Make Room For The Stuttering

Someone asked me recently how I got to such a good place with my stuttering. I wasn’t sure what he meant by “good place”, as that is obviously very relative, and asked him to elaborate. He said , “well, you seem so comfortable with everything and you just seem to take stuttering in stride. How did you reach this point?”

Trust me, I have not always taken stuttering in stride. It has been a journey with lots of bumps and potholes. Three years ago, I would not stutter publicly, because I was afraid of social punishment (Greg’s phrasing), mostly rejection. I was convinced that people wouldn’t like me because of my stuttering and was afraid to show that part of me.

I had received negative messages about stuttering all of my life. Early on, those messages came from my father, grade school teachers and classmates. I learned to protect myself from mockery by hardly ever talking. It worked for a long time. In high school and college, on the few occasions when I did dare talk, I pretended the stuttering was something else, coughing, forgotten words, anything but admit I was stuttering. It still worked for the most part.

In adulthood, some people would make cracks like, “did you forget your name or where you work?” or “don’t talk much” when something came out repeated or hesitated. I tried to shake those things off, but it became harder and harder. In the workplace, at the job I was eventually fired from, a manager was particularly brutal to me. At that point in my career, I had to do a lot of public speaking.

I was still very much in covert mode, but it wasn’t working well for me any more. When I do stutter, it is obvious. I just never admitted I stuttered when I was covert. I thought I was fooling everyone, but they knew. The only one I was fooling, and hurting, was myself. Anyway,this manager would roll his eyes when I spoke, would slap his face in disgust and would point and say things like, “Do you hear her? Unbelievable. She can’t even speak.”

After swallowing this and other things for a while and then getting fired for being a poor communicator, something inside of me just snapped. I decided on the day that I was fired that I wasn’t going to live like this anymore, allowing people to rob me of my dignity and self-respect.

I was going to do one of the hardest things in my life – accept that I stutter and let others know. I was afraid of being hurt, of being ridiculed, of being rejected. But I wanted to come clean with myself more than I was afraid, so I pushed through the fear and did it anyway, in baby steps.

I found self-help and went to meetings, at first not saying anything. I cried after the first two stuttering meetings. I was afraid to admit that I stutter even to other people who stutter. But it got easier, and my desire grew bigger than the fear. That’s basically how I did it – acknowledging the fear, and doing what I was afraid of anyway. Like the book by Dr Susan Jeffers, “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway”. (If you haven’t read it, do – it offers great insights for all of us).

You have to acknowledge that fear of the unknown will always exist. Essentially, you make a choice: let fear control you, or “you” control you. I chose the latter, and finally I am leading the life I want. Its not always easy, and sometimes I still hit those potholes. And sometimes I cry , a lot. But life is far better when I am in control and making choices based on what I want and need, instead of fear-based. It’s not always easy, but it sure is worth it.

Yesterday was a wonderful day to be a stutterer. The universe conspired to send me messages in three very different ways. But the messages all said and pointed to the same thing – its good to stutter. Life is good. I am very proud to stutter.

Here’s what I mean. I have a Face book account -doesn’t everybody these days? It is a convenient way to stay in touch with lots of people and know whats going on. Its also a great way to make new friends. Well, early yesterday, I got a friend request from someone I didn’t know, along with this message. It moved me – it really did.

“Hi Pam I have seen your videos on youtube . Also I have always been interested in reading your posts in the stutteringchat and covert stuttering forums. You are one of the most amazing and influential members in the stuttering community. My name is Ammar and I also stutter mild to moderate. I am from middle east and currently I am studying in the US. I am a covert stutter and find your contributions in covert stuttering issues are very informative. I would love to add you as a friend if you don’t mind.”

Who would mind that? I was touched and honored, and got a little teary, I will admit, as I read his words. Amazing and Influential. Who, me? You never know who we might reach. This affirms that what I do and my sharing my stories has value and is meant to be. Needless to say, Ammar and I are now friends, and I hope we get to know each really well.

Also on Face book, I learned that the Our Time Theater group, who performed in NYC on Monday night, was going to be featured on NBC’s Nightly News. Lots of people who stutter are on Face book, and this message spread like wildfire. I called home and asked my patient partner to please set the DVR so I could see it later. I call him patient because he is not into stuttering like I am – he thinks I should be so over the need to keep doing me the way I am. (I could go on and on about that, but will save it for another post!)

So, sure enough, Taro Alexander and his kids who perform in the theater troupe were featured on the news program. What a tribute. I had seen these incredibly inspiring kids at last year’s NSA conference. They are wonderful, and we adults should be so proud of them for being who they are and so very proud of Taro for seeing the value. Here’s the link to Our Time’s Blog , where the videos are posted, in case you didn’t get to see them! http://www.ourtimenyc.blogspot.com/

The third amazing thing that happened yesterday (or this morning, depending on what time zone you are in) was through internet technology, I was able to talk in real time with Ridwan from Scotland and Tone from Norway. We used Skype to make this connection and we talked for over an hour and a half. Ridwan and I both stutter, and we did during our phone conversation and we talked about our stuttering, Tone is a student from Norway, studying to be a teacher. Her long term goal is to be a SLP and she is learning about stuttering by connecting with us.

This conversation was very moving to me. First, it brought together three people from different parts of the world who share a commonality. Second, that these young people – both students – were patient enough with me to help me to use Skype for the first time. Once I got the hang of it, I was truly awestruck how easy it is to connect to anyone in the world. But more so, to listen to their accents and realize the incredible reach stuttering has.

A far cry from when I was a little girl and thought I was the only one who stuttered. It is wonderful for me to realize the impact that we can have on each other’s lives, just by being who we are and for being brave enough to share the very essence of ourselves with the word.

It is worth saying again: I do me. I offer that to everybody. Do you!

Sometimes we have issues that need to be talked about, but don’t get talked about. The issue gets attention by not getting attention. It may sound confusing, but is not really.

I once wrote a speech about this for Toastmasters and delivered it with a good dose of passion. I can always talk passionately about what I know best. Because it comes from the heart.

I have firsthand knowledge of “the elephant in the room”. On several counts. As a kid, it was my stuttering. No one ever talked about it-it was taboo. Almost like if we didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist. We all danced around that for years.

The same with my mom’s alcoholism. We never talked about that either. For so long, we thought it was normal – this chaos, uncertainty, fear – but it wasn’t. The elephant was screaming to be talked about. He was every color – pink, blue, white – always there, always on the surface, always ignored.

And the same with other stuff going on in the childhood home, that one day will be written about and embraced. The elephant walked a tightrope in our backyard, inside the confines of the eight foot fence that kept us in and towered over us. No one could look in and see what was going on.

I have seen elephants at work too. The place that I worked at for so long was a toxic environment. Morale was bad, communication was poor, and management often managed by intimidation. The elephant in the room was whispered about in the lunch room, in the break room and the smoking area. No one dared ever speak up and talk about the real issues, out of fear. Fear of humiliation, fear of job loss, fear of retaliation. Even though those things shouldn’t occur in progressive, enlightened workplaces, they do and we know it.

It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, getting fired from that place. The elephant danced and I started a new chapter of my life.

Sometimes the elephant is there between just two people, larger than life, so painfully obvious. It is there between me and my dad, taking up so much space, that we can’t talk. The elephant shows up sometimes between me and my mom too, although this elephant is actually more of a baby elephant. We can push it away sometimes and have a real talk.

The elephant exists within a relationship I have right now. Years ago, I was not honest about my true feelings about someone, and neither was he. The elephant has grown bigger and bigger. Neither of us knows enough to slay this elephant. We need to get it to dance. When the elephant dances, you shake up the unspeakable issue and gradually make it speakable.

My stuttering became speakable. As I noted in a previous post, it has become stutter-eze.

I know I can dance gracefully with an elephant. We’ve done it before, the stuttering elephant and I. We have danced the two-step, the jig, the electric slide and the waltz.

The elephant was in the room a couple of nights ago when I spoke at Toastmasters. I was stuttering and some folks had not heard that before and looked puzzled. I should have introduced my stuttering and had the elephant do a little jig right then and there. Pink tutu too!

Make the elephant dance. It can be surprisingly light on the feet and light on the heart.

I remember the first time I heard anyone suggest I try voluntary stuttering, I remember thinking, “what a ridiculous thought”. I couldn’t imagine doing on purpose that which I had tried to avoid or cover up for years. It just didn’t make sense.

But it did make sense. When I learned that voluntary stuttering actually gives you some control over your stuttering, that made sense to me. Because control has always been an issue with me.

I had very little control over what happened as a child growing up in chaos. I had no control when my mom drank. I had no control when my dad was constantly criticizing me or ruling the house with a physical fist. I had no control over my speech. I was yearning for something to be in control of, even as a scared little girl.

Years later, as an adult, I would have stuttering moments where I felt such a lack of control that it felt like I was that terrified child all over again. Sometimes I drag my words, and my jaw and lips seem to go with the drag. It is like a tremor in my lips -where I have absolutely no control.I never knew that this was actually referred to as “blocking”, because when I was covert I also denied that I stuttered.

Now that I am being open, overt and accepting, having a tool for control was intriguing in a way.
I could choose where and when to stutter purposefully, and I could control how it would sound. Except of course when the voluntary stutter turns into a real stuttering moment. That happens once in a while, and the control changes.

I have found voluntary stuttering to be most useful when I actually talk about stuttering. Either one-on-one or in a group. If I am “not stuttering enough” I will throw some purposeful stutters in, for good measure and to lend credibility. Yeah, that’s right. I sometimes feel I am not stuttering enough. That is a thought perhaps unique to covert stutterers. That feeling of being caught between both worlds. Oh, what a bittersweet feeling.

Being able to stutter on purpose gives me a sense of control, even if only for a millisecond. I have initiated the stuttering and I am in charge of that space. Even if it turns real, which is OK too.

Now I know why I am so enthralled with my Tasmanian Devil auto air freshener. It has long lost any scent, and is faded from the sun. I also have a favorite Loony Tunes character shirt with Taz proclaiming to be a “control freak”. So Taz and me have something in common. We share that “feel-good” feeling that comes with having control of a little piece of our world.

Yesterday was a very good day.

I visited with a friend who just had a baby girl. Her toddler son was paying lots of attention to me, as he is clearly rebelling against his new status of not being the baby anymore. He kept yelling for me, happily shouting, “Ham, Ham, over here”. He couldn’t quite get “Pam” out, but I was happy to be called “Ham”. There is something magical about being the center of attention of a child’s world, even if only for a few minutes.

We played some ball toss, and I helped him put keys from a keyboard back together. For some reason, he was more interested in putting them down my shirt. I will remember yesterday.

I also got my hair cut yesterday. I let my stylist do something a little different, a little funkier than I am used to. She gave me two choices: we can go boring, or we can try a little something new. What would you have done? I wasn’t going to admit I actually prefer boring – its easier to do. This new funkier style requires effort. I always obsess if I am going to be able to “do” my hair the same great way it looks when I am in the chair.

Yesterday was also different than the day before as far as my stuttering. I recently heard a woman talk about where she is at with her stuttering journey, and she mentioned how each day is so different than the last. As I listened to her, I was saying, “Yeah, me too. No two days are ever the same”. Yesterday is different from the day before and today and tomorrow.

Yesterday was a fairly smooth day. I talked about stuttering, but only had a few stuttering moments. I mentioned last night (yesterday) that I want to clean up the storage bin, where I dumped a lot of my stuff after being fired that day, almost three years ago. When I said that, my partner commented that he can’t believe that he didn’t know I stuttered until I was fired that day. He said he didn’t know that someone could hide it so well. I had done a good job.

That was yesterday in my life too. When I was afraid to talk about stuttering. Today and tomorrow is so much more exciting, as this relationship with my stuttering continues to develop and strengthen.

Yesterday was a very good day.

I don’t stutter around just anybody. No sir-ee. Anyone who knows stuttering knows that stuttering is situational and variable. My stuttering also happens to be unpredictable, even after all this time. Sometimes I just don’t feel comfortable stuttering freely. When in that situation, I know it right away. I feel it. I feel tense both emotionally and physically.

This is what happens physically. My heart pounds really fast and loud. I can hear it acutely. I do some swaying (if I’m standing) and I look fidgety.

This is what happens below the surface, or emotionally. My thoughts are racing, I am engaging in self talk, I might possibly be planning on word switching and I am definitely not actively listening to whoever else is talking. And my old friend, Avoidance, might show up.

Now you might wonder, how is this possible with this enlightened lady who tells us how comfortable she is with stuttering and how she doesn’t want to be fixed. Well, this speaks to the very complexity and variability of stuttering. I admit it. Perfect, I’m not. (Although, I certainly tried for years to be perfect).

This is my subconscious, self preservation mode kicking in. If I don’t know you well or don’t feel comfortable, this almost automatic emotional reaction kicks in. Sometimes I don’t know this has happened until it has happened. It’s sort of like a broken kickstand on a bike.

But, if I am really comfortable with you and our space, then something magical happens. It is stutter-eze. I freely stutter and let you see all of me. I let you in. I speak from the heart and with the heart.

I have had more and more of these conversations lately. Seems that when I speak stutter-eze, it is both physical and emotional. It is my stuttering heart. What a beautiful thing to realize. If you want to understand the language of love and heart, listen to stutter-eze.

Little kids often like to play dress up in adult clothes, pretending to be a grown-up or someone they could imagine wanting to be. Little girls often take great delight in wearing mommy’s hats and jewelry, and trying to walk in shoes that are six sizes too big. Little boys like to wear daddy’s hats and ties, and also seem to take the same delight in trying to walk in huge shoes.

I don’t remember dressing up a lot as a little girl myself, but I do remember playing with paper dolls. I had lots of them, and they had little different paper outfits, which I experimented with on the dolls. I can remember dreaming about being a different person, and how that might be. How would she look? How would she sound? I imagined myself being someone else’s little girl.

I also remember my poor brother often took the brunt of his five sisters desire to try makeup on a real person. Once, a couple of us girls held him hostage in the bathroom and put mommy’s makeup on him. One of us held him down, while two others worked on the makeup. One held his eyelids closed, while the other applied mascara and eye shadow. When he squirmed and tried to wriggle free, we held him even tighter. Then we finished him off with blush and lipstick.

When we made him look in the mirror, he screamed and started crying. We girls thought that was hysterically funny. We dissolved into fits of giggling, and loosened our grip and he got away and ran and told on us. Mommy thought it was funny, but did wash the makeup off his face. I wish we had taken pictures of that day and moment. But it is seared in my memory.

Sometimes when I think of my stuttering, I can relate to the analogy of dressing up or dressing down. If I am really comfortable with who I am with, I am dressed down and loose. Kind of like wearing an old ratty pair of jeans, ones that are so thread-bare that they should be thrown out, but which I can’t bear to part with.

If I don’t know the group very well or feel I have to make a really good impression, or that I will be judged on my “performance” I might put on my dress up clothes. Suit, blazer, dress shoes with heels, all the things that I am not entirely comfortable with. And I might try to dress up my stuttering too. This might mean avoiding or switching a word, or talking at a much slower rate.

These are some of the covert dress-up tricks that I have used for years, and that still appear from time to time. It is so easy to slip back into old habits, sometimes almost unknowingly.

I am most comfortable in my old pair of jeans that has a big tear in the back. They no longer get stiff after washing and drying. That is my goal – to no longer get stiff, and only dress up when I really want to, not because I feel I have to. Dressing down is so much more me!

I have really been in a reflective place. I was trying to find some of the information that I saved from last year when I had my first “big stage” moment at the school where I work. I conducted the first ever induction ceremony of our high school’s chapter of the National Technical Honor Society. It included reading a bunch of stuff, calling the students names, having them do a pledge in a “recite after me” style and leading the candle lighting.

If you are a person who stutters, being on stage and asking kids to “repeat after me” can be daunting. I remember doing a very brave thing. Before we went on, I got the kids together, and asked them to be sure to “not repeat the stutter”. They were great, and it went off OK.

Fortunately, I had someone record the whole ceremony. I wanted to have a model to use for this year, and to figure out where I could make some improvements. I will have twice as many students inducted this year, but the same amount of time for the ceremony.

I still remember the stinging comments my boss made to me the next day. He had suggested that it would have been OK for me to ask someone else to do the speaking, if I knew I was going to butcher the names. In other words, ask someone else to do my job! He said this to me: “it was really courageous of you to climb to the top of the mountain, but you didn’t have to try and ride your bicycle up the side of the mountain the same night”. When I asked him what exactly he meant, that’s when he made the crack about me butchering the names.

So, I watched part of the recording today, as I am preparing for this again this year. Sure enough, I stuttered on just about every kid’s name – but it was just one repitition on the names. By all accounts, nice and easy stuttering, but absolutely noticable. But absolutely not butchering!

I have every intention of doing this again this year. I am the Honor Society Advisor, so its a no-brainer that it will be me doing this. I don’t have all of the kids names yet, but I will do the same as I did last year. I wasn’t sure how to pronounce some of the names, so I wrote them out phonetically so I would be sure to pronounce them right. Not so I wouldn’t stutter, but so I would honor the importance of getting their name right on their big night. It was important to them and their parents.

Maybe this year, I will try riding a unicycle up the moutain. Bring it on!

The value is in the journey, not the outcome. As I continue to nourish my relationship with stuttering, I am also nourishing my spirituality. I don’t want my stuttering fixed. This is a beautiful realization – I can say it, feel it, believe it and own it.

For so long, I kept the stuttering hidden. I didn’t make room for it. I had two important conversations today with two very different people, both of whom are deeply significant in my life. They both get me. I was stuttering well with both of them, and was completely okay with it.

I spoke with one J over the phone. He too stutters, and we both seemed so completely at ease and we both stuttered so comfortably with each other. I felt so at peace with myself after this conversation. I was smiling as we talked, and just appreciated the realness we had with each other. There was no pretense, no tension, no awkwardness. Neither of us remarked on the other’s stuttering – it was just relaxed, easy communication. The way it should be. We took time for each other.

The other J and I talked in person, for over an hour. He does not stutter, but we talked about stuttering quite a bit. I stuttered well and comfortably with him too. I asked him if he noticed increased stuttering, and he told me that he did, but he took it as a sign of remarkable peace and comfort with who I am. We took time for each other.

He added that in some of my really best stuttering moments, he saw the slightest hint of a smile, which he took as my way of telling him that I was totally at home in this space we have carved out with each other. It is a sacred space, that place where two people can be so intimate and connect on the deepest level.

Both of these conversations with important people today moved me to tears. This is my spiritual self acknowledging that the universe is conspiring to tell me something. The universe knows what I need and the universe needs me. We are surrounded and held by this peace. (Thank you Jean, for this thought that stays with me). My journey with stuttering is filled with beauty, love and peace. My life would not be as rich without this relationship.

I have moved to an exciting new place in my journey. I can feel it in every sense of my being, deep in my bones and in my soul. This is a moment to be cherished. I do not need to be fixed.

Dear Readers: if you have been following any of my entries, then you know that I have strong opinions about being honest and maintaining personal integrity. You can’t have an engaging relationship with the world any other way. As hard as I have tried, it just doesn’t work. It’s fake.

I took some real stuttering risks this weekend. I participated in an intensive weekend workshop for people who stutter and clutter. It was sponsored by a local college that has a Communications Sciences and Disorders department, and individual and group therapy is provided by graduate SLP students. I was not fully engaged (admittedly) with the therapy process, but I was actively involved in furthering my relationship with stuttering.

I had been asked to facilitate a group for parents of kids who stutter. This was scary for me. I really didn’t know what I could offer that they wouldn’t already know, from other programs or the professionals in the field. I decided to go with my gut and be gut honest about my childhood experience with stuttering, my story that I had never told or put in writing. It had always been too painful.

So what made me decide to take this kind of risk, that would also put me out there and make me feel quite vulnerable? It was a comment that was made last week by a fellow person who stutters, that I wrote about in an earlier post. That there is no socially redeeming value in stuttering. I took exception with that and decided to put my money where my mouth is, and tell my story to people who I believed wanted to hear it. And to affirm my belief that there is indeed value to my stuttering.

So I took my story and put it in the third person and told a “Once upon a time there was a little girl who” story and never acknowledged it was me until the end. Then I got emotional and as I looked around the room, I saw other displays of emotion and some tears, connection and understanding.

It was the right thing to do. I told my story and parents of kids who stutter appreciated it, felt it, got it, and thanked me. My stuttering experience has value, and helps me to engage fully with the world and move me continuously forward on my quest to lead an authentic life.

Its about touching lives, one person at a time.

A really great book I read recently is “When Nietzsche Wept” by Irvin Yalom. It is the fictional account of two men who become profoundly connected with each other through what became the beginnings of modern talk-therapy. At one point, the main character Nietzsche reflects about “the horror of an unobserved life”.

That is very similar to the wise saying by the great philosopher Socrates, who told us that “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

I saw this very same quote on a friend’s Facebook page (good thinking, Jill), and felt inspired to reflect on my own thoughts about this.

I remember thinking as I was reading the book that I am glad I am open to reflecting on my life, where I’ve been and where I want to go. It is important to periodically step back to observe and examine your life, and evaluate if you are happy with what you are doing. If you are not happy, change something. Generally, it is us who needs to do the changing, because the world around us usually won’t. It might mean we need to change our attitude or the way we do things or add something new to our routine.

It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut, and wish that things would change or be different for us. I certainly can relate to this. You get set in your ways and tend to think about things negatively instead of positively. Taking a step back and examining your own life can sometimes be painful but its almost always a learning experience.

I have learned that I have to be proactive and make things happen, instead of wanting and hoping for them to happen. I remember thinking how great it would be if the world understood stuttering more and wouldn’t be so judgemental. That it would be nice to be able to stutter freely and not worry about getting a negative reaction. Or actually getting a negative reaction.

Well, I have found the way. It’s simple. It starts with me. I can change the world, one person at a time. We all can. All I have to do is be comfortable and accepting of myself and project that to the world around me and the rest follows. Really, its that simple. When I am confident and relaxed and sure of myself, whoever I am interacting with follows suit.

There is no complex physics formula or philosophical theory. There is no need to wish for something to happen or change. I have that power already within, and when I share my positive accepting sense of self, it transfers to the next person. I have seen it in action.

I wouldn’t have come to this realization if I wasn’t ready to look at my life, and me, and what really matters. An observed life is indeed worth living. Take the time and make things happen. Don’t get caught waiting – you’ll waste a lot of time.

A good friend and supporter commented on yesterday’s post, about why some people are so hung up on fluency and why some may see no redeeming value in stuttering. He said that it appears that “people seem to think that stuttering has (negatively) defined them as it relates to their lives. They fail to see that they can define stuttering (as it relates to their lives)”.

Kudos to Greg for pointing this out and sharing. There is tremendous power in sharing our feelings and experiences with each other.

I really liked Greg’s perspective and gave it some serious thought. I think that’s what I have been doing lately – choosing to define my stuttering and how it exists with me in my life. For it indeed exists with me. I have a relationship with stuttering the same way I have a relationship with my partner.

I do not let stuttering define me. I don’t think stuttering is the first thing people think of when they think of me. I like to think that other words come to mind first, like: creative, driven, focused and organized. I am not sure people would even use stuttering as a way to describe me. I have heard people at school describe me to a student who is looking for me. Usually, I hear, “oh, she’s the one with the reddish hair and glasses”. I have never heard someone say, “she’s the one who stutters”.

I am more than my stuttering. My “whole” is indeed the sum of my parts, and I do have many parts. I have the sensitive, spiritual, reflective side. I have the intense, workaholic, driven side. And I have the creative, artistic, risk-taking side that likes to have fun. I have talents and gifts, and worries and fears. Pretty much like any one else. And I also happen to stutter. That is part of me, the whole person who thinks and feels and breathes just like everyone else.

I subscribe to and actively participate in an email group for covert stutterers. It’s a small but sturdy group of people who are trying to find their way in a world that is often caught in that space between fluency (whatever that is) and stuttering. The list has its regulars and many lurkers, those who read only and very rarely post, unless a particular topic resonates.

Today there was discussion from someone new on whether or not the tricks and avoidance techniques that a covert uses to appear fluent is really all that bad. And he ponders that maybe his coping strategies haven’t really been “UNsuccessful”, so should he change after 20+ years?

He further says “the kind of language used to describe what I’ve been doing is typically couched in terms of deceit, deception, and dishonesty – or at the very least inauthenticity.” So he is at a crossroads, much like I was almost three years ago. He is considering speech therapy and has reached out to other coverts. I could feel his pain across cyberspace.

He asks another question, one that I felt compelled to respond to, which I did on the covert list.

It also became fodder for today’s blog post, as I had something else on my mind from last night anyway, and the two fit like peanut butter and jelly. He wants to know – is it OK to have a middle ground? To use coping strategies and appear fluent in some situations and let the stutter out naturally in other situations? Of course, this resonated with me. I had to respond. So this is the gist of what I posted on the covert group earlier.

Each of us has to do what we believe is right for us. There is no one right way. There may well be a middle ground for you, and maybe not the same for me. I find middle-ness with me a lot: sometimes I am open, other times, I revert back to avoidance.

I was feeling hugely uncomfortable with trying to keep my stuttering secret hidden, and that’s why I ultimately decided to “come out” and deal with it. It has been rewarding, empowering, and wonderful most of the time. Other times, it has been uncomfortable, scary and embarrassing.

I do me. This has become one of my favorite expressions lately. I am responsible for my self and my life, and I have the power to live my life as I see fit. That means I take the good with the bad.

Case in point. Last night at a group meeting, someone said “there is no positive socially redeeming value about stuttering”, and several people agreed with him. I felt terribly uncomfortable hearing this, as I find it to be untrue. Actually, I was angry that he said this.

I find that people who stutter are compassionate and tolerant of those with differences, and that we have a strength and resilience that comes from dealing with a challenge that many don’t get.

This statement really bothered me – it made me feel as if fellow stutterers really do think stuttering is bad, shameful, something to be fixed, hidden, corrected. But that’s not how I feel, and ultimately that’s what is most important at the end of the day. Its what I think, and what I feel, that matters for me.

By the way, I did express my disagreement and gently suggested that there is value in all of us and all differences. It was not well received (out of the corner of my eye I saw the owner of those words roll his eyes) but I was able to respectfully say what I needed and felt.

Each of us chooses how we play the cards we are dealt. Is it easy? No way. Is it predictable? No way. Will it continue to impact my life and others? Yes, every day. And I am OK with that.

I recently had a long conversation with one of my sisters, and among other things, we talked about stuttering. Now this is a rarity, because for many years, any mention of my stuttering was done in a cloak and dagger sort of way. Mysteriously whispered about, so my feelings would be spared.

My sister Kim and I sometimes have cautious discussions about stuttering. Cautious, because even though it is an “allowed topic” now, she will still tip-toe around it, to make sure I am really comfortable bringing it up. Once she’s sure though, whoosh, we’re talking about stuttering. It seems she always wanted to, even though no one else in the family ever wanted to talk about it. On the rare occasions it was mentioned, it was hush hush and a “we feel sorry for her” kind of thing. Kim says it would have been too awkward actually talking about stuttering, when the person stuttering seemed to pull it off a lot of the time that she didn’t stutter! (Say that three times fast!)

Kim told me that once she had been very angry with my mother’s husband Paul, when we were all gathered outside of a church the day of my sister Stacey’s wedding rehearsal. We all met in front of the church. When I got there, I said some sort of greeting to everyone, and Paul teasingly mimicked the way I said it. I remember it only vaguely. In those days, I didn’t say anything and kept the hurt to myself. Well, it seems Kim remembered it like it was yesterday.

Kim had overheard Paul’s remark, as did her son, Anthony. He had said to his mom, “why would Paul make fun of her like that? That’s terrible, and mean. He shouldn’t do that – she can’t help it.” (he was referring to my stuttering – wow – understanding as a kid).Kim told me she said something like she wanted to put Paul in his place, but didn’t, because she didn’t think I would want anyone calling any more attention to my stuttering.

I never knew that, until Kim shared it with me when we were just shooting the breeze and talking about stuff, and stuttering. That opened the door for us to talk about other stuttering related things. She told me there is a girl she works with who has a really severe stutter, and that some of the stroke patients she works with have sometimes stuttered. She told me she wished she could have asked me about stuttering and how it felt, so that she had a better sense of it when she meets others who stutter.

Having this conversation with my sister brought tears to my eyes. Just talking openly about it with a family member after so much silence was important, meaningful, had an impact. It has been one more step on my own acceptance journey, having a family member acknowledge that its OK and I’m OK.

We started talking about some of the doors that have opened up for me since I opened up about my stuttering and came out of the closet. I shared with Kim that I have loved traveling to conferences and talking and meeting with other people who stutter, and that stuttering has really allowed me to see the world in a whole new light. She jokingly said, “Boy, I wish I stuttered too”. She has no idea how good that was to hear.