Make Room For The Stuttering

Note: I have asked some of the amazing people I journeyed with last week to share some of their feelings about meeting for the first time. This is the first of several guest posts.

Reflections from Sheila from meeting my Face book friends Pam, Lisa and Tone (2 female stutterers and an aspiring SLP).

I was delighted when Pam asked to me to share my feelings, thoughts and emotions before, during and after meeting three fantastic female face book friends.  It was bizarre and surreal; even though I knew about this meeting for a while, I put it to the back of my mind for a long time for several reasons!

1. Would it really happen?  – I guess many of us have talked online to people about meeting up and it did not actually happen, so for us four to meet up from all corners of the world was just awesome. To be honest I had the easy part because they came to my house and I did not have to travel at all.

2. How many times do you hear about the warnings about online friendships becoming real and then someone is murdered? (Yes, I have a wild imagination)

3. I was a little worried about telling my husband about our planned meeting when in fact he was very supportive and said “Great go ahead girl!!! “

I had a crazy week leading up to our meeting. Work was very busy as always and the life of a working Mum is super busy anyway. It was also that dreaded week that so many of us women hate – the PMT week (as called in the UK – it is PMS in the States). I was not feeling confident at all.  This is an important issue for females who stammer/stutter and it is often glossed over. It affects a woman’s confidence, which subsequently affects our speech.

**I am a recovering stammerer with the McGuire Programme for nearly six years now, although I don’t really like that tag  and it has been argued that it is a negative tag and can give me “permission” to use bad technique or sometimes I like to say – “I am working hard on my speech’  ** (more on this later)

As a graduate and primary coach of the McGuire Programme I feel I should have prepared my speaking and speech for this meeting by warming up with costal breathing, using Kinaesthetic, making warm up calls to other McGuire Grads, reading mantras out loud etc. BUT I am a woman, so I prepared my house for meeting other females and a light lunch with the help of my darling hubbie!

In my mind, my thoughts were I have no idea what to expect so I am just going to be “me” Sheila Denny not Sheila Denny, Primary Coach with the McGuire Programme.  This would be a test for me and my online friends, we had all trusted our instinct and liked and admired each other and now we were meeting up for real! HOW EXCITING.

I was nervous about meeting the girls but I have learned over the years how to deal with nerves and kept myself busy that morning. The thoughts of the journey that my girlfriends had to make were preying on my mind.  It was a few hours car ride away but not easy when you do it for the first time. What if they get lost and they won’t ask for directions because of their stuttering!!  I need not have worried because Lisa had one of those magic boxes in her car that gives you directions every step of the way. “Holiday traffic” delayed them, not fear about the meeting.

I got a text saying they were 2 minutes away so I immediately put my shoes on to go outside to check which direction they would be coming from and to direct them into my drive.  I saw a girlie car coming along and starting waving them into my drive. I wasn’t sure it was them actually because I wasn’t wearing my glasses but as they drew closer I could see all the smiling faces of Pam, Lisa and Tone.  We seemed to naturally hug each other and say hello and it was so good to see happy faces all around.  I welcomed everyone in and made Tea for my now soon to be REAL FRIENDS.

Over the next few hours the conversation naturally flowed between us all, there was no one cutting in or finishing off someone else’s words, it was so nice.  I was aware I was talking a lot. I think I was excited but I must admit I talk a lot and very fast too so I told the girls “Hey I am talking too fast”, and then explained about what I should do to avoid blocking and take it down to three or four words per breath.  I had had no difficulties or blocks with my speech up to then but I knew this would not last.  J

We shared an emotional few moments when I told them some of my story that was the pivotal point for me in joining the McGuire Programme (as well as my only child began to stammer).

I was at a meeting and was asked to introduce myself first in front of 35 people which totally threw me as I never get asked to introduce myself first.  When I finally got my name out, the Chairman said, “Thank you very much, Michala”. MY heart sank to the floor that day. I felt totally demoralized and I vowed to myself, I must try yet ANOTHER form of speech therapy.

Pam carefully asked me some skilled questions about my journey with the McGuire Programme and Toastmasters. I told her what was special and different than any other speech therapy I had had in my lifetime was the SUPPORT of the McGuire Programme. It is the best!  I was aware that Lisa was at a different stage of the journey than Pam and I were on and made a mental note to reign in my outspoken way of talking about my stammering. I didn’t want to frighten Lisa away.

We decided to take a ride out to a coastal town as planned for the tourists and talk about other things besides stammering and have fun in each other’s company. After all, there is more to friendship than stammering and being females. We LIKE each other. I got to know Tone a bit more too.  I was dead impressed with her eloquent use of our English language, which is not Tone’s mother tongue.

During this time, I had some difficulty with my speech. I was blocking and gradually started using tricks.  It didn’t prey on my mind too much, until Pam asked me on the way back, “Do I find I stutter more being around others who stutter?”

I answered, “I don’t know, maybe I do … after today”.

This was a completely different experience for me being around other stutterers that are not in the McGuire Programme. It’s easier to keep up techniques when everyone around you is another McGuire graduate or when you are around fluent speakers. Then you know you have to make an effort to focus on technique. Now I know it is very easy to slip back into old ways of speaking….. I thought about this for a while and made more of an effort to focus on the way I spoke when we returned to our house for more TEA!!

The girls left that evening and I felt lonely after they had gone, as this was a very special day. We shared lots very openly and so naturally, as for me…. So what if my speaking technique was a bit bumpy towards the end? It definitely wasn’t going to affect our friendship or what they thought about me. It’s OK to stammer, it is just one part of ‘me’ and ‘you’ and ‘you’ and ‘you’

I am very excited when we next meet up when and wherever it might be. I know it will happen and how much will have changed for us all .

Sheila, thank you so much for your sincere honesty. I actually laughed and cried as I read this. Readers, what did you think as you read this? Can you relate to what Sheila felt? Please share your thoughts and feedback for Sheila.

This is not one of my typical blog posts. Today finds me winding down a whirlwind week of traveling to a different country and meeting up with other people who stutter. I took a risk and decided to visit people I had met through the stuttering community.

The internet has made the world so much smaller that it is possible to meet people from all over the world and talk with them as if we are in the same room. So through social media networks, I have become friends with people from other parts of the world who also share the stuttering experience.

We decided we wanted to meet each other, and in this day and age, it is possible. So I have met people face-to-face that I have communicated with via Skype, face book and twitter.

Life is about taking risks, stepping out of our comfort zones and expanding our horizons. I certainly have done that this week. I plan to write about some of my experiences meeting other people who stutter from the UK. What do we have in common? What do we have different views on? How did we get along? Is stuttering, or stammering, universal?

Stay tuned. I am also going to ask my fellow travelers to write and share a bit about their journey as well.

I finally have a better understanding of why I have been so resistant to fluency shaping targets. I shared with a friend how I felt about not attending a recent weekend stuttering workshop that focused on practicing fluency targets.

I have gone to this workshop for the past three years. I enjoyed participating and sharing with other people who stutter, but never really “worked on fluency”.  I was working more on acceptance, which is what I need and think other people need as well. I started talking more about acceptance and thinking about it and embracing it. I have never been comfortable with using targets. I never seemed to “use” them right or found I could stop and use them in the moment of stuttering.

I think perhaps some of the coordinators of the fluency workshop may have had a problem with my resistance to practicing fluency targets. It sort of felt like if I wasn’t working on fluency, then I shouldn’t go to this workshop. That’s the message I got anyway. I had wanted to go, planned to go, but the universe clearly had other ideas.

My friend put into words what I had been feeling  in a real visual way. When I think of a target, what comes to my mind is the game of darts, where you try to “hit” the target or the little round circle in the middle known as the bull’s-eye. If you miss and hit the outer circles, or even throw the dart completely off the board like I used to, you don’t get any points. And you lose. So if you miss the target, you have failed or are a loser.

Ever since I was introduced to the concept of fluency shaping and practicing targets, something didn’t feel right. I never liked the idea that if I didn’t reach a certain goal or target, that I failed in some way. I had been given so many messages of failure as a kid growing up that I certainly didn’t need to internalize failure as an adult.

And that’s what it has seemed like with me and target practice.  If I couldn’t do it or get it, I felt I wasn’t trying hard enough and somehow I was failing to meet expectations.

When my friend and I talked about target use, all of a sudden the light bulb in my head flashed on.  “Hitting a target” implies something negative. Hitting something. If the target is not hit, then we have failed. And I don’t like that word. I had enough of that as a kid. I work with kids. I praise them on their effort all the time. Even when they don’t succeed, they are not failures. None of us are. But when it is implied that if we had tried harder, we might have succeeded, it is hard to not feel like a failure.

I remember when I read the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrnes, I felt the same way. The book’s premise is the law of attraction. If you think positive thoughts about something, then it will happen or you will get what you want. To me, it implied failure if our positive thoughts didn’t lead to the positive result. Like somehow, I failed.

I remember last year I wrote about not wanting to be fixed. I still feel like that. There is nothing wrong with stuttering. I don’t need to hit targets to feel successful as a communicator.  All of us have different speech patterns and we all communicate in different ways. I don’t need to hit the bull’s eye. I am fine with the outer circles and even going off the board a lot.

Is it wrong of me to think like this? And if I do, should I really stay away from fluency-focused events? Even if I like the support and camaraderie?

There is a good thread started on one of the stuttering lists about the importance of self-help support groups. A couple of people shared that coming together with other people who stutter, even just once per month, has helped decrease shame and isolation and promote acceptance. One person wrote, “we can talk freely about where it gets difficult and painful , and the triumphs too, and be heard by others who have been there”.

This is so well said. The basic premise of self-groups has always been to encourage people with similar issues to come together and share.  Simply knowing that you are not alone often is enough. Even if you don’t say anything at meetings, being there and feeling supported by others who “get it” is a big deal.

I remember being introduced to Ala-teen meetings when I was a teenager. These were support meetings for children of alcoholics. I went to several and remember feeling very overwhelmed, as I had always thought that the negative effects of alcoholism were a normal part of growing up. Just seeing other kids who had crazy households meant a lot to me, even when I was not ready to share. As an older teenager, I also went to some Al-Anon meetings, which are support meetings for family members of alcoholics. Most people who attended those meetings were spouses, but I still gained enormous benefit from knowing that I was not alone.

To this day, two members of my family regularly attend AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings, and have done so for many years. The support and fellowship is priceless.

I have found the very same spirit of support and acceptance in the support groups I have attended for stuttering. I remember how I felt when I attended my first NSA chapter meeting four years ago. It was the first time I had heard other people stutter. It had a powerful effect on me – still does. It is a very real reminder that we who stutter are not alone.

I am looking forward to visiting another country soon. My fellow travelers and I have been invited to attend a BSA (British Stammering Association) support meeting. It will no doubt serve to be very reassuring to see that people from around the world derive support from coming together and sharing.

My personal experiences with the AA model of self-help and the self-help stuttering support system has been extremely positive. In face, both have changed my attitudes and understanding that neither stuttering or alcoholism in the family is anyone’s fault.

Has anyone here had experiences with self-help groups? Has it been positive? Would you recommend self-help to others experiencing similar issues?

Monday was the second part of the 6-hour training on bullying prevention in the schools. Today’s session was more difficult, and I thought it would be easier because we knew the participants and had a feel for what they needed. In fact, it seemed their expectations were higher, which was why I felt it was more challenging today.

When we had time to do some small group discussion, it was apparent that many of the schools represented at these two training sessions don’t have solid anti-bullying programs in place. That is scary. Schools are stretched thin right now and budget cuts are on the block everywhere. Yet every educator in the room agreed that bullying is a big concern in the schools,especially the middle schools.

This group was looking for answers, resources and advice on how to implement consistent programming that will help kids who are bullied, those who bully, bystanders who watch and do nothing, and kids who bully who grow up to be adults who bully in the workplace. Big challenges, few resources!

One of the moments that had the most impact at today’s training was when Sarah, a parent, told her story to the group. Sarah works at my school and had told me earlier in the year about challenges she faced several years back when her son was bullied in his freshman year in high school. He was repeatedly taunted and physically abused in gym class and the lockers, with the teacher around, and nothing was done. Her son also did not tell his parents what was going on.

Sarah told her story and took questions. Events that happened six years ago were still fresh on this lady’s mind. She was emotional and choked up several times. She courageously told us what happened and how as a parent she worked for two long years to help implement anti-bullying policies in her district’s K-12 classes. Her school district had been exposed to little or no diversity, and her adopted son was targeted for looking different.

What lessons we learned today. What an inspiration this parent was. We all felt a sense of urgency regarding creating safe school environments when faced with teacher layoffs and having to do so much more with less.

It spoke to how vulnerable we all are, when we expose our differences. One teacher shared how she was bullied at her grade school for being the only African-American student. One teacher shared how frustrated he feels as a parent when he sees the TV shows his pre-teen daughters watch and love. Kids today watch characters that condone teasing and promote social exclusion.

I was reminded how alone I felt growing up as kid who stuttered in school and feeling that no one understood. We were reminded that every day there are kids who feel the same way for different,or maybe similar reasons.

I had been really nervous about doing a training this length. I knew there was no way I could “hope for fluency” or use avoidance or work hard to not stutter. I am glad I decided to be open and honest from the start, which allowed me to stutter freely and communicate comfortably and do my part in adding to such an important dialogue.

I felt really good that I put my fears aside and used part of my personal story to drive home some points about how bullying can no longer be viewed as just as a rite of passage that all kids must endure. We have to help kids feel connected and safe enough that they will come to us when teasing gets out of hand and it becomes bullying.

Someone used this phrase in a conversation last week. I can’t remember who I was talking with or how that came up, but when he mentioned that phrase, I told him I was going to tuck it away for a blog entry. I wrote it down on my blotter at work, secure that I would know when to call it up.

The phrase actually called me up today, saying “Pam, you have to write about killing the monster, now, you just have to!” Funny how things find us! I wish everything was so easy!

I had conversation night before last with gal-pal who stutters and we talked about feeling inadequate and failure, monsters that definitely need killing. And I felt self-conscious when placing a lunch order again at the dreaded drive-through. So yeah, perfect timing for me to see the phrase “Killing the Monster ” on my desk.

Lisa and I had a hugely honest talk about how, after working long and hard on acceptance, we can still feel inadequate sometimes. And we can still feel like we have failed. We know we are not failures and certainly not inadequate, but the vulnerability of stuttering certainly makes us feel that way sometimes. It’s so good to be able to talk openly about it with someone who completely understands that, another woman who stutters.

Stuttering exposes us. (Like the “naked stuttering” another friend has talked about). When we are caught in a stuttering moment and can’t get the word out, or get “the look”, or the” look away”, we still might say, “OMG, it’s not coming out, is it?” And in that split second, we can feel like such a failure. That is a monster that needs to be killed.

Killing the monster is not easy though. We have to deal with it every time it rears itself. That’s really the only way it works. By looking the monster in the eye and not backing down.  Sometimes, we just don’t want to. Sometimes, we want to back away, ignore it, change words or run. Sometimes that is easier. Lisa and I both know that we shouldn’t allow those moments to dictate the nature of our day or make us feel so crappy that it’s all we think about.

When we wake up in the morning thinking about our stuttering and its the last thing we think about before going to sleep, then its time to kill the monsters. We can’t let anything control us like that. And its not just stuttering. It can be our emotions, fear, depression, physical illness, family, our past, our demons. We have to live our lives, and not let part of us become all of us. Easier said than done. Easier done than said, in our case sometimes.

Lisa and I know this. Most of us do, in fact. Intellectually. But sometimes, we just don’t feel it, and we need someone else who gets it to help us kill the monsters. There is safety in numbers when it comes to monster killing. Let’s get ’em!

When we work on ourselves, it’s never easy. No matter what it is that we are working on. We may be trying to be more healthy, to be more open, to be more honest, or move outside our comfort zone in ways we have not done before. We may be working on letting people in or finding the courage to let somebody go. We may be finally admitting something about ourselves that has always been uncomfortable or has scared us.

Whatever it is that we are working on, there is a reason its called work. It’s usually not easy. It requires effort. And in some instances it may hurt. Making changes often requires an “out with the old, in with the new” mentality.

Why am I writing about this today? I have been working on my “self” for a long time now. Within that big category of self is my stuttering, my attitudes  and feelings about different things, and how I feel about myself  overall as a person. Generally, I like me. Not everyday, but most of the time. We all need to like ourselves first in order to like and care for others.

As I peel away my layers, I have learned that I am extremely complex. For a long time, I have kept my guard up, created walls and not always really invited people in . I have learned to do that as a defense mechanism, to protect myself, to keep myself from getting hurt. Sometimes, I use sarcasm and resistance to keep myself at a distance, to avoid even the slightest risk of getting hurt. I know that about myself, and try not to do that, but sometimes it happens anyway.

I have allowed myself to open up and be much more vulnerable over the last year. I ended a long-term relationship, and felt hurt and pain and guilt and relief all at the same time. I have discovered that I trust people way too easily. I get hurt easily. Maybe it’s being naive, but I am finding out that I expect people to be innately good, and am genuinely surprised when they are not, when I wind up getting hurt.

Sometimes when I am trying to protect myself, my barriers actually wind up hurting other people. Someone at work asked me recently if I was aware that I was being very critical of her. I wasn’t aware. I recently made an unintended remark to someone in my self-help group. Someone was hurt. I wasn’t aware of that either, until it was pointed out to me.

What’s going on? Why is this such hard work? Why don’t we learn the first time around? I think it is part of the human condition. Right? We do things that hurt other people when we honestly think we are only protecting ourselves. So how do we deal with this? I think talking about it is a good first step.

This week, I co-presented a 3- hour training to educators on bullying prevention in schools. We will deliver the second 3- hour session next week. Our audience was K-8 teachers, school counselors and social workers, psychologists and several principals.  This was a program that these educators signed up for and chose to attend, and they represented diverse districts served by our BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services).

Everyone talked about what a pervasive problem bullying is in schools, and people were looking for strategies to use to help curb the bullying behavior, but also help the kids being bullied feel less anxious and more empowered to stand up for themselves. We had an ambitious agenda. My building assistant principal and myself originally volunteered to present a two-hour session to our own staff. That evolved into us being asked to develop it into a 6-hour session so the educators could get professional development (CEU) credit for attending.

It became a big deal training, but deservedly so, because bullying is a big deal. Some of the schools indicated they do not have consistent anti-bullying policies in place. Most mentioned they are truly concerned for the well-being of kids being bullied, since the incidences of adolescence depression leading to suicide continues to rise.  A school not far from us is still reeling from the suicides of FIVE students last year. All five girls had been bullied repeatedly before choosing to end the pain in the most final way.

Our session was successful, in that we got people talking and sharing ideas. We ended with a powerful group exercise. We gave everybody two strips of pink paper and asked them to recall a time when they had been picked on or bullied, and asked them to consider forgiving the person. We also asked them to recall a time when they did the teasing or bullying, and consider saying “I’m sorry”. One by one, each adult came up, read their memories and forgave or apologized. It was a powerful moment. It was a hard moment. We created links out of all the pieces of paper and chained them together as one long adult chain against bullying.

People commented how hard this was to do, and we discussed how hard it is for adults to ask kids to apologize or forgive. Participants mentioned that they think it would be a good modeling activity to do with students.

Afterward, one man came up to me and mentioned that he was surprised that I mentioned stuttering, and stuttered openly during my presentation. He said he had stuttered as a kid, a lot some years, a little others. He said it depended on how comfortable he felt with his teachers. He said he still stutters sometimes now as an adult. And he thanked me.

A teacher asked me if it would be OK if she had the counselor at her school contact me about a boy who stutters severely and who is being bullied unmercifully because of it. She wondered if I might be willing to come to their school and do a talk on stuttering.

We never know who we might impact. This talk was not about stuttering, but people asked me questions throughout about stuttering, and I was OK with it. So were they!

I had a great experience speaking to Dr Gregory Snyder’s fluency class Monday night. We hooked up through audio-visual Skype, and it was just like I was in the class with the students. They were in a classroom in Mississippi, I in my office in New York. The students were eager to hear a woman’s perspective on stuttering, and to my surprise, they asked a lot of great, thought-provoking questions.

I started off introducing myself and my early memories of stuttering as a child. I shared the negative reactions I got from my father and kindergarten teacher, which distilled fear and shame very quickly. I learned how to hide my stuttering as a child, to protect myself from being hurt. I grew to become an extremely covert stutterer, who did not come out of the “covert closet” until about 4 years ago.

The SLP students had reviewed my blog and had lots of good questions to ask. One question was how did I manage to fool everyone and be covert for so long. I discussed how I constantly used word substitution and avoidance. I also mentioned that in my family, stuttering was never brought up. It was there, very obvious, but very much the pink elephant. That’s why to me it remained awful and not normal for so very long.

I shared that it was such a big relief years later that my sister mentioned that she had always known I stuttered and had always wanted to talk with me about it. We do now!

The students asked if I thought men and women view stuttering differently. I shared that women tend to be more emotional and expressive, and are OK with talking about feelings and attitudes, whereas men seemed more in tuned with wanting to find fluency. I shared my experiences with attending a predominately male stuttering self-help group, and how I often feel when some men become hyper-critical to a comment or remark I might share.

The students asked if I sometimes get defensive about stuttering. This was meant in a different way than you may think. One student had read my blog entry about meeting my sister’s  friend Max for the first time. Max had made the comment to me that I didn’t really stutter, and I responded that “yes, I really do. Just you wait – you’ll hear it”. My sister thought that sounded defensive, like I didn’t want that taken away from me.

Hmmmmm. That’s interesting, as I have often been asked if I could take a “pill” and suddenly become perfectly fluent, would I? The answer is NO. Stuttering is a part of me, has always been, it makes me the unique me that I am. I wouldn’t recognize me with out it.

Finally, Dr Snyder asked if any of my relationships had changed since coming out of the “covert closet” and embracing my stutter for the first time in my life. I honestly shared that since I had changed dramatically and found acceptance, that many of my relationships had changed. Relationships with some siblings have improved – we can openly talk about something that has always been taboo and scary for me. Relations with new co-workers are very authentic, as I don’t hide my stuttering in the workplace anymore. 

My significant relationship – with a longtime partner – changed as well. Some may say that this was a negative byproduct. We split up after 21 years. In face, this has been nothing but positive for me. I recognized that as I was growing and changing and evolving as a person, he wasn’t interested in coming along for the ride. He did not want me to change, and tried to keep me the same as I had always been with him – quiet, insecure, deferring to him all of the time, willing to not take control.

As I embraced my stuttering, other things fell into place and he wasn’t growing with me. I changed and he did not. So, we decided to move on from each other. That was one of the biggest transitions in my life. And it has been OK. I have landed on my feet. We still talk from time to time, but I have found that I am strong enough, stronger in fact, to live my own life and be comfortable with my own person, just as she is.

I emphasized to the fluency students two of my biggest life lessons: that it is OK to stutter, and that it is not only the person who changes that is effected by change. The people around us also are affected by changes we make.

I was very glad I gave this talk and went outside of my comfort zone to talk with future SLPs about the emotional aspects of stuttering. I was also glad to get really genuine feedback from Dr. Snyder, who by the way, is one of my stuttering peeps in my twitter group. It makes a lot of sense for people who stutter to talk openly with SLP students. We can help them learn lessons that go way beyond the scope of the textbook.

I attended an Interfaith Story Circle event on Sunday called “Sowing Seeds of Peace and Hope”.  The story circle is an inter-generational sharing of stories, music and dance from various religious traditions. Children are mentored and learn to share their beautiful stories, their selves.

It was so moving to see and hear children so confidently share stories of faith, rich in tradition, to a diverse audience of adults. These kids were so poised, at peace,so happy to share their stories with others. People telling stories of peace and hope is an art.

Expressing one’s self – whether it be through the centuries old tradition of story telling, writing, music or dance – is an artistic expression.

It made me so proud to see these kids, and adults, speak without fear. It reminded me of the Friends kids and the Our Time kids. Every one of us has different strengths and abilities. Just because we are blind, or deaf, or stutter, or maybe have physical challenges, we are no less capable of sharing the fabric of our  lives, our stories with each other. Kids who stutter take a little longer to tell their stories and may choose the arts of dance,music or song to say it. As long as we say it, that’s all that counts.

This made me wistful for the stories always inside my head and heart, that I felt could never come out. I always felt no one would have the patience to hear me out. Thats why I took to writing, which is artistic expression for me. I feel like I wasted many years, with my stores bottled up inside. Now I am letting them out, both in writing and from time to time, through the spoken word. And they are gushing out, these stories of me.

Yes, this Story Telling Sunday was a special day. There was no iPhone, no cell phones, no computers. It was just a big diverse group of people from different faiths listening to each other, smiling, laughing and sharing peace and hope. Hope for today and a better tomorrow. How wonderful that different people can come together and celebrate how it is our differences that really bonds us together. How lucky for me I was there.

This one doesn’t have much to do with stuttering, or maybe it has everything to do with stuttering. Depends on how much we let things affect us, right?

Lately, I have had so much on my plate it seems almost impossible to relax and quiet the mind. I like that phrase – “quiet the mind”. We all need to do that from time to time. I need to do it, so my mind, body and soul can just relax sometimes. It’s hard, because we are a multi-tasking world.

Sometimes, at school, I have 3 or 4 students ask me at the same time if I have done that yet for them. They see me in the hall and say, “Miss, have you done that yet?’ Sometimes I just look at them and smile, because they actually expect me to remember what it was I was supposed to do. Sorry, if it’s not written down, I likely will not remember it. That seems to be a by-product of being over-scheduled, with way too much going on. Needing to have everything written down and blocked out.

I am becoming more aware that I often do this with intent. I stay busy, or say yes to things I maybe shouldn’t, because it keeps me busy and blots out feelings that maybe I don’t want to, or am NOT READY, to deal with. It’s part of the human condition – this avoidance of tough stuff. Ah, yes, here’s the connection to stuttering.  I knew there was one. People who stutter often deliberately avoid difficult speaking situations so that we will not expose our stuttering.

Just like people with fears will avoid the feared. And we enter into a vicious cycle of never overcoming what we fear by constantly avoiding it. My wise friend and mentor, J, reminds me all the time that I, we, are the masters of our fate.

The only way I am going to quiet my mind is to do just that. I need to take time for me every once in a while and just do nothing. Even when I feel guilty for doing nothing. Even when I am thinking of the million productive things I could be doing when doing nothing.

But there is my mistake. Taking time for self and doing nothing IS productive. It quiets the mind. It allows me to breathe. It allows me to feel. It allows me to sleep. We need to breathe and feel and be and sleep in order to take care of the others in our lives. Because we need to take care of ourselves first. If we cannot do it for ourselves, then we cannot effectively take care of everyone and everything else.

I am going to make a more deliberate effort to quiet my mind and allow myself some time each day to just be at peace with myself and my thoughts.

What about you? Will you join me?

Someone said this to me in conversation last night over the phone. This person and I were talking for the first time, and it was a little awkward, as it can be when you don’t know someone and you are trying to make a good impression. (I think that is what was going on!)

He kept clearing his throat, and at one point I couldn’t resist chuckling and asking if he was OK. He laughed himself, and made the comment that he was a little nervous and didn’t want to start stuttering or anything.

For a fleeting moment, I winced. I felt maybe I should have said something like, “well, so what if you do. It’s no big deal – I stutter.” But I didn’t say that, or anything at all as a matter of fact. I just let it pass and continued on with our dialogue.

Because that early into talking with someone I was just meeting, I had not shared that I do stutter sometimes. It kind of goes back to a post I made last week, about not always wanting to “make an announcement” at the beginning of every conversation I have with anybody that I stutter.

I figured I would handle that with this person only if I needed to, if I stuttered noticeably enough that he commented on it or something. At that point in our conversation, I was very fluent. I had two or three minor little blips, which I am sure he either didn’t notice or chalked it up to me being a little nervous too. So why bring up stuttering at all? It hadn’t come up at all in my mind until he made that innocent remark.

It was an innocent remark. People say it, never thinking (I am sure) that the person they are talking to actually does stutter and may be really struggling with it. Of course, if you are or have been covert, like me, and can get away with not stuttering for periods of time, it makes it even harder.

So why I am even writing about this? Because it bothered me. Yep, it did. When this person said it, it seemed momentarily like something negative was attached to stuttering. And I work hard to have stuttering not be a negative anymore in my life.

Stuttering has opened doors for me and provided me with opportunities that I would never have had if I didn’t stutter. And I have met truly amazing, inspirational people because of stuttering. And I have recognized  strengths within that I didn’t realize I had. I guess a small part of me wishes that fluent people didn’t use the term stuttering to mean something bad.  As strong as I think I am in terms of acceptance, these little things remind me that I still have tiger (ooops, ti-ger) taming to do!

What do you think? If I felt this way, should I have said something? What have you felt if and when you have heard someone casually mention stuttering in this way?

Do you know this feeling? You are in the middle of a thought, a sentence and not thinking at all about your speech? You’re actually feeling comfortable and confident. And then you stutter.

Not just a barely noticed repetition, but a good hard block. One that lasts longer than you can try to pass off as something else. I flush, my chest tightens, my heart pounds, and I find myself breaking eye contact.

I tell myself all the time that I am OK with stuttering and that I have accepted it, and then this happens. I feel self-conscious. I don’t like it.

I am comfortable stuttering while talking about stuttering. Makes sense, right? But when I am doing a presentation to a neutral audience and the topic has nothing to do with stuttering, I sometimes feel self-conscious when I stutter. It’s hard for me to admit that, because I honestly thought I was past that.

When I give talks to SLPs or colleagues about stuttering and the emotions that go with it, I have no problem stuttering freely. In fact, I feel quite comfortable being able to be so wholly free. But when doing an important speech to a non-stuttering friendly audience, I still get that self-conscious shameful feeling. That I cannot control. I cannot will myself to not flush. So not only do I feel out of control with the stuttering moment, but also with the physical reaction that makes me look uncomfortable.

I shared this at my self-help group earlier in the week. I rarely disclose feelings with this group – for some reason I feel particularly vulnerable when I do. Even though we all stutter and it should be the ideal place to discuss feeling vulnerable and self-conscious, I find it hard with mostly men.

After sharing, I got feedback. One guy asked why I wouldn’t just make an announcement at the start of any talk I do to let folks I know I stutter. He said that of all people, he surely thought that I would do that automatically, since I talk about empowerment and self-advocacy. Several SLP students thought I should do that as well, seize the opportunity to educate at those moments.

I tried to explain the dilemma I sometimes feel – that I don’t always want to talk about stuttering. That making “such an announcement” is not always what I want to do. Several other people chimed in that it would make sense to do that – I would be killing two birds with one stone.  One of the SLP supervisors then asked what I could do to “relax” before a big talk that might make me anxious about feeling self-conscious.

The problem is that the self-conscious feeling just creeps in there unexpectedly. Adding to the complexity that stuttering is. Some relaxation techniques were then bantered around. Finally another member commented that she (the only other woman in the group) thought the group was being a little harsh on me. Afterward, one guy came up to me and apologized. I told him there was no need to apologize. For what? Maybe he felt uncomfortable.

I felt self-conscious for bringing up self-consciousness! Darn emotions! Why are they always part of the equation, huh?

Being reflective today. I went back and looked at some of my earlier writings and poems. This one I wrote almost two years ago.

I felt like re-printing it today. It could have just as well been written yesterday.

Maybe I am starting to answer the question.

What if I don’t like the person I become?
What if I don’t like what’s left after all the layers are gone?
What if other people don’t like what is left of me?
Will I be even lonelier then?
Will I cry as much?
Will anyone else cry for me?
Will it hurt to peel the layers off?
What if there is nothing left of me that I have become used to?
What then? Will it be too late for me?

I want to be real, but what will that do to me?
I ask myself, how can it possibly get any worse.

The layers protect me. Can I protect myself?
Can I really do this?
I want to, but I am scared.
How will it feel? Will I feel?

Who will look back at me in the glass?
Will I be happy with my true self?
What will she sound like?
Will my true self have a soothing voice that others want to hear?
What will she look like?
Will she smile more?
Will I want to be with my true self?
Will I be happy being with my true self?
Because sometimes I am not happy being with myself now.
I find lots of things to do to avoid being with myself.

I don’t belief in my Self.
Will Self believe in me?
I want to press on and find out, but I am scared.
Why am I so scared?
Is it fear of what I will find?
What if there is no richness?
What if there is no one?
Will I find a kind soul, or is it too late?
Will I know what to do?
Will I know when I get there?
Will there be a “we”?
Who will I share my true self with?
I want to share her with someone.
Will anybody be there when I arrive?
Who will be waiting for her?