people who stutter.
Mike also presented at the Toastmaster Demo workshop and gave his icebreaker speech, and did a fantastic job. I think this was only Mike’s second conference, so kudos to him for stepping up with a presentation so soon.
I feel honored to be able to share this video here! Mike did a great job. He may have found a new volunteer job with the NSA.
The Power Of Being Quiet Episode 13
Posted on: July 12, 2010
Episode 13 (Lucky # 13) is a great conversation about stuttering with a woman who doesn’t stutter. This episode features Jill Douglass, who is from Lafayette, LA. I first met Jill at a NSA Conference, but really got to know her at the Friends Convention in New Orleans in 2008. We have been email, text and Face book friends since then.
Jill is in her fourth year of her PhD program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is pursuing advanced studies in the speech and language field, with a strong interest in academia and research. She is co-leader of the Lafayette NSA Chapter, along with Derek Johnson and Al Thomas.
Jill is a SLP who “gets it”. She understands that stuttering is about the whole person, and wants to be involved in teaching new clinicians how to best work with people who stutter. She is interested in the complexity of covert stuttering, which is the focus of her doctoral research. Specifically, she wants to understand the process of going from covert to overt.
Jill and I talk about what people who stutter have taught her and the value of quiet listening in a loud and rushed world. She also talks about going to Oslo, Norway for a linguistics conference, where she had an opportunity to present some of her research efforts on covert stuttering.
Listen in to a great conversation with a great friend of the stuttering community. Feel free to leave comments as well. The interactive feedback on this blog and podcast is really special.
Musical credit for “Silver Shine” goes to Dano Songs.
Lots Of People Who Stutter
Posted on: July 9, 2010
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Right now, I am at the National Stuttering Association (NSA) 2010 conference in Cleveland, Ohio. By the time you read this, I will have been here for 2 full days. It is a great time to stutter freely and openly, meet new people and catch up with many friends I have made on this wonderful journey.
I made a promise to myself that I would not spend time during the conference blogging, tweeting or updating on Face book. That takes away from the real purpose of being here – which is to connect with others who share the same experience, worries and fears. There is nothing more powerful than the support of people who get it, even if you don’t know them, yet!
I feel that wave of support when I walk into one of the rooms at a NSA conference. I don’t have to explain myself or what I just did. I don’t have to worry about any of the looks, or feel self-conscious. We can talk, and listen, and share, and take as much time as we need.
I will be writing about some of the best moments of the NSA conference upon my return. It will be hard to do, as I know there will be many to choose from. I am facilitating one workshop on my own, helping with the Toastmasters demo meeting, and doing something special with teens on Saturday morning.
I am also looking forward to meeting some friends in person – Danny, Sarah, Gloria, Mandy, Cheryl – and meeting some of the folks who will be experiencing the fellowship of self-help for the first time.
Look for updates here soon!
Episode 12 welcomes Victoria Benson Schutter, from Houston, Texas. Vicki is a long time NSA member,and in fact, was with the organization when it was still known as the NSP, National Stuttering Project.
Vicki works at Rice University in Houston, and is a NSA chapter leader, chairing meetings from her home. This week, Vicki will be attending her 25th consecutive NSA conference. Vicki was the 2009 NSA Member of the Year. She has also been actively involved with community theater for over 35 years.
This episode really drives home the power of women sharing their stories. Vicki shares several stories, illustrating the importance of having a good sense of humor and not taking self or others too seriously. This is an especially helpful episode for young people.
Fun Fact: Vicki tells us about how she came to marry her husband, who happens to have a last name that rhymes with stutter.
Listen in to an engaging, funny and inspirational conversation. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.
Musical credit for “Today Then Tomorrow” goes to Dano Songs.
Why Is It Such A Big Deal?
Posted on: July 3, 2010
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Last week, I shared with a colleague that I would be attending the NSA conference this week, for the fifth year. I was talking excitedly about it and told her a little about the workshop I planned to do.
She wanted to know why it was so important to me, and why do I keep going. She said, “you know, it’s not a big deal to us (people at work). You stutter, yeah, we all know that, but it’s not a big deal. You just stutter. Why is it such a big deal to you?”
For a quick second, I felt myself get defensive, almost like it seemed she was “trying to take something away” from me in a weird way.
Then I quickly said, “Well, it hasn’t always been ‘that I just stutter’. It has been a source of shame and embarrassment for so long, and now it’s not”.
Then she said, “Oh, I guess its like how I felt about my self-esteem for a long time. That’s why I talk about that a lot.”
I didn’t feel it was quite the same thing, but it was indeed a good thing that we were even having a conversation about stuttering. For most of my adult life, I wouldn’t have been caught dead openly discussing stuttering with anyone, let alone a colleague at work.
Life needs purpose. I truly believe part of my purpose is to share what I have learned about living with stuttering with others who have not yet made room for it in their lives.
I went from feeling guilty, ashamed and depressed about stuttering to being able to talk about it openly in many different ways to many different audiences. It helps me to help others.
That is why it is such a big deal to me!
Proud Of Me, Finally – Episode 11
Posted on: July 1, 2010
Episode 11 features Anita Blom, who hails from Sweden, by way of Holland. I first met Anita two years ago. She attended a National Stuttering Association (NSA) conference, where she gave one of the keynote addresses.
I remember feeling inspired by her active involvement in the world-wide stuttering community. I also remember that she came to the Open Mic session that I hosted on the last day of the conference. I spoke to her afterward, and felt instant connection. Since then, I have “run into” her at the on-line ISAD conferences. We now keep up through social media.
I do hope I get to see Anita in person again sometime. It did feel completely right and comfortable chatting with each other via skype and webcam. Turns out, we both were wearing similar jams!
Anita is busy! She has a large family, is an adult education teacher, does IT support, helps with the family company AND plays in a marching band. She also does a bit of volunteer work – she is Chair of her local stuttering chapter, Chair of the Swedish National Stuttering Association, is Vice Chair of the European League of Stuttering Associations and sits on several committees. It tired me out just typing this!
We chat about acceptance, turning points, “lost and found” and even why Anita once wanted to be a boy. Anita has a wonderful name badge that she wears everywhere. It says, “S-s-sure, I s-s-stutter! What are you good at?”
Listen in on a great conversation, and feel free to leave comments for Anita (and me too!). Your feedback is always welcome, and helps me know that I am getting this right.
Musical credit for “I’m Gonna Go” goes to Dano Songs.
A Mom’s Story – Fighting Words
Posted on: June 30, 2010
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I can’t resist posting a link to a great essay a Facebook friend posted yesterday. The mother of one of the Friends regulars is a writer and posts many of her links and articles on her Facebook page.
Yesterday, she posted a link to an essay written by Elissa Wald, the mother of a young daughter who has just begun to stutter. The article is titled, Fighting Words. The subtitle states: A stutter has emerged. Why does everyone insist it is a gift?
The essay explores stuttering literature she has researched, including lists of famous people who stutter. She also reflects on her hopes for her child, that she somehow comes to terms with her stuttering on her own someday and lets her mom know about it.
This essay is honest, poignant, hits home and demonstrates the positive and healthy attitude toward stuttering that all parents should have. I hope as many people as possible read this article and leave comments for Wald on her own site.
She got me thinking about a whole lot of things, as I m sure it will do for you too!
Getting A Handle on Stuttering
Posted on: June 29, 2010
Somebody asked me yesterday for advice to help somebody get a handle on his or her stuttering. I took that to mean whats the best way to work towards acceptance.
I was flattered to be asked. I am not a speech professional and I am only four years into my own journey with stuttering acceptance.
I found myself emailing off a response right away, with no hesitation. I suggested that a person who stutters should be encouraged to talk about stuttering when ever possible, to whoever will listen. Ask the stutterer questions about her stuttering, things like, “how do you stutter? What does it feel like? What kind of emotions come up with stuttering?”
The more a person talks about stuttering, the more comfortable he or she will feel. It is the basic premise of desensitization. The person should also be encouraged to advertise that they stutter, as much as possible.
It may feel awkward at first. If you are like me, someone who had been covert for a long time, it will indeed feel awkward. And weird. And scary. I hated it when I first tried doing it – I felt more self-conscious advertising I stutter than actually stuttering.
Encourage the person to advertise or disclose in baby steps – maybe to one person or in one situation a day. Each time it is done, it gets easier. The easier it gets talking about stuttering, the less anxious she will feel about stuttering. Less anxiety about stuttering may then translate into easier, more relaxed stuttering.
As I wrote this email out, offering my advice as a person who stutters to someone looking for a way to help someone else to accept stuttering, I realized why I was able to respond so fast. Because it is exactly how I have become more comfortable with my own stuttering in the last four years. I talk about it whenever I can, to both help myself and raise awareness for others.
Oh, and if you can’t tell, I also write about stuttering too. A lot. It helps. Thanks Ruth, for the inspiration to write about this today.
We Love To Talk
Posted on: June 27, 2010
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Patrice, Pam, Bob, Steve and Joe
Getting together with other people who stutter never has to be formal with a set agenda. My friend Steve and I decided to launch a monthly social gathering for people who stutter in our area to just get together over food, drinks and good conversation.
We might talk about stuttering or we might not. What’s important is that we are getting together and feel comfortable to talk and laugh about anything.
We are calling our social gathering “Chat & Chew Too”. We have adopted the name from good friend Russ Hicks, who hosts similar social gatherings in Dallas.
So far we have met twice, and have our time and place scheduled for next month. We plan to alternate the times, days and places in an effort to keep it flexible and reach as many people as possible who want to connect in a very informal setting.
We had a great time talking a little bit about this and a little bit about that. It was nice to meet someone new and catch up with old friends as well. I would recommend fun, regular, social gatherings for anyone but particularly for people who stutter. We love to talk!
All Your Worst Fears – Episode 10
Posted on: June 25, 2010
Episode 10 (already!) features Christine from London, England. I met Christine when I visited the UK several months ago and attended a British Stammering Association -BSA-meeting. It was a great opportunity for me to meet women from another country who understand the stuttering journey. They were just like me!
We have kept in touch through email and Face book, and most certainly will chat again soon.
Christine has an active interest in the woman’s stuttering experience and was instrumental in getting a telephone support group for women up and running in the UK. She also has supported and attended social gatherings for persons who stammer in the London area.
Christine and I chat about career paths and acceptance. We also dive into a very honest, very powerful discussion of how stutterers feel when hearing other stutterers, perhaps more severe. We both agree that this is a topic – feelings – not talked about often enough.
It raises a very real point. How can we talk about our feelings to people who don’t stutter if we are not willing to dive into the tougher stuff with each other?
Listen in! Please feel free to leave comments or questions for Christine, and applaud her for being vulnerable with us. Thanks Christine!
Musical credit for the clip “Today Then Tomorrow” goes to Dano Songs.
Episode 9 features Beth Bienvenu, from Olney, Maryland, located outside of Washington, DC. Beth works for the US Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy.
As a woman who stutters, Beth has used her personal journey as a stutterer to raise awareness at the federal government level. She offers advice about reasonable accommodations that one can ask for to make stuttering in the workplace a non-issue.
Beth has been involved with the National Stuttering Association for six years and attributes self-help and support to helping her move toward acceptance of her own stuttering.
In our chat, Beth shares valuable information and resources for career success. She has been very instrumental in facilitating a Career Track at the upcoming NSA conference in Cleveland in July. For more information on accommodations in the workplace, visit the Job Accommodation Network.
Musical credit for the intro and out-tro of the song “I’m Gonna Go” goes to Dano Songs.
As always, your feedback and support is appreciated. Feel free to leave comments or ask Beth some questions.
What Stuttering Looks Like
Posted on: June 16, 2010
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I am learning a lot more about what stuttering looks like by editing audio. And I am reminded of two experiences that bothered me in the past, which now make more sense as I actually “look” at stuttering.
Above is a screen shot of my voice recorded and captured as a sound wave in the audio program “Audacity”. Notice how some of the audio looks “dense and thick” and some is just a straight line with no depth to it. Well, if you play that clip of audio, the part with no depth is where I stutter – its a pause or block.
Looks funny, doesn’t it? I never really understood how sound could look until I started using this type of editing software.
Podcasters (both the veteran ones, and newbies like me) use this free program to edit audio, much like you would if you were editing text. You can highlight, add, delete, copy and paste. It does take a little getting used to, but not as intimidating as I first thought.
When I did a radio program on NPR last month on stuttering, of course there was stuttering. It was expected that I stutter. That was the point of the talk, to raise awareness of stuttering.
Afterward though, the show’s producer asked me if I would record a testimonial for the radio station. They ask all the guests to do it. I just had to say my name, where I worked, and what I listened to and liked best about the station.
Well, after the first time, the producer suggested I try it again. After take 2, she asked what did I think. She said we could “edit out the stutters” if I wanted. I just looked at her. She said it was perfectly fine to leave them in. I said “Of course, I want them left in!”
She asked me to do it yet again, as she said it sounded like I was reading from a script. (I was!) She wanted me to sound natural. Each of the 6 times I recorded that testimony clip, I stuttered on the exact same words and in the exact same way. We didn’t change anything.
This reminds me of something similar about two years ago. I was feeling more confident than ever about speaking and how my voice sounded. I decided to “audition” to be a reader for the visually impaired through a program offered through our public broadcasting television station.
Readers read aloud from newspapers, books or magazines,and then people with visual impairments who subscribe to the service, can hear their favorite newspapers or magazines and keep up with the news. It’s a great program, and completely supported by volunteers.
Well, I “passed” my audition. I read a couple of newspaper articles. Because of my stutter, which I did not disclose to the woman listening to me, I can often speak with good modulation and pausing, and speak very deliberately, which is perfect for this kind of thing.
But when the audition was over, she gave me some editing orientation. I was going to have to edit my own stuff. She let me experiment in a studio for a while, and let me know that I would need to edit out any “dead air”.
I recorded several clips and produced sound waves like above. Because she was not in the room, I spoke more naturally and had some stuttered moments. I remember they looked exactly like this clip looks. She had shown me how to drag and click, and I could “trim” out the “mistakes”. I did not want to edit out my stuttering nor did I want to trim away “dead air”.
That was me talking. Those sound waves were my voice, my stuttering. What did I do? I erased the sample clips I did that day, cleaned up my work space,signed out of the studio, and left. And never went back.
I had largely forgotten about that until recording the testimonial last month. And now doing audio file editing, where I am actually seeing what my voice “looks like” in the form of a sound wave, I get what radio or TV people who don’t stutter “see”. They just see a sound wave with dead space that needs to be trimmed away. It is totally impersonal to them. There is no connection, the sound wave doesn’t represent a person.
But that stuff up there – those different lines, some dense, some not, that’s ME. That’s my stuttering. That’s what it looks like.
And I will never edit any of that out. EVER. So be it, right?
Living An Honest Life – Episode 8
Posted on: June 14, 2010
Episode 8 features Barbara Wimpee from Milwaukee, WI. Barb is the NSA Chapter leader in Milwaukee for the adult group, as well as leader for the NSA chapter for kids and teens.
I met Barb through social media. We are Face book friends, and she is a regular reader of this blog. We have shared some ideas for use in her kids/teens group in the past.
Barb is a biologist, and is very interested in women’s health issues. So we spend some time exploring women’s health issues as they relate to stuttering, of course.
We also chat about the complexities of being covert. Barb shares how she was “passable” in the fluent world, and also the fear, anxiety and stress that is all too often discovered by the covert trying to be fluent.
Barb further shares about living a life that is honest, career choices, and even mentions a character from Harry Potter.
Musical credit for the song “Silver Shine” goes to Dano Songs.
Please feel free to leave comments or questions, of just let Barb know what a great job she did!
Feeling That Feeling
Posted on: June 11, 2010
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Last night, I had a great talk with a very special person. It wasn’t until I got off the phone with her that I realized how insightful our conversation had been. She is aware that I recently stopped attending a regular stuttering group that I had been part of for several years. (That itself is a long story!).
We both acknowledged that I now had a void in my life, but maybe it was an intentional opening to fill it with other things. We talked about how sometimes you don’t realize how something is really supportive until you “feel” how good it feels.
Just talking with other people who stutter, or someone who really gets stuttering, is support. Whether it be online, over the phone, or in person, just feeling that feeling that the other person gets you, understands and is not judgmental, is so powerful.
Support doesn’t need to come in the form of an organized meeting, at a certain time at a certain place. It doesn’t have to be therapy based, or a workshop, or with one person filling a certain role.
Nope, it can be as simple as just talking with another person who really and truly gets it. And we can create those personal networks all over for ourselves. I don’t have to wait for a certain time to attend a certain meeting. My support comes from all of the connections I have made, and each of us can do that for ourselves.
Meeting people through FRIENDS and the NSA has created many support opportunities for me. And it has extended through social media, other people’s blogs and podcasts, Skype and the phone.
Thanks so much, Lee, for reminding me of that.
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