A Secret Stutter Exposed

Possible Escape Route

2007-09-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, on a stuttering list-serve, Paul Brocklehurst, who wrote an article in 2002 for the British Stammering Association, wrote this:

"I had started to notice that people are better able to listen to speech that flows, even if it has a lot of errors in it, than they are able to listen to disfluent speech, even if there aren't so many errors."

So, for the past few days, I've experimented with focusing on the overall flow of my speech instead of the individual words, with the goal being to keep going, no matter what, without getting hung up on any bumps that happen along the way.

And I've found that focusing solely on getting through the words without any concern for how each word comes out, pushes me to just go ahead and talk—something I've been trying to get myself to do for seven years.

But the best part is that the idea that flowing speech is more important for effective communication than how smoothly the individual words come out is just what I need to make something besides smoth speech my goal.

It's my safety net—as long as I keep going, it doesn't matter how bumpy or smooth a word comes out. The pressure to get every word right is off.

I'm finally, finally beginning to truly feel like it doesn't matter if I stumble over my words.

So, a huge thank you to Paul. It's early days yet, but he might just have given me the key to get away from my "mustn't stutter" mindset and possibly (dare I say it?) escape from my closet.

Trapped

2007-09-08T13:06:00.000-04:00

Two mornings ago, I decided to try stuttering openly—again. I managed it for about half an hour in front of my four-year-old son.

At first it was liberating, as it had been the other times I tried it, but pretty soon that good feeling wore off.

Why, I wondered.

I thought about it, and I think it's because each time I stuttered openly I thought "I'm going to stop stuttering soon" and after a while when I was still stuttering more noticeably than I would have liked, the hope of talking smoother and easier started to fade away, taking with it the good feeling.

So the liberation I felt wasn't from being free to stutter openly, but from a belief that I'd be able to leave my stutter behind me. For good. And soon.

Essentially, I was telling myself it's okay to stutter, but with the sole purpose being to stutter less, so I ended up coming back full circle to my old objective of not stuttering.

Humph.

It's Not My Stutter?

2007-08-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

Only a relatively small group of stutterers join self-help groups or seek therapy. I've often wondered who and where the many other stutterers are.

Are they all holed up somewhere even more scared than the rest of us to venture out into the real world?

I don't think so.

Maybe some are unaware that such groups exist or, like I did seven years ago, mistakenly think their speech problem isn't really stuttering since they can, on occasion, talk without any bumps or hesitations.

But I'm guessing many of these go-it-alone stutterers are out living life to the fullest despite their bumpy speech.

Their stutter doesn't bother them!

This makes me wonder whether perhaps, for me, stuttering isn't the problem. Perhaps the only problem I have is the way I view my stutter.

I bet if I felt as ashamed about my eye color as I do about my stutter, I'd be just as much in the closet about my eyes being blue as I currently am about my speech being choppy. I'd look down all the time trying to hide the fact that my eyes aren't brown or green or gray.

Perhaps, then, I shouldn't focus on stuttering at all, but more on how I see myself, and all the various things that make me me.

Back To Square One

2007-06-25T10:38:00.000-04:00

On his new blog, stammering mind, PM has written about distraction. After reading it I found myself in a state of utter panic.

If I'm understanding him correctly, he's suggesting that when I go to speak I should substitute my usual obsession of "don't stutter" with something more positive that interests me, like "enjoy the conversation" or even "communicate effectively." This makes sense to me, and I think it's in line with what I've been trying to do for the past fifteen months, namely, not let my stutter have such a big impact on my ability to communicate or on my life in general.

Reading his suggestion, though, terrified me. The thought of opening my mouth to speak without first analyzing whether I'll stutter was just too scary to contemplate. My immediate reaction was "I can't do that. I might stutter!"

But, wait a minute. That's what I've been wishing for: To do away with all the analyzing and to just talk, without worrying about how the words come out.

Then everything became painfully clear: I am no more okay with the fact that I stutter as I was fifteen months ago when I started this blog.

I still hate my stutter. I still want desperately to pass as a non-stutterer. I still want to do whatever it takes to hide my stutter. I am still very much entrenched in my closet with the door firmly closed.

And I'm wondering whether all these lovely tactics I've drummed up over the months about thinking positively after each stutter, staying in the moment, and so on are basically useless until I truly learn to like or at least live amicably with my speech impediment.

Is this why so many stutterers experience relapse after they find a technique or therapy that seems to work for them?

Stutterers often mention how a technique's effectiveness "wore off." Did it wear off? Or did an underlying dislike for stuttering generate a nagging fear that the stuttering might return, which eventually interfered with the technique's usefulness?

I see now that before I have any hope of getting out of my stuttering closet and just going ahead and talking, stuttering has to stop being something I dread.

It's like the co-worker who's personality completely clashes with your own but in order to work effectively together day in and day out you somehow have to find a way to enjoy or at least tolerate their company. You can't dread being around them or you'll hate your job. You can't avoid them or you'll never get your work done. You have to live with them, annoying characteristics and all.

So, Sophie, meet your new co-worker, Stutter. He'll be helping you on your long-term communication project. He has his quirks, but if you can grow to like them, the two of you will work well together and make the project a huge success.

In, Out, and Shake It All About

2007-06-24T12:33:00.000-04:00

When I look outward—what do other people think of me, particularly my stutter?—I find myself retreating further and further into my closet.

I feel compelled to pass as a non-stutterer. I do everything to hide my stutter. I only say the words I think I can say smoothly. And as a result, only a fraction of the real me is visible.

Conversely, I've discovered that when I look inward—what do I think of me?—I gain the freedom and courage to leave my closet.

I no longer feel compelled to hide my stutter and that empowers me to be the real me, stutter and all.

It seems funny to me that to truly go out into the world, I have to look inward, but maybe that's one of the many ironies of life.

Looking Forward

2007-05-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

This morning, I passed a billboard that was filled with encouraging phrases for staying on a diet. This one caught my eye:

What matters is what you do next.

I think this could work for my stutter, too. Bad speaking experience? Don't dwell on it. Just keep talking and maybe next time it'll be better.

I would make one small change, though. I would replace the word "next" with the word "now."

I already worry too much about the words that are coming up next. Better to think only about what I'm saying now (and even then not think about that too much).

Characteristic or Cause?

2007-05-13T05:57:00.000-04:00

Often on stuttering list-serves I hear stutterers suggest that having a stutter pushes them to work harder to make up for their speech. Examples given include staying at work later than their colleagues who don't stutter, doing more than is required at the non-speaking aspects of the job, etc.

And I certainly fit into that category. I remember thinking that I had to do all the written work beyond what was expected to compensate for my stutter.

However, I just wonder whether this belief is putting the cart before the horse.

Could it not be that people with the drive to prove themselves, to be the cream of the crop, who have perfectionistic tendencies might be more likely to stutter? Could these tendencies be part of the cause rather than a result of stuttering?

After all, many stutterers observe that their stuttering lessens when they accept that they stutter and essentially allow themselves to speak imperfectly.

I just wonder.

Therapy

2007-05-04T11:44:00.000-04:00

Several of my friends have their children in speech therapy, although not necessarily for stuttering. The thing that fascinates me, though, is that all these children seem to love speech therapy. I even know of one family whose child continued with therapy even after the speech problem was no longer an issue, because he couldn't bear to give up the therapy sessions.

Yet, I've never heard a single adult stutterer have the same enthusiasm toward therapy. Don't get me wrong, many stutterers have wonderful things to say about their speech-language pathologists, but I'm not sure any would continue the therapy once their stutter was no longer a problem for them.

I gather, from talking to other stutterers and reading posts on various stuttering list-serves, that adult speech therapy involves "commitment to work hard," "venturing beyond one's comfort zone," "practicing over and over again various techniques," and so on—activities that don't really qualify as fun.

So why the difference? Why do children get fun speech therapy, with games and other exciting activities, but adults don't? Couldn't some of the therapeutic games preschoolers play be adapted for us older folks?

Just a thought.

Cop-out or Acceptance?

2007-05-02T11:51:00.000-04:00

I've decided not to pursue acting after all.

It's just too stressful trying to deal with my stutter. Once I stutter on a particular line, it's a Herculean effort to get it to come out smoothly again.

I'm going to continue with my acting class, and perhaps take a couple more, because the people are fun and I enjoy reading the plays and figuring out the characters. But I'm giving up my dream of getting back on stage in an actual performance.

I'm comfortable with my decision, but I'm wondering whether this counts as a cop-out or simply an acceptance of my limitations.

How does one tell the difference?

Pagoclone

2007-04-30T12:46:00.000-04:00

This weekend, CNN posted on their web site a video about Dr. Gerald Maguire's research and the benefit of Pagoclone to stutterers.

It would seem that in a stutterer's brain too much dopamine goes to the striatum area. And so by controlling dopamine levels, Pagoclone can curb stuttering.

But it was only effective in just over half of the patients tested. Why?

The stutterer in the video, who found Pagoclone helpful, had historically worked hard to hide his stutter. He also mentioned that as a result of Pagoclone, he experienced a "free flow of thought" he had not had before.

So is it possible that the increased dopamine comes from the anticipatory thoughts many stutterers have in an effort to avoid stuttering?

If so, then Pagoclone would be effective for stutterers who scan ahead and plot ways to avoid stuttering (and send too much dopamine to their striatum), but would provide little or no benefit for stutterers who just bump on through the words without worrying about the words ahead of time (and don't send additional amounts of dopamine to their striatum).

It might also explain why Pagoclone only curbs stuttering rather than stopping it altogether. Pagoclone eliminates the additional disfluencies that occur from actively trying not to stutter, but leaves the core stuttering alone.

But this is all just a guess. I'm curious, though, as to whether there was a correlation between the effectiveness of Pagoclone and the level to which a person had previously anticipated and tried to hide their stutter.

A New Safe Haven

2007-04-28T17:45:00.000-04:00

While performing a scene during my acting class this afternoon, I stuttered more than I ever did during rehearsals. It was frustrating, but guess what?

It didn't matter! The instructor didn't even comment on it.

So even if the stage never becomes safe from my stutter like it used to be, at least my acting class is a safe place to stutter.

Why Relapse?

2007-04-26T05:39:00.000-04:00

For the last couple of weeks I thought that I was coming closer to forgetting about my stutter. My speech was smoother. I was able to say what I wanted to say. And I thought (naively) that I was on the road to leaving my stutter behind me.

Oh how wrong I was.

For the last few days, my speech has been deteriorating in a big way. I feel like I'm stuttering much more than usual, and I can't seem to get that smooth-talking confidence back. In essence, I suppose, I'm experiencing relapse—whatever I did to lessen my stutter is wearing off.

From what I've read I'm in good company. Relapse is common with stuttering. But I'm wondering why that is. By examining my current situation, I've come up with two possible reasons:

First, after experiencing increased fluency, my expectations grew too high. I started to expect smooth speech, which made every speech blunder much more difficult to tolerate and probably caused me to fight my stutter even more than I did before.

Second, I started getting nervous that the increased fluency would end. "What if this doesn't last?" I heard myself think many times. And just like when I worry about whether I'll stutter, I usually do, perhaps when I worry about whether the smooth speech will wear off, it usually does.

So how to prevent relapse?

Well, my guess would be to not expect smooth speech but at the same time trust that if I talked smoothly just now, there's a good chance I'll be able to do it later too.

Essentially, believe in myself but expect nothing, assuming that's possible.

Best To Stay Neutral

2007-04-24T18:54:00.000-04:00

Whenever I have a "smooth speech" experience, I tend to feel very good about myself as a person. In fact, to be totally honest, I congratulate myself for passing as a non-stutterer (shame on me, I know).

I'm wondering, though, whether this reaction is as damaging as the chastising I throw upon myself each time a stutter slips out. After all, both send the message to my brain that smooth speech is good and stuttering is not.

So perhaps just like I shouldn't scold myself for stuttering, I shouldn't applaud myself or be on cloud nine when I happen to talk smoothly.

Instead, I should be completely neutral about any speech I produce.

Word Thought Substitution

2007-04-19T18:51:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned before my belief that if I could forget my stutter, I'd talk much more smoothly.

I've since confirmed, though, that it's practically impossible for me to forget my stutter, because every time I open my mouth to talk, before I can do or think anything my brain is already obsessing about it.

But a couple of weeks ago, I started reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. And while I question some of the statements she makes, I have found one aspect of the "Secret" potentially helpful.

She suggests we replace every negative thought with a positive one. And I'm wondering whether that could work for my speech. Every time I think of my stutter perhaps I could replace that thought with something else and essentially push my stutter out of my mind. Once it's out of my mind, I would think it's as good as forgotten.

I'm a master at word substitution and can do that in an instant, so hopefully I can become as adept at thought substitution.

Forget Me Not?

2007-04-15T17:56:00.000-04:00

In an effort to try to forget my stutter (and perhaps speak more smoothly), I've vowed to pay as little attention as possible to any stutters that do slip out. No more chastizing myself or dwelling on how choppy I sound.

Well, I haven't been terribly successful.

It would seem that an elaborate negative thought process is welded to each stutter. Whenever a stutter slips out, the awfulizing begins instantly—yuck, that sounded horrid! could my listener even understand me? what must they be thinking? and so on.

I try hard to limit the amount of time I dwell on a less-than-stellar speech episode, but that's just as seemingly impossible as forgetting my stutter altogether. After all, I'm already thinking about the episode, so how do I stop?

It's like that song you can't get out of your head and end up singing over and over again even though you don't want to.

Standards

2007-04-13T12:19:00.000-04:00

When I come home after dropping my son off at school, I can either take the express train or the local train.

The express train is definitely faster, but when I reach my stop I have to walk the full length of the train to get out of the station, and then I have to cross a busy street to get to our apartment, whereas with the local train I don't have to walk as far to exit the station and I don't have to cross the busy street.

I still usually opt for the express train because if the platform isn't too crowded and I don't just miss the traffic light, I do get home faster.

But then every time I take the express train, I experience a tinge of anxiety that the platform will be more crowded than usual and I'll end up watching the local passengers going merrily on their way while I'm waiting to cross the busy street at the traffic light I just missed. After all, taking the express train should be quicker, and it's a bummer when it's not.

But today, I decided to forget the whole thing and just plan on being slower. I chose the local train. And I had the best subway ride I've had in a long time.

The pressure was off. I no longer had to worry about whether I'd get there faster, because I had already resigned myself to being slower—I was supposed to get home later. Essentially I had lowered my standard for speed.

And it got me thinking about my stutter. Would I enjoy talking more if I lowered my standard for speech?

Retrain That Brain

2007-04-10T21:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I read an article on public speaking that struck a cord. The author wrote:

A debilitating fear of public speaking is often rooted in a past event. It is possible a sadistic teacher or adult humiliated a defenseless child in front of the class. This event became hardwired into the brain. . . . The brain's goal is to protect us, but we are no longer a defenseless child and don't need that protection. We need to retrain the brain.^*

I could say the same thing about my stutter.

I was scolded by a teacher when I was ten for stuttering. To protect me from further unpleasantness, my brain started watching out for possible stuttering episodes and devising ways to avoid them at all costs. That analysis became hardwired into my brain and now I'm left with a whole slew of coping mechanisms that probably make my speech far more choppy than it needs to be.

I guess I should look on the bright side: Apparently, I'm not the only one who needs to retrain their brain. If only there were an easy way to do it, though.

-------------
^* Jamie Lee, "Sliding Into Your Platform Shoes?" SPAN Connection 7 (March 2007).

My Own Theory of Stuttering

2007-03-22T10:52:00.000-04:00

I don't know about other stutterers but when I forget about my stutter, I don't stutter. So it's got me wondering:

What if a person's attempts to not stutter are sufficient enough to interrupt the flow of speech?

Speaking is a very complex process. As I understand it, if one muscle or neuron takes a fraction of a second longer than it should, the flow of speech is thrown off. In addition, talking is supposed to be an automatic process—think a thought, decide to share it, open mouth, let words just flow out.

So it would seem to me that inserting the thoughts "will I stutter? won't I stutter?" or even thinking about how the words come out or how to form them, essentially inserts a step that shouldn't be there and could also interrupt the flow of speech.

My guess is that whatever caused a person to stutter in the first place in most, perhaps not all, cases corrects itself, but whatever coping mechanisms the person has come up with to try not to stutter interrupt the flow of speech and cause the disfluencies to continue even after the initial "problem" is gone.

This could explain . . .

. . . how some older stutterers manage to find a way to stop stuttering or at least stop stuttering noticeably. Whatever treatment, technique, or other action they decided to take gave them the confidence to turn talking back into an automatic process. And without the need for their coping mechanisms, only the "thing" that caused them to stutter in the first place is left, which might have since corrected itself. The result? Fluent, or very near fluent speech.

. . . why stutterers sometimes experience smooth speech during times of extreme non-speech-related stress or strong emotions. Their minds are so preoccupied with more troubling things, that they don't have the time or energy to use their coping mechanisms. And talking is turned back into an automatic process again.

. . . why stuttering is so situational. The brain has decided when it needs to use coping mechanisms and when it doesn't. If a stutterer thinks he's alone in a room, the brain doesn't feel the need to use any coping mechanisms—so talking is automatic and speech is perhaps fluent—but the minute someone walks into the room, the brain sees the need for coping mechanisms, sets them into motion, and the speech pattern is interrupted.

. . . why different people stutter in different situations. Each person's brain has chosen its own set of situations when coping mechanisms are needed. For example, most people don't feel the need for coping mechanisms when alone or talking to pets, but some people do.

. . . why stutterers often speak more smoothly if they change their voice or put on an accent. The brain views the new voice or accent as a new situation and doesn't see the need for any coping mechanisms—yet anyway.

. . . why stuttering situations change over time. The brain doesn't see the need for any coping mechanisms in a certain situation, but then something happens to change that conclusion. Then after that, whenever that situation arises, the coping mechanisms are set into motion and disfluency results. And vice versa.

. . . why it's so, so, so difficult to stop stuttering, even if the initial "problem" may have already gone. A stutterer essentially has to make something that's already conscious, unconscious. It's extremely difficult to not think of something when you're already thinking about it.

As for what that "thing" is that causes a person to stutter in the first place, my non-scientific-wild-ass guess is that it's either a neurological flaw from a brain-related injury (like my giving myself a concussion at the age of five) or normal childhood disfluencies that simply haven't gone away yet (previous posts on this: "What Causes Stuttering?" and "What if Stuttering Were Actually Normal Childhood Disfluency?").

We all develop at different rates, and I think it's a mistake to think that everyone's speech muscles, neurons, etc. should all develop fully and "catch up" during the preschool years. For some, it might take until the school years, the teen years, or adulthood for everything to catch up.

So I'm guessing the cure for stuttering itself is: Time.

But therapy plays a vitally important role, too: To help a stutterer keep the act of talking an automatic process and remove any conscious elements, or coping mechanisms, the stutterer might have developed. This way whenever the neurological flaw corrects itself or all the speech parts "catch up" there's nothing standing in the way of smooth speech.

And it might take the same techniques speech-language pathologists are already using in therapy (fluency shaping, stuttering modification, voluntary stuttering, etc.) to give a stutterer enough confidence to talk without using their beloved coping mechanisms, but I think turning speech back into an automatic process should be the goal, rather than outward fluency.

But this is all just a guess based on my own experiences as a stutterer and reading and hearing about others' experiences.

It fits my stutter, though. Why else can I talk smoothly when I forget about it?

So I'm determined now to rid myself of my many coping mechanisms (scanning ahead, plotting ways to talk smoothly, switching words, and so on) and to make speaking spontaneous again. I'm essentially going to forget about my stutter, not just avoid it but forget it.

The first step, I think, is to pay as little attention as possible to any stutters that do come out. I'll try it for a few weeks and then report back on how it went.

Communication, Communication, Communication

2007-03-15T12:24:00.000-04:00

Over the past week, I've had to make quite a lot more dreaded phone calls. And it's made me see that stuttered speech actually has very little effect on communication.

For several phone calls, I had to leave a message that included all kinds of stuttering—repetitions, hesitations, and so on. Each time, though, the person called back and didn't seem at all bothered by the bumpiness of my message.

So maybe all my efforts to stutter more easily and in a more dignified way completely miss the mark.

The real issue is communication, and if I accomplish that, then everything else is irrelevant, including whether I stuttered or how I stuttered.

Acceptance Revisited

2007-03-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

Recently, someone posted on a stuttering list-serve the following:

[A] person can totally accept himself or herself and dislike the
severity of their stutter, and work to change it.

This doesn't seem possible to me.

Doesn't true acceptance include accepting every part of you, warts and all? Wouldn't true acceptance require one to accept the fact that he or she stutters and even the severity of their stutter?

Perhaps the issue boils down to whether my stuttering and its severity is a part of me, like my physical appearance, my personality, etc., or simply something I do, like walking down the street or riding a bicycle.

The poster appears to put stuttering on the "something I do" side, separate from me as a person, so I can accept myself (i.e., a being who doesn't stutter) and at the same time work to change something I do (i.e., the stuttering).

But I think my stuttering and its severity is the way I do something and I think that falls more on the side of "something that's a part of me." After all, I do walking, but how I walk—length of steps, weight of my feet—is one of many characteristics that makes me who I am.

So, for me anyway, as I strive to gain greater acceptance of myself, that acceptance has to include my stuttering and its severity. Disliking it is not an option.

Why "Stutter"?

2007-03-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

In an effort to be open about my stutter, I decided to disclose the fact that I stutter to an acquaintance. Everything went fine until I came to the word "stutter."

I froze on the first "t," only to then be tripped up by the second set of "t"s. And no matter how hard I tried to act confident and okay about it, it still made for a somewhat awkward moment.

You know, it wouldn't be so difficult to admit that I stutter, if it were easier to say. I know whatever name we give to stuttering will end up being a difficult word for many stutterers, but would it be too much to ask to at least make it a one-syllable word?

Something simple like "em" would make life so much easier—I em, I have an em, I am an emer, National Eming Association. It would even sound close enough to "um" that if stutterers (or emers) did get stuck, that filler alone would suffice.

Removing the Stigma

2007-03-05T20:09:00.000-05:00

Over the past few years, I've thought a lot about how to remove the negative stigma associated with stuttering and bumpy speech. Give talks to teachers? Employers? Anyone else who comes in contact with stutterers? Write a book and try to get everyone in the world to read it? Distribute flyers?

But the more I think about it, the most effective way is much simpler. If each individual stutterer talks with dignity and confidence regardless of how smoothly or choppily the words come out, eventually the world's view will change. Stuttering will be seen as merely a speech pattern, nothing more, and no one will really bother about it.

After all, look at people like Jack Welch. No negative stigma associated with him. No one even cares that he stutters, except perhaps stutterers.

I suppose that means I have to get out there and stop being ashamed of my stutter.

Who knows? Maybe, those blocks, stutters and other hesitations in my speech won't feel so bad if I view each one as getting us one person closer to making this a stutter-friendly world.

A Dreaded Phone Call

2007-03-02T20:08:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, I had to make a telephone call that I was terrified to make. Even the thought of picking up the phone filled me with dread. I couldn't imagine how I would possibly be able to do it.

But remembering my previous post and not wanting to be a hypocrite, I realized that my being terrified meant that I had to do it.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly) it wasn't nearly as frightening as I had thought it would be. I actually lived through it, and I even felt like I accomplished something.

I did stutter noticeably, and I have no idea what kind of an impression I made on the person I was calling. But I can't let myself worry about that.

I did it. And that's good enough.

If It Terrifies You . . . Do It!

2007-03-01T15:16:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was particularly stressed out over an assignment I was given for my acting class.

I was told to become familiar with a particular scene and then perform it without memorizing the lines. I was supposed to focus solely on the character's thoughts rather than the lines, and then just let the lines come out based on those thoughts.

For some reason, I had a mental block as to how to become familiar enough with the scene to be able to perform it without memorizing the lines themselves. Also, the idea of letting the words just flow out from the thoughts seemed quite impossible for a stutterer like me who's trained myself for the past twenty-plus years to analyze each word I want to say before I say it.

I panicked. And in desperation, I called a friend of mine who has acted professionally.

At first, she commiserated with me about how difficult and perhaps unnecessary the exercise was. But as soon as I said that I was petrified to do it, she said, "Oh, if it petrifies you, then you should definitely do it."

After being somewhat horrified, I realized that she's absolutely right. If anything completely terrifies you, the best thing to do is to go ahead and do it, so you realize it's not nearly as terrifying as you think it is.

Of course, I chickened out. I postponed it to this week to give me more time to become familiar with the scene and a chance to become a little less petrified over the whole thing.

But not all is lost, because I'm still pretty scared to do it.

Perfection

2007-02-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Countless times I heard people mention that humans aren't perfect and it's futile to try to be. But for some reason, I still kept working towards being able to say "I'm perfect." I wanted to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect speaker, etc.

Then last week, someone said flat out, "Sophie, you don't have to be perfect." And it finally clicked: "Imperfect is okay." It's better than okay, really. It's how we're made.

Guess what? This past week has been much more manageable and enjoyable than any week I can remember.

Even my speech seems to have improved. I still stutter, but I feel much better about it, which when it comes right down to it is all that really matters.

So I think (and I'm probably a bit slow to catch on) the key to being happy and content is to replace the impossible goal of "I'm perfect" with the more practical goal of "imperfect."

Same letters. Just a different way of looking at them.

Face Your Fears—And Breathe

2007-02-13T13:23:00.000-05:00

On Saturday morning, I was terrified. Absolutely petrified.

How was I possibly going to answer the phone three times on stage? How?

The familiar downward-spiral thinking set in—I can't do it, how am I going to live through this, it's going to be a disaster, etc. Complete and utter panic overwhelmed me.

Then for some reason I decided to focus on my breath and take everything moment by moment. Amazingly and seemingly out of nowhere, I started to think more positively and the downward spiral was broken.

There was suddenly hope. The panicky feeling went away and I felt like I might actually live through it.

Well, I did live through it. I stuttered on hello on two of the three phone calls, but no one seemed bothered.

The instructor's feedback wasn't great. His exact words were "not bad."

It doesn't matter, though. I did it, and I survived. And the "not bad" had nothing to do with my speech. Apparently two of the imaginary callers weren't different enough.

And so, he's asked me to do it again this Saturday.

It's strange, though. I'm not nearly as scared or as worried about my speech as I was last week.

I guess facing your fears really does reduce them. Plus, now I know to just . . . breathe.

The Ultimate Challenge for This Stutterer

2007-02-05T13:10:00.000-05:00

My improvisation partner has to miss next week's acting class, so I've been given an exercise to do instead. I almost died when the instructor told me what it is.

I have to receive three phone calls and each time carry on a conversation with whomever's calling.

That's right. I will have to answer the telephone three times in front of an audience.

Now that, I believe, counts as facing one's fear.

Is Control the Problem?

2007-02-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

I've always been somewhat of a control freak.

When I had a secretary I'd hardly ever give her anything to do, because I wanted to make sure it was done the way I liked. I never got up the nerve to hire a babysitter for the same reason.

I even try to control things that haven't happened yet. Each night, I plan what I'm going to do the next day and visualize exactly how everything's going to happen.

I'm not a go-with-the-flow-type person by any means. And perhaps this is where the real problem with my stutter resides.

Where speech is concerned, we're supposed to go with the flow. We're not supposed to control how the words come out any more than we're supposed to control how our heart beats. It just happens.

One only has to look at non-stutterers to see that. They don't try to control the smoothness of their speech. They don't even think about it. They simply think about what they want to say, open their mouths, and let the words come out automatically.

I definitely need to stop trying to be in control all the time.

Even if it doesn't smooth out my speech, at least perhaps it'll introduce a bit more surprise and fun into my life.

Face Your Feared Sounds

2007-01-30T14:48:00.000-05:00

Countless times, I've heard the suggestion to "face your fears." Usually it's in the context of a feared event or situation.

Could it also apply to feared sounds, though?

I've noticed that when I'm coming up to a feared letter, in my mind, I cringe, try to sail past it spending as little time on the letter as possible, and almost inevitably land flat on top of it unable to move forward.

Recently, I decided to see what would happen if, instead, I face the feared sound head-on. So now, when I see a feared sound approaching, I focus on that feared letter, give myself a pep-talk, and then really hold onto the letter when it comes. Amazingly, more often than not, the feared sound and the sounds after it come out smoothly.

Another trick or gimmick?

Maybe. I guess time will tell.

Word Switching Gone Wrong

2007-01-25T10:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my son was building with Lego^® blocks. He was trying to make a bridge across two towers but was having trouble because the towers were slightly different heights.

I meant to say the towers needed to be even but thinking I'd have trouble getting past the "v" in "even" I instinctively switched to "level" instead. Unfortunately, I didn't do it quickly enough. I ended up saying:

You have to make sure the towers are evil.

Oh the warped things my son is learning because of my stutter.

Isn't Life Ironic?

2007-01-23T20:57:00.000-05:00

I was stunned by something the instructor said during this week's acting class. He said something along the lines of:

Acting is all about actions. The words themselves are not as important.

It makes sense. After all, actors are called actors not worders or talkers.

But how ironic.

I gave up acting, because I thought it was all about memorizing lines and saying them perfectly with the right feeling and emotion, something I didn't think I could do adequately because of my stutter.

But it turns out that the focus isn't supposed to be on the lines at all but on the actions instead, and if I can focus all of my attention on my actions, is it possible I might be distracted enough to forget about my stutter and talk without any noticeable struggle?

If so, I wish I had realized all this twenty-five years ago. I might not have felt compelled to give up acting in the first place.

My Stutter Takes a Back Seat

2007-01-20T11:55:00.000-05:00

My next acting class is this afternoon. I'm supposed to do another improvisation exercise, but for some reason this week stuttering isn't what's concerning me.

Last week, in addition to the improvisation exercise, I had to act as if I had lost something and then search for it.

The instructor didn't buy my search. Basically, I was acting for the audience too much instead of actually experiencing the loss of an object and then trying to find it.

Apparently, a fundamental aspect of acting is to forget about the audience and simply live out each experience on stage as if it were actually happening. Something I didn't do.

So this week, my biggest concern is looking "real" on stage. I'm not sure I actually care whether I stutter or not. I just want to be believable.

I don't know what this means speechwise. Am I more comfortable with my stutter?

Probably not, but one can always hope.

Acting Technique or Stuttering Therapy?

2007-01-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

One of the key techniques my acting instructor is trying to get us to adopt is to concern ourselves only with what's happening on stage now and not think at all about what's going to happen next. I can't count the number of times he's said:

Live out the moment. Don't anticipate.

Whenever he says this, I think to myself, "If only I could do this in real life, my stutter would be so much less of a problem."

Imagine—no anxiety about the next word or phrase, no analysis as to whether a particular word will come out, no plotting or planning to hide a potential speech blunder. Just plain talking.

So maybe this acting class will actually double as some form of therapy. After all, if I can train myself to not anticipate what's going to happen next on stage, presumably I can train myself to stop anticipating what I'm going to have to say next in real life.

I Spoke on Stage—And Survived

2007-01-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I did it.

I spoke on stage and made it through the whole improvisation exercise without falling apart. I even stuttered a couple of times, but no one seemed to mind.

I haven't met the ultimate challenge yet, though. In this beginning class, we're supposed to simply be ourselves and get used to being on stage. So if a stutter slips out now and then, presumably it doesn't matter as much as if I were playing a character who isn't supposed to stutter.

And being improvisation, I'm not reciting predetermined lines. I can choose the words I say (or don't say). Also, because the actual words I end up saying aren't rehearsed or even known ahead of time, there isn't much chance for anticipatory fear to build up over a particular word.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when I do have to portray a character with smooth speech. And say words that are chosen for me. And when there's ample opportunity ahead of time to agonize over which words I might have trouble saying.

At least this class seems to be easing me into this slowly, so hopefully I'll be able to build up a positive enough attitude to do it when the time comes.

One thing's for certain, though. I'm realizing that there's much more to acting than just talking. One has to master many things besides getting out the words correctly, so there's a real possibility that I wouldn't have made it in the acting world even if I hadn't let my stutter stop me from trying.

I do seem to be making many more mistakes than everyone else in the class, and I don't feel as "natural" on stage as many of the other students appear to be. Perhaps this is a sign that acting isn't for me. Or perhaps it's simply a sign that I need to work at it a little harder.

I'll keep plodding along and see what happens.

Taking the Plunge . . . But Terrified

2007-01-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that I gave up my dream of acting because of my stutter and that I've always regretted it.

Well. Several weeks ago, I decided to stop regretting and start doing. I enrolled in an acting class.

The past few weeks have been wonderful. I really enjoy performing on stage.

The real challenge hasn't come yet, though. So far, all the skits we've been performing are nonverbal. We re-create scenarios using actions, not words.

But today is the day when all that will change. We have our first assignment that involves speaking, and it's improvisation.

We've each been given a partner and we're supposed to act out a conflict without any prior planning. My partner and I have decided what our conflict will be, and then in class we're simply supposed to go with the flow—basically "wing it."

I know it's only a class, and I know it doesn't matter if I stutter on stage. But I'm still terrified.

It's not just a fear of making a fool out of myself up there. It's more the nagging questions like, "What if I can't talk on stage at all?" "What if I can't act when speaking is involved?"

In about 35 minutes, I'm going to find out.

Dreams

2006-11-01T11:22:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about my dreams and aspirations lately, and to be honest it's been quite depressing.

I realize that many of my dreams haven't come true, particularly my dream to act on stage or at least in front of an audience. Over two decades ago, I let my stutter get in the way of that.

I now see, though, that I either have to get out there and live my dreams or think up other dreams. I either have to find a way to get back on stage, or I have to come up with a new dream that doesn't involve acting.

Merely wishing my situation were different is useless.

(I'm afraid I also have to accept that, at the moment, I can't write as often as I'd like. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more regularly soon.)

Reactions Are Contagious

2006-10-07T16:10:00.000-04:00

This morning at the bakery, I asked for two brownies, although it didn't come out quite that smoothly. The word "brownies" came out "brow-brow-brow-brow-brownies."

As I was repeating the syllable "brow" I kept telling myself, "It's okay. Remain calm. Act like it's normal. Just keep plowing through it." And so on.

I could see a glimpse of puzzlement in the unsuspecting salesperson's eyes, so I did something I'm not sure I've ever managed to do before. And I'm still not entirely certain how I pulled it off.

Instead of looking embarrassed, I looked him straight in the eyes, smiled as sweetly as I could, and continued on with "please" as if nothing odd had happened.

It could have been wishful imagination on my part, but as soon as I did that, the look of puzzlement went away. It was almost like he was saying to himself, "Oh it is okay. Nothing to worry about after all."

I think (although again it could just be wishful thinking) my calm reaction to the lawnmower-like repetitions put my listener more at ease.

I guess I've been wrong in thinking that the only way to avoid an uncomfortable situation is to not let any stutters come out in the first place. Perhaps it's just as effective, maybe even more so, to put my listener at ease with any stutters that do surface.

[P.S. Things are a bit crazy at the moment, so this will likely be my last post for a while.]

Love Thy Stutter (and all its oddities)

2006-10-03T18:33:00.000-04:00

That's my new rule.

A couple of weeks ago (in "True Acceptance"), I wrote about how I should accept not only the fact that I stutter but also my kind of stutter and all the tricks and oddities I use to try to hide it.

Well. I've figured out it's those oddities that I hate, not really the stutter itself.

Whenever I block or struggle to get out a word, I picture myself looking like something out of a freak show. It feels like my mouth is wide open. Everyone can see much more of my teeth, tongue and other bits than they would ever want to, while everything flails about uncontrollably.

I see now that it's not really stumbling over my words that I'm afraid of, but looking horrid and bizarre while I struggle.

So I'm going to try to learn to love those absurdities. Perhaps if I look upon those loss-of-control moments as rhythmical, musical, or even simply okay, I won't fear them as much. And if there's less fear, perhaps the loss of control won't be as great, and I won't feel so repulsive.

Temporary Fluency—Blessing or Curse?

2006-09-29T18:33:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, particularly when I was a teenager, I used to think that stuttering was the worst affliction in the world to have.

My parents would object and point out that at least I can talk smoothly sometimes. Stuttering isn't always with me, and I should be pleased I don't have some other condition that's always there.

For the most part they were right. Some people I've met have never heard me stutter, so to that portion of the general population, I'm not a stutterer, I don't have any kind of affliction, and I suppose I don't have to worry about those people making misguided assumptions about me.

But I've come to realize that what makes stuttering so difficult to live with is its transient nature—the fact that I have bouts of perfect fluency. After all, the first step to living peacefully with any condition is to accept that it exists. How can I accept myself as a stutterer when at times I'm not a stutterer?

And those non-stuttering moments feel so wonderful and free—like being in a kind of paradise—I spend almost my entire waking life chasing after those moments.

So yes, my stutter is not visible all the time and not everyone knows I stutter. But my stutter is definitely with me all the time. When listeners don't hear it, it's inside waiting to come out.

I no longer believe that stuttering is the worst affliction in the world to have. But I don't think that being able to talk smoothly at times (which almost all stutterers can do) is a plus or makes stuttering an easier or more desirable affliction to have.

Flawed Reasoning Hurts

2006-09-25T10:39:00.000-04:00

In high school I gave up acting because of my stutter, and I've always regreted doing so.

A month ago, I decided to face my fears and enroll in an acting class. None of the classes in my area fit in with my schedule, though, so I bought a few books instead. I have no idea if I'll ever end up on stage again, but reading the books has been fun.

To my horror, though, this morning I came across the following paragraph in a section on how to really get to know a character:

"A character's vocal mannerisms can be very revealing. A character who has a speech impediment, or who speaks excessively slow or fast, or who hesitates while speaking tells us quite a bit about who they are by the way they talk."*

It is precisely that way of thinking—that how a person talks is indicative of other, deeper personality traits or characteristics—that makes stutterers' lives so difficult and pushes stutterers like me further into hiding.

And that way of thinking is utterly flawed.

It reminds me of the deductive reasoning problems we had in school using if-then statements:

If Susie is a pediatrician, then she is a doctor. But the converse is not true: If Susie is a doctor, then she is not necessarily a pediatrician. She could be a cardiologist, an eye doctor, or even a vet.

Yes, if people are nervous, insecure, lying, less knowledgable, over-excited or whatever, they're more likely to stutter or stumble over their words. But that does not mean that if someone stutters or stumbles over their words, then they have one or more of those characteristics.

When is society going to realize that how a person talks is just that—how they talk, and nothing else?

---------------------
* Glenn Alterman, Creating Your Own Monologue (New York: Allworth Press, 1999), 44.

Weak or Strong?

2006-09-22T11:09:00.000-04:00

I wrote this on a list-serve recently:

"It takes great strength and courage to show one's weakness(es)."

I don't know what possessed me to write such a thing. It means I'm very weak. I'm constantly trying to show the world my "perfect" side, particularly when it comes to my speech. I try to hide my stutter all the time.

And then, of course, I beat myself up when I can't live up to that image of perfection.

I have to get over myself and just accept I'm not a super-human-perfect being. I'm just not.

I stutter. Talking is one of my weaknesses. And that's that.

Who knows? If someone sees me baring my stutter for all to see, perhaps they'll lighten up on their own imperfections, too.

Bad Speech Day

2006-09-21T11:16:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the worst.

Words that usually come out smoothly took eons to come out. I stuttered and sputtered in situations I normally wouldn't. None of my hiding tricks seemed to work. And for most of the day, I felt like every part of my speech apparatus was tied in double and triple knots.

Unfortunately, it was a prime why-this-what-if-that-what- happens-when day for my son. It seemed like everything out of his mouth was a question. (It's pretty much like that every day, but yesterday given my speaking problems, the questions seemed more numerous.)

What agony.

I love that he asks so many questions, but I hate it when I have to struggle so much to get comprehensible answers out.

I was completely exhausted by the end of the day.

Bless his little heart, though. Even the most noticeable, most grotesque stutters—the ones where the blocks went on for an eternity and the facial contortions were so abnormal my face had to have been made of rubber to make them—never fazed him. He just kept firing away the questions without any concern for how freakish his mother looked.

How I wish everyone in the world were three years old.

Distraction

2006-09-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

The other day, I was reading to my son and because I was sitting in front of him, I had to read the book upside-down. To my surprise, my speech was completely smooth.

I think it was because I was so focused on figuring out what the words were, upside-down, that I had no time to worry about how the words came out.

This bolsters my view that if I could just stop thinking about how the words come out and focus solely on what I want to say, I'd no longer stutter.

How nice it would be if I could get my stubborn brain to do what I want it to do.

My Preference for Writing

2006-09-15T05:50:00.000-04:00

I've just noticed that I'm constantly afraid I've offended someone or said something inappropriate. And I think it might be because rarely does anything I say come out the way I want it to.

Last-minute word substitution (my all-time favorite trick to avoid stuttering) frequently forces me to use a word that means something slightly different from the word I had really wanted to say. And that difference in meaning can drastically change how a comment comes across.

To make matters worse, inflection and emphasis can be as important in conveying what a speaker means as the words themselves. The wrong inflection at the wrong time or emphasizing the wrong word can give completely the wrong impression.

Unfortunately, when I stutter on a word or phrase or when I use some trick to push out a word, emphasis and inflection are all out of whack. I usually end up implying something utterly different from what I'm actually thinking, or a genuine comment comes across as insincere.

Perhaps that's why I much prefer written communication where I can freely use the words I really want to say and where inflection and emphasis are, for the most part, irrelevant.

Or put another way, writing is more reliable.

I Can't Be Myself!

2006-09-08T02:17:00.000-04:00

Everyone was talking in small groups while we were waiting for the meeting to start. I saw someone sitting by themselves. I wanted to go up, introduce myself, and start talking to them.

But I feared my speech would fail me and I'd end up stuttering on my name and goodness knows what else. So I didn't.

I hated how unfriendly I must have seemed. I wanted to shout, "This isn't me. The real me would be more social than this."

What a horrid feeling, to not be the real you. And I regret missing an opportunity to get to know someone new.

Right. I vow never to let my stutter stop me from talking to someone again.

True Acceptance

2006-09-01T05:58:00.000-04:00

I've always thought that in order to fully accept my stutter I have to come out of the closet and stutter openly—show everyone that I'm okay with the fact that I stutter.

Recently, though, a fellow stutterer commented on how her covert behaviors, or hiding strategies, have been such a deep-rooted part of her speech for so long that they might never go away completely.

I could say exactly the same about my stutter. And upon thinking about it, I wonder whether in order to truly accept my speech, I really need to be as comfortable with my kind of stutter—my covertness—as I need to be with the fact that I stutter.

Perhaps acceptance, for me, means being okay with not just the stutters that slip out from time to time, but also the tricks and oddities I use to conceal my stutter. After all, they're just as much a part of my speech impediment as the visible stutters are.

So maybe stuttering openly isn't a necessary part of my acceptance. Maybe I simply need to be okay with the fact that I'm in the closet about my stutter and not feel so compelled to come out.

After all, for me, stuttering openly seems as futile as trying to speak smoothly all the time.

Phone—Friend or Foe?

2006-08-25T03:38:00.000-04:00

Is it possible that the phone might actually mask my stutter?

The other day, I left a voice-mail message for someone and struggled on quite a few words. Each time I got stuck, my face went into all sorts of contortions in an effort to push out the word or syllable. In each case, though, the word or syllable did come out after a relatively short pause.

So I'm wondering whether without the facial grimaces (which obviously the listener can't see) my stutter is not as obvious on the phone as it ordinarily would be in person.

Of course, it often seems as though I stumble more often on the phone than I do when talking to someone face-to-face, which may cancel out any masking effect that not being able to see the facial oddities provides.

But even if my stutter is as noticeable on the phone as it is in person, it can't hurt to think that it isn't, can it?

I only hope videophone doesn't catch on any time soon.

High School Reunion

2006-08-18T06:32:00.000-04:00

My high school reunion was last weekend.

For some reason whenever I'm around classmates from high school, I go into ultra-conceal mode. I use every trick in the book to hide my stutter. I simply cannot bring myself to stumble on any words in front of them.

All the horrid fears come rushing back. It's like I'm a teenager again back in the classroom petrified of being made fun of for being different.

I had hoped I'd use this reunion to break that thinking and after all these years finally be myself, stutter and all. I couldn't do it, though. I substituted, paused, used fillers, switched phrases around, described things, and even kept quiet at times.

Thinking about it now, I realize how silly that was. No one would have cared. No one would have probably even commented.

But I guess the teenager in me wasn't willing to take that risk. Maybe I'll be more courageous in ten years—if I go to the next one.

Avoiding Is Only Natural

2006-08-11T05:37:00.000-04:00

I had to make a phone call that I was dreading.

It was to an old friend of mine who I've lost touch with. I knew I'd stutter on her name as well as my own. But I kept telling myself that I had to do it and that I'd make it through somehow. I really didn't want to do it, though.

I happened to mention my fears to a mutual friend, one of the few people I've opened up to about my stutter, and to my surprise her immediate reaction was "e-mail her instead" and then she proceeded to give me our friend's e-mail address.

All my stuttering life, I've beaten myself up for avoiding speaking situations because of my stutter. I've thought that in order to show that I'm normal and no different from the fluent population I have to enter into every speaking situation that arises, especially the difficult ones. Just to prove I can do it.

I see now, though, that it's perfectly normal to avoid difficult speaking situations. Apparently, non-stutterers would do it without giving it a second thought.

So perhaps I should go easier on myself and be more forgiving if I use e-mail instead of the phone from time to time—like this time, because I'm afraid I did end up sending an e-mail message to avoid making the phone call.

The Amazingly Stubborn Brain

2006-08-04T02:29:00.000-04:00

I am so fed up with my brain.

A while ago, I mentioned that pausing right before a difficult word until I felt comfortable that I could say it without stuttering seemed to help me talk more smoothly. (See "The Glorious Pause.")

Well. Ever since then, the length of pause needed to ensure the word comes out smoothly has continually increased. The pauses now need to be so long that it would be less obvious to just go ahead and stutter through those words.

I also mentioned a few weeks ago how yoga was helping me stay in the moment and removing a lot of the anxiety and anticipation associated with stuttering. (See "Yoga.")

Well, my tendency to worry about the future (how words will come out) and the past (the embarrassment I've felt before) keeps creeping back, bringing with it the same old anxiety and anticipation.

Similarly, I wrote a few months ago about how focusing only on relaxing and resting and not caring whether I actually slept or not was helping me overcome my insomnia. (See "Can Nature Help My Stutter?.")

Well, that's not as effective now either. No matter how much I tell myself to not care about whether I sleep, I still lie awake worrying and stressing about not being asleep.

Likewise, after the National Stuttering Association conference, I thought I had convinced myself that it didn't matter at all whether I stuttered and that I should just go ahead and say what I want to say without bothering about how the words come out.

Well, that confidence is wearing off too.

It's almost as if my brain is programmed a certain way and I can re-program it to think differently for a little while but then the stubborn organ insists on going back to its old way of thinking.

I guess I need to keep re-programming it over and over and over again and just have blind faith that eventually the new way of thinking will stick.

I'm wondering whether the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" really ought to be "You can't teach an old brain new thoughts."

Differences 101?

2006-07-28T05:20:00.000-04:00

The topic of how children react to stuttering and other diversities seems to keep popping up.

There's Robert Shaw's Girlfriend Trouble, a romantic comedy that looks at how young people deal with the differences in each other, one of those differences being stuttering.

On a stuttering list-serve, there was a discussion about whether the fact that a young student stutters should be dealt with confidentially or openly. The tendency these days is to keep such information hush-hush because children fear being ridiculed or excluded by their peers.

And during last week's FRIENDS annual convention, the issue of teasing was the focus of at least one workshop.

All this has gotten me thinking about the importance of young children to understand, accept, and appreciate differences in others, rather than fear and scorn them.

If I had thought that stuttering was more acceptable to my classmates, I might not have felt so compelled to hide it. I might not even be in the closet right now.

Would it be possible to have a sensitivity class of sorts as part of the standard curriculum in one of the early school years?

If people with various conditions visited classrooms and talked openly about their struggles, their abilities, and their achievements, it might help debunk any misconceptions that exist about the conditions and make stuttering and other afflictions seem less strange, less taboo, and more likeable.

If youngsters today learn to accept and embrace differing abilities now, just imagine what the world will be like when they grow up to be the next teachers, employers, and leaders of the world.

Perhaps children already have exposure to this type of instruction. If so, the future's looking a little brighter.

If not, though, I hope they will some day.

Aesop on Stuttering

2006-07-21T05:14:00.000-04:00

The other day I was reading some Aesop's fables to my son, and one of them was about a man whose wig had been blown off by the wind.

Some people laughed at the man for losing his hair, but it didn't bother him. He simply said that it wasn't surprising his hair had fallen off because it hadn't grown there in the first place, and the head it had originally grown on hadn't been able to keep it on either.

The moral of the story was "Never be ashamed of something that you do not bring upon yourself."¹

And I think this should be applied to stuttering. After all, my stutter isn't something I brought upon myself any more than my eye color is, so why should I be ashamed of it?

----------

¹ Safaya Salter, ill., Aesop's Fables (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, Gulliver Books, 1992), 42.

Yoga

2006-07-14T05:32:00.000-04:00

I've started taking yoga classes.

I can't say yoga has made me stutter less. But I think it has reduced some of the worry and apprehension I usually feel before talking.

Last weekend, someone asked me where I grew up. I have always had difficulty saying the name of my hometown. And because there's no synonym for me to substitute, I usually feel a sense of panic whenever it becomes clear I'll have to say it.

This time, though, while I suspected I'd end up stuttering, I didn't get that panicky feeling. I just went ahead and bumped on through it.

And because I didn't get worked up about it ahead of time, I also didn't feel that embarrassed or upset about it afterwards.

This attitude change could be a residual effect of being at the National Stuttering Association annual conference. But I think yoga might also be helping.

One of the things that yoga does, for me at least, is teach me to stay in the moment. The poses require so much concentration that I'm forced to think only about what's happening now and to forget about the future and the past, which are exactly the two things I do that makes my stutter such a problem—I worry about how words will come out in the future and I obsess about the embarrassment I've felt in the past.

I really think that by teaching me to focus only on the here and now and to push the past and future out of my mind, yoga is helping to remove some of the anxiety associated with stuttering.

And stuttering without anxiety is much more manageable.

If nothing else, though, at least I'm getting some exercise.

Summer Posting

2006-07-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

My son is on summer break from school so my free time seems to have dwindled to almost nothing. I find posting to this blog very therapeutic, though, and I don't want to give it up completely. But I am having a difficult time balancing everything.

So I'm going to post something here every Friday from now until mid-September, and then once school is back in session I'll go back to posting more frequently.

Happy summer break to everyone! (I'll be back on Friday.)

Are Covert Stutterers Different?

2006-07-09T05:52:00.000-04:00

At the end of the covert stuttering workshop during last week's National Stuttering Association annual conference, an attendee asked why covert stutterers think of themselves as different from the rest of the stuttering population.

"I use the same tricks to hide and conceal my stutter, so aren't we the same? Why does it matter that I don't actually sound like a non-stutterer?" he asked.

Another attendee responded by suggesting that a covert stutterer is a stutterer who thinks they sound like a non-stutterer, but in reality they might not.

For what it's worth, I agree with both sentiments. Personally, I prefer to think of covert and overt behaviors instead of covert and overt stutterers. Covert behaviors are the hiding and avoiding. Overt behaviors are the disfluencies others hear.

The stutterer who has noticeably bumpy speech but doesn't try to hide the fact that they stutter has mostly overt behaviors and little, if any, covert behaviors.

The stutterer who has, or believes he has, outwardly smooth speech but uses avoidance and concealment tricks to achieve that smoothness has mostly covert behaviors and little, if any, overt behaviors.

Most stutterers probably fall somewhere between the two with a combination of both kinds of behaviors.

A speech-language pathologist (SLP) defended the covert/overt stutterer distinction by saying that the treatment for covert stutterers differs from the treatment for overt stutterers—whereas overt stutterers might benefit from fluency techniques, covert stutterers don't because they already talk smoothly. But I think we get the same result if the distinction were based on behavior instead of outward appearance of speech.

To lessen covert behaviors, the focus would be on self-acceptance and reducing the internal fear of stuttering. To lessen overt behaviors, the focus would be on fluency techniques.

So for a stutterer who has primarily overt behaviors, the ideal therapy would consist of mainly fluency techniques. For a stutterer who exhibits both kinds of behaviors, the ideal therapy would include a mix of both fluency techniques and working toward self-acceptance. And for a stutterer who has primarily covert behaviors (what many now call a covert stutterer), the ideal therapy would work mainly on self-acceptance with little or no introduction of fluency techniques, just as the defending SLP noted.

Personally, I don't think there's any need to, or benefit from, categorizing each stutterer as either overt or covert.

For example, what happens to stutterers like me who hide their stutter most of the time but in certain situations have noticeably choppy speech, and vice versa? Do we switch from being covert stutterers to overt stutterers and back again? That seems a bit silly.

It makes more sense, I think, to keep all stutterers together in one unified group and if any distinction needs to be made, for treatment purposes or otherwise, just identify the kinds of behaviors a stutterer exhibits.

With that in mind, I'm a stutterer with many more covert behaviors than overt behaviors. Or put another way, I'm a stutterer in hiding (i.e., the closet), and let's just not bother about how bumpy or smooth my speech sounds.

Shame on Me!

2006-07-06T06:25:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I answered the telephone and since the word hello is giving me lots of trouble lately it came out "he-he-hello."

The person calling said something like "Hi, could I speak to" and then stopped.

Partly because I was mad at myself for sounding so horrible and partly because usually anyone who calls whose voice I don't recognize (and I didn't recognize this caller's voice) is a telemarketer, after a few seconds of silence I said hello again, rather abruptly.

I then heard a sigh and a click as the person hung up the phone.

As soon as I heard the sigh it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps this was a fellow stutterer I had met at the conference and my rudeness in saying hello during what was possibly a block frustrated them and caused them to hang up. Plus I probably didn't sound too pleasant, so they might well have decided they didn't want to speak to me (or even know me) after all.

I am so ashamed and completely appalled by my insensitivity. As a stutterer, I should have known better and just waited instead of impatiently saying hello again.

From now on I vow to wait during pauses of any kind no matter how long they are or how telemarketing-like they sound. And I suppose I no longer have any right to get upset if people say hello or talk while I'm stuck in a block.

I only hope the person calls back so I can apologize profusely and beg for their forgiveness.

This Year's Stuttering Conference Experience

2006-07-04T06:56:00.000-04:00

For me, last year's conference (my first) was all about getting comfortable with stuttering and the fact that I stutter. This year was different, though.

The most amazing thing for me this time was seeing how the people I met last year had changed. They were more confident and seemed more comfortable in their own skin.

And whereas last year I don't think I stuttered once during the whole four days, this year my speech was noticeably bumpy. Only one person asked if I was a speech-language pathologist, and I think it was a joke.

I'm hoping that means I finally let my speech do its own thing. Although, I must admit I still caught myself substituting words and switching phrases around to avoid stuttering. And I'm still living in my closet now that I'm back in the real world. But it was good for four days at least to feel truly free to be me.

Workshops covered everything from stepping out of one's comfort zone to job interviews to the latest research. My favorite workshop, though, was on small talk and conversation starters.

The presenter, Erin Dyer, suggested that when speaking with strangers, friends, and family we should take the focus off our speech and put it on the other people around us. I thought that was a simply brilliant way to encourage us to come out of our shells (or closets), because if we direct all of our attention to someone else and what they're saying we have little or no energy left to worry about how we sound.

The most challenging and enlightening workshop for me was the one on advertising one's stutter. One of the presenters had suggested I go to it. Since I thought it would provide tips for talking openly about my speech, which I desperately need to work on, I went.

My heart almost stopped beating when the presenters lead us outside in small groups and pursuaded each of us to stop a passer-by, introduce ourselves, mention that we stutter, and then ask our victim three questions about stuttering.

I volunteered to go first in my group (to get it over with quickly). And my speech was by far the bumpiest it's ever been in my life. Not one single word came out smoothly. I was mortified.

But I survived, and it was fascinating to hear people's answers to our questions. One of the questions was "How do you feel when you speak to someone who stutters?" Surprisingly, to me at least, most of the people said they felt fine and that stuttering was no big deal to them. They just wait for the person to get out the word. Only one person said it made them feel uncomfortable.

So not only did I learn that it's not the end of the world if I stutter noticeably on every word in front of someone but I also learned that my bumpy speech is a bigger deal to me than it is to my listeners.

All-in-all this year's conference was a wonderful experience and I'm thrilled I went. I think the best lesson I took away from it, though, is this (courtesy of Alan Badmington):

** Don't bother about or pay any attention to what others think—that's their business, not mine. **

If I could really do that, then maybe, just maybe, I could bring myself to stop hiding.

2006 National Stuttering Association Annual Conference

2006-06-27T06:23:00.000-04:00

The 2006 National Stuttering Association Annual Conference starts tomorrow in Long Beach, California. It should be a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, it means I won't be able to post anything here until the week of July 3rd. I'm guessing, though, that'll be more my loss than anyone else's.

Deep-Rooted Trick

2006-06-26T06:41:00.000-04:00

This weekend, I went to buy bread. When I got to the counter, I asked for "eight of the seven-grain rolls."

As I was waiting for the woman to bag up the rolls, I wondered why I didn't just ask for "eight seven-grain rolls." And I realized that when I first started buying this kind of roll, I had stuck in the "of the" as a way to get out the word "seven" without stuttering. (S has always been a difficult letter for me.)

And that trick appears to have stuck. So even though I no longer fear asking for these particular rolls (I've been buying this kind of roll for almost a year now), I still use the unnecessary fillers.

Next time I'm going to try to ask for however many seven-grain rolls without inserting "of the."

But it's got me wondering how many other avoidance tricks are so ingrained I no longer consciously realize I'm using them.

The Glorious Pause

2006-06-23T06:19:00.000-04:00

I've discovered that if I pause right before a word I think I might have trouble saying and just wait until I feel confident that it'll come out without any bumps, usually the word does come out smoothly.

Good. I've found a way to control my stutter without having to stutter openly or use any complicated techniques.

Wait, though.

Is this just another trick that will lose its effectiveness over time but stick around anyway, so my stutter will simply have bizarre pauses mixed in with it? I hope not. I suppose time will tell.

Or worse yet, is this another avoidance tactic driving me even further into my closet?

On the one hand, it is a practice in avoidance—I am trying to avoid stuttering. But on the other hand, I'm simply allowing myself to speak in my own time when I'm ready to say the word. That's not really avoidance.

(Is it?)

Web Site Reviews

2006-06-20T15:08:00.000-04:00

Thomas David Kehoe has asked that I give my opinion on three free, non-commercial web sites he's put together. So for what it's worth, here goes:

I. StutteringReviews.com—where visitors can read and write reviews of stuttering therapy programs, anti-stuttering devices, and medications.

Given that there is no known universal cure for stuttering but there are numerous treatment options available each claiming some form of success, an unbiased and valid assessment of each treatment option would certainly benefit stutterers who are seeking help. I'm guessing this is the idea behind StutteringReviews.com.

There are a few things that bother me about the site, though.

The product description for each treatment only provides very basic information about the treatment (program length, developer, location, etc.), and reviewers are only asked to describe what kind of stutter they had and how effective the treatment was. It would be more meaningful, I think, if the site focused more on the specific goals of each treatment and of each reviewer.

Every stutterer has their own definition of success. Success for some stutterers might be to have smooth speech, even if it means having to concentrate on a particular technique all the time. For other stutterers, success might be to stutter in a more easy and relaxed fashion. And for still other stutterers, success might be achieving total self-acceptance without any regard or concern for how their words come out. And I don't think the kind of stutter a person has determines which definition of success they choose to adopt.

An outwardly mild stutterer might just as easily want to work only on smooth speech as someone who has a more noticeable stutter. Likewise an outwardly severe stutterer might just as easily want to achieve self-acceptance as someone with a more mild stutter.

Similarly, different treatments focus on different aspects of stuttering. Some work only on reducing the number of outward disfluencies. Others focus on the emotional side of stuttering. And many try to treat both.

Therefore, the only way for a stutterer to determine if a treatment will help her reach her own definition of success is to find out whether the treatment focuses on the particular aspects of stuttering she wants to work on, and how effective the treatment was for other stutterers who were looking for the same thing.

So each product description should state exactly what parts of stuttering the treatment addresses (fluency, emotional baggage, fear of speaking, etc.). And each review needs to state what the reviewer's desired outcome, or success, was going into the treatment and whether the treatment helped them achieve it.

I'm not sure kind of stutter and overall effectiveness really provides enough information.

Another concern I have is the five-star rating system StutteringReviews.com plans to use. I think this type of rating system for stuttering treatments could be quite misleading and might even encourage abuse.

Rightly or wrongly, when there's a five-star rating system, people tend to pay attention only to those items with the most stars and dismiss the rest. This works fine for products where customers all want the product to do the same thing (e.g. washing machines to wash clothes, stereos to play music, books to entertain, and so on).

But as I mentioned earlier, not all stutterers want the same thing from treatment. So a five-star rating system might cause people to dismiss a program that they might actually benefit from.

For example, if someone who wanted help with the emotional aspects of stuttering pursued a treatment that happened to only work on outward fluency, they may view that treatment as a failure and give it only one star. Another stutterer comes along who harbors no negative feelings toward his stutter but would like to learn how to speak more smoothly sees the low rating and automatically dismisses the treatment as no good without bothering to look at the product description or the reviewer's comments. Both the treatment and the second stutterer then lose out.

If the five-star rating hadn't been there, the second stutterer might not have been so dismissive and might have actually read the product description and the first stutterer's comments, realized the treatment focuses on what he'd like to focus on, realized the low rating was due to mis-matched goals rather than low quality, and given the treatment a try.

I also think that because people tend to pay attention only to those items with the highest ratings, a five-star rating system will encourage proponents of a particular treatment to use whatever means available, legitimate or not, to increase the treatment's rating (think of how many reviews on Amazon are written by friends and acquaintances of the author).

So the idea behind StutteringReviews.com appears to be a good one. A focus on goals, both the treatment's and the reviewer's, and elimination of the five-star rating system, though, might make the information more meaningful.

I think it's also important to note that a site like this should be considered an additional resource rather than a replacement of the information and feedback available from stuttering organizations (like National Stuttering Association, British Stammering Association, Stuttering Foundation of America, etc.) and stuttering list-serves (such as Stutt-L, StutteringChat, etc.). Nothing beats actually corresponding with someone who has first-hand experience with a particular treatment.

II. FriendshipCenter.com—a place to find other stutterers for support or romance.

Occasionally, someone on a stuttering list-serve asks if a resource like this exists, so there does appear to be an interest out there. I'm not sure I understand why, though.

If a stutterer just wants support, it would seem to me the best way to find other stutterers is to join a stuttering support group, either online or in person. Personally, I don't see the need to screen people first.

The site mentions that people might like support from someone of the same age, occupation, religion, or location. Possibly that's the case. I've found, though, that the best advice and support I've received have come from people in completely different age brackets than me, who live on the other side of the world from me, and who have completely different career paths than mine.

When it comes to support, I don't think it necessarily pays to be selective.

If a stutterer is interested in a relationship, I don't quite understand why they need to find someone else who stutters. It's like saying "My ears stick out, so I need to date someone whose ears stick out too, so they'll understand me." A person doesn't have to be a stutterer themselves to see past someone's stutter.

And if a stutterer really wants to date another stutterer, then I would think attending a stuttering conference or a stuttering support group would be a much more direct, and possibly safer, approach.

But that's just my personal opinion, and I could well be in the minority. For anyone interested in this sort of thing, the site does have a lot of features.

III. Stuttering Wikibook—an online encyclopedia about stuttering where visitors can add material.

This site takes a very thorough look at stuttering from stuttering research to different treatment approaches to living with stuttering. And the fact that visitors can add information makes it unique from print books on these topics.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough about stuttering to really comment on the content other than to say that it does contain a lot of interesting information. And it's my favorite site of the three.

Reflection on Stuttering

2006-06-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

Recently, a friend mentioned this quote by Thomas Dreier:

"The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The world is what you are."

And it's got me thinking about how I look at my stutter.

I've always wished that everyone I meet would just focus on what I say and pay no attention to how I say it.

Well, how can I expect the rest of world to do that if I don't do it myself? I probably focus more on how my words come out than anyone else does.

Perhaps if I focus only on what I say without any regard for how it comes out, the rest of the world will too.

Covert Quandary

2006-06-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

Within the stuttering community, it's generally accepted that there are two kinds of stutterers—covert stutterers and overt stutterers. It's also believed that what distinguishes covert from overt is the level of outward fluency. Covert stutterers sound like non-stutterers, while overt stutterers sound like, well, stutterers.

Having gone to great lengths to hide my stutter for most of my life, I can relate better to the experiences intimated by covert stutterers than to those expressed by more open stutterers.

I've also discovered over the years that many people who have met me do not think that I stutter.

So that would mean I'm a covert stutterer, right?

Well. I pause a lot in odd places. I use words that don't fit. I probably use more fillers than the average person does. And from time to time, I get so stuck on a word that my face freezes in the most bizarre position.

So while people I meet probably wouldn't peg me as a stutterer, they might well notice something a little off about the way I talk. And to the extent covert means "sounding like a non-stutterer," do I really qualify as covert or do I fall somewhere in between covert and overt?

Ordinarily I suppose it wouldn't matter which I am. Except I'm participating in a workshop on covert stuttering during this year's National Stuttering Association Annual Conference.

And the one thing I've discovered is that the minute I tell someone within the stuttering community that I'm covert, the pressure to be fluent increases exponentially, and I start stumbling over my words dreadfully and being anything but covert.

I've also found out that I'm the last of four covert stutterers to speak at this workshop. And after listening to everyone else talk flawlessly, the pressure to be fluent will likely be even greater.

So I'm a little concerned that my speech will end up being extremely choppy, and everyone will wonder why I'm part of the workshop.

Maybe if I preface my talk by confessing that I'm not that good of a covert stutterer, then there'll be less pressure to speak smoothly and I might actually sound like I belong.

Or maybe, I could say I'm a covert stutterer who stutters noticeably. Is that plausible?

(This is precisely why I feel much more comfortable calling myself a closet stutterer, which to me doesn't imply any particular level of outward fluency.)

What If Stuttering Were Actually Normal Childhood Disfluency?

2006-06-09T07:12:00.000-04:00

In "What Causes Stuttering?," I surmised that what we call stuttering is really normal childhood disfluencies that simply haven't gone away yet.

It's a complete guess, but just imagine if that were proven to be true:

At the moment, child development books and parenting web sites say something like, "Disfluencies in young children are a normal part of language development, but if the disfluencies continue for X months or longer, the child should be evaluated by a speech therapist."

Upon reading this, parents understandably keep a close eye on their child's disfluencies, hoping that they go away within a few months. Then if they don't, the child is taken to a specialist and all attention is directed toward stopping the disfluencies.

If the disfluencies stop, everyone's happy.

If they continue, though, so do the worry, concern, and wish for smooth speech. And eventually, the child also adopts the view that their bumpy speech needs to be fixed.

And because everyone believes that normal childhood disfluencies are short-lived and should end before first grade, the older child is labeled as having a "disorder," particularly by classmates on the playground.

And if the disfluencies continue into adulthood, the person then has to somehow navigate their way through life in a world that believes smooth speech is normal and choppy speech is a sign of all sorts of negative traits.

Now imagine if those child development books and parenting web sites said something like—

"Disfluencies in young children are a normal part of language development and while the disfluencies usually disappear within X months, for some children, the disfluencies might take longer to go away, anywhere from a few years to a few decades longer. This longer period of disfluency is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about. It has nothing to do with intelligence or any other aspect of development. The most important thing is to support and encourage the child to go ahead and talk regardless of how the words come out."

After reading this, parents will breathe a huge sigh of relief and simply concentrate on what the child is saying rather than whether the disfluencies have gone away yet.

Inevitably, the child will notice at some point that their speech pattern differs slightly from others', but the parents will quickly assure them that it's nothing to worry about and encourage them to go on talking anyway.

Other children might ask the child why they talk the way they do. And because at home the child has learned that their disfluencies are normal and nothing to be ashamed of, the child encounters no embarrassment or discomfort relaying that to their classmates and talking openly and confidently about their speech.

Chances are the other children have already learned from the adults in their lives anyway (who have read those same child development books and parenting web sites) that continued disfluency is normal.

This whole generation of children then grow up into adulthood believing that continued disfluency is normal. And guess what?

Suddenly that becomes an accepted belief. No social penalty is inflicted upon those who are disfluent beyond the age of five anymore and regardless of how long their disfluencies continue, the people we now call stutterers feel free to speak their minds without any risk of having their intelligence or other aspect of their being put into question.

Now that would be a better world to live in.

A Movie That Needs To Be Made

2006-06-06T06:50:00.000-04:00

Often (usually?) in movies, the person who stutters is the villain, the buffoon, or some other somewhat undesirable character. Rarely, if ever, is the stutterer the character everyone in the audience falls in love with.

Finally, though, a filmmaker has created a film where the heroine, a beautiful, sweet, charming, gentle, and intelligent young girl, is the one who stutters. She gets bullied just like many stutterers do in real life. This time, though, she sets them straight. She maintains her poise, her dignity, and her temper and still teaches everyone a lesson.

The film is called Girlfriend Trouble and is a romantic comedy about a 14-year-old boy with no self-confidence who meets and falls in love with a Chinese-American girl who happens to stutter. And although the film has a female lead who stutters, it's not just about stuttering—it's an insightful, funny, and heartwarming look at insecurity and the way young people deal with and learn to accept the differences in each other.

This would seem to be the perfect film to offset the somewhat negative treatment stuttering typically receives in movies and perhaps help erase the negative stigma associated with stuttering.

Unfortunately, the filmmaker, Robert Shaw, has been trying unsuccessfully for fourteen years to find a producer who will take on the film. Actors and everyone else who reads the script love the film but producers seem to think there'll be no interest in the movie because "no one will care about a girl who stutters." He has even received suggestions from film executives that the stutterer be the sidekick or the comic foil instead—anything but the heroine.

At last, Robert has found an investor who's almost ready to take on the project, but the investor needs to be convinced that people will actually buy the DVD. So if you or anyone you know would be interested in the DVD, please send an e-mail to Robert at shawzeroonie@yahoo.com so the investor can see there is interest and the film can become a reality.

Your e-mail message doesn't need to be anything fancy—"Girlfriend Trouble" in the subject line with a simple "I'm interested in the DVD" in the message will work.

Thank you!

Voice-mail Incident

2006-06-02T06:06:00.000-04:00

About a month ago, I signed up for a four-week yoga course. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I won't be able to go. So on Wednesday, I called to cancel my registration.

According to the woman who answered the phone, they don't give refunds, just a credit towards another class minus some processing fee.

Fair enough. I asked if I could take the credit.

She said she had to transfer me to some person in accounting. I was to give them my information, and they would issue the appropriate credit. Then horror of all horrors, she explained that I would be going directly into this person's voice-mail box.

[gulp]

I so wanted to hang up. But I didn't. I went ahead and left a message.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say my last name at all smoothly. I tried twice—once at the beginning of the message and once at the end—and neither time did it come out properly. So now this poor accounting person is probably scratching his head as to who is supposed to be getting the credit. Hopefully, there was no one else signed up for the class called Sophie, because I think I managed to get that out okay.

But the remarkable thing is that I'm actually managing to be positive about it. I feel good that I went ahead and left the message. And amazingly I don't feel badly for how I sounded. I don't even think I felt embarrassed when I hung up the phone.

Could it possibly be that my attitude toward my stutter is changing for the better?

Don't Go Ahead and Stutter

2006-05-29T06:46:00.002-04:00

I've been trying to figure out how to stop hiding my stutter and get out of the closet. A reasonable way to do that seemed to be to just go ahead and stutter.

Telling myself to stutter, though, doesn't work. In fact, nothing seems to work—no matter what I do I always revert back to my old concealment tricks.

Well. I just read an article by Perry Leonard, a speech-language pathologist, (on page 3 of this month's National Stuttering Association's newsletter, "Letting Go") that I think is simply brilliant and suggests I might be going about this the wrong way.

Perry Leonard writes:

I have always thought that the pain of stuttering is psychic pain. I have always believed that the way to alleviate that pain is learning to not judge one's self nor to fear a negative evaluation by others.

That pretty much sums up my speech problem. It's not so much the stutter that bothers me but the negative things people will likely think about me if I let a speech blunder slip out.

If stuttering was considered cool and there was no risk of my personality or intelligence being put into question when I stumble over my words, I'd have no trouble saying whatever I want to say regardless of how it came out, instead of saying only what I think I can say fluently.

I might still stutter, but it wouldn't be the problem it is now. It would just be another characteristic, like my freckles.

He also writes:

Fear is in the mind. The object of fear is in the future. Stay out of the future. Stay in the here and now. Shame and embarrassment are in the mind. The objects of shame and embarrassment are in the past. Stay out of the past. Stay in the here and now.

This is also a large part of my speech problem. I'm in the future whenever I open my mouth to speak—scanning ahead for problem words, worrying about whether I'll stumble over any words, and then plotting how to not let that happen.

And I'm in the past whenever I chastise myself for hours, days, or weeks on end over any stutter or hesitation that occurred.

If only I could stay in the here and now, neither of those things would happen.

I guess instead of trying to go ahead and stutter, which puts too much focus on the stutter, I should:

stop worrying about what others think; and

concentrate only on what I'm saying now instead of what I'm going to try to say in a few minutes.

Basically, I should go ahead and be me, and let my speech be what it'll be.

Thank you Perry Leonard!

(I wish I could link to the whole article. It's a review of Dr. Phillip Schneider's film, "Transcending Stuttering: The Inside Story," and a wonderful read.)

Voice or Stutter Recognition?

2006-05-25T06:18:00.000-04:00

I've been going back and forth on whether people recognize me on the phone because of my voice or because of my bumpy speech.

First I thought it was because of my bumpy speech (see "My Stutter Gives Me Away").

Then I thought (or more like hoped) it was because of the sound of my voice (see "Voice Recognition").

Well, now I'm leaning back towards my bumpy speech being the recognizable factor.

Last week, someone called me for the first time, and I happened to stutter very noticeably on hello: "He-He-He-Hello." (Hello is one of the few words that I stutter properly on, with traditional syllable repetitions.)

The second time they called, I happened not to stutter at all, and they didn't recognize me. The person even seemed a little surprised when I revealed that it was actually me who answered.

Since the only difference between the two times was the way I said hello—presumably the tone of my voice was the same—it would seem that people recognize me (or don't recognize me) on the phone by the bumpiness of my speech.

Perhaps it works something like this: If there's nothing unusual or unique about the way a person talks, it's the tone of their voice that makes them recognizable. That's why I recognized my friend's voice even though she doesn't stutter. But if there is something unique about a person's speech, like a stutter, that's what makes them recognizable.

So I guess it is my stutter that people recognize after all. Ug.

Speech Therapy?

2006-05-23T06:17:00.000-04:00

Rob asked a good question:

* Have you tried any sort of speech therapy program? *

Aside from extremely brief stints with two different speech-language pathologists (SLPs) when I was twelve and thirteen years old, I have sought no professional help for my stutter.

Maybe I should. I don't know.

Personally, I don't want to have to keep thinking about one or more techniques. I've been using concealment tricks for decades so the thought of having to learn yet another way of talking, no matter how effective others may find it, doesn't really appeal.

I applaud people who find a technique that works for them and then use it diligently for as long as they need it. It's just not for me.

I would prefer to just be a happy stutterer who talks with dignity regardless of how the words end up sounding. I think if there were more happy stutterers in this world, the negative stigma associated with stuttering would have a better chance of going away. But perhaps I have a skewed way of looking at things.

And I realize a SLP might help me achieve this happy stuttering goal faster. But at the moment, I feel my stutter is something I need to tackle on my own, in my own way, and in my own time.

Who knows? That might change.

Or it might not.

Glitch in Nature Solution

2006-05-22T06:15:00.000-04:00

Bother! This just isn't working!

No matter how hard I try, I just can't leave my speech to Nature and let go of all the conscious thoughts that disrupt the flow of my speech.

I think I see the problem, though.

In order to leave sleep to Nature and help my insomnia (see "Can Nature Help My Stutter?"), I had to tell myself that it was okay if I didn't sleep. I convinced myself that it was perfectly fine if I stayed awake all night—as long as I stayed still and relaxed, Nature would make sure I got the rest I needed. Believing this then allowed me to relinquish all control and let sleep happen naturally and unconsciously—the only way sleep (and smooth speech) can occur.

Applying this to my speech, I have to tell myself that it's perfectly fine if I stutter.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what I can't do. I can't convince myself that it's okay to block, hesitate, and stumble over my words. I can tell myself until I'm blue in the face that it doesn't matter how the words come out, but deep down inside I still really really want to talk smoothly like a non-stutterer, and that is preventing me from relinquishing control over my speech and leaving it entirely to Nature.

I still think leaving my speech to Nature is the answer to smoother speech, but how can I truly convince myself that it's okay to stutter in order to do that?

Stuttering openly comes to mind, so I see first-hand that it doesn't really matter if I stutter. But I still find the idea of stuttering openly utterly terrifying.

Speech Is Like a Swimming Pool

2006-05-20T06:32:00.000-04:00

I really do think Nature could help my stutter if I would just let it.

Think of an empty swimming pool. The water is completely still—not one ripple.

Someone gets into the pool and starts swimming. Suddenly, there are ripples and waves everywhere.

When that person gets out of the pool, though, in a matter of minutes the pool is back to its perfectly still, calm state.

It's as if the default is peace and tranquility. We can do something to disturb the peace, but once we stop doing whatever that something is, Nature goes back to its preferred stillness.

Applying this to my speech, it would seem that my conscious attempt to speak smoothly disturbs the natural peace of speaking and causes all sorts of turbulence—silent blocks, facial tension, choppy speech patterns, etc. To remove that turbulence and revert back to smooth-flowing peaceful speech, I have to, in effect, get out of the stuttering pool. I have to stop interfering—stop trying to talk smoothly.

Right. As soon as I've thought of something to say, I really am going to turn off my mind and let Nature decide how it all comes out.

Why do I have a feeling this is much easier said than done?

Obvious Stutter Versus Hidden Stutter

2006-05-18T06:20:00.000-04:00

Recently another stutterer mentioned to me how he has always envied people who can hide their stutter. I guess he figures covert (closet) stutterers have an easier time making friends, meeting people, finding jobs, and so on, because they can pass as non-stutterers.

I, on the other hand, have often wished I had a more obvious and normal-sounding stutter that people can immediately recognize as stuttering.

Because I can hide my stutter most of the time, my listeners don't really know what to think when out of nowhere my face freezes in a weird position while I get stuck on a consonant, or I suddenly stretch out a vowel for way too many seconds, or I use words and phrases that don't really fit, or I start sticking in loads of ums and ers.

These somewhat bizarre blips in my speech are so far removed from the traditional notion of frequent syllable repetitions that I fear my listeners have no choice but to attribute these occurrences to some deeper character or intellectual flaw than merely a speech impediment. So I would love to have a stutter that people can actually recognize as such.

I'll never forget the first time I called the National Stuttering Association about joining. The woman who answered the phone stuttered so gracefully. She gently repeated a syllable here and there.

Talk about envy. To this day, I wish I could sound like her. No awkward silent blocks. No oddly placed pauses. Just an unmistakable stutter.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Can Nature Help My Stutter?

2006-05-16T06:19:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks, I've been suffering from some form of insomnia. It's been driving me crazy so I went back to a Dale Carnegie book, "How To Stop Worrying and Start Living," which I read about fifteen years ago.

The book suggests that the real problem with insomnia is not the insomnia itself but the worrying about the insomnia and that a good way to stop worrying about the insomnia (and get some rest) is to believe that a higher being will take care of us during the night and give us the rest we need.

I've been trying this for the past few nights—just lying and resting and letting Nature decide whether I sleep or not. And I have had the best few nights' sleep that I've had in a long time.

And it's got me thinking about whether this approach might work for my speech. After all, it's the worrying about whether I'll stutter that's the real problem, rather than the stutter itself. So I'm wondering whether putting my speech in Nature's hands might help my stutter the same way putting sleep in Nature's hands has helped the insomnia.

What if every time I open my mouth, I say to myself, "Let go. Nature will take care of this"?

Will it erase all the hidden debates that currently go on inside my head and stop me from worrying about how I talk?

Or, will it just add another layer of analysis?

My Stutter Is an Onion

2006-05-13T06:24:00.000-04:00

Somewhat good news.

I have been thinking more positively (as I said I would in "Is My Stutter a Cause or Effect?"), and my speech has improved.

I'm still not sure whether that means the negative thoughts caused my speech to deteriorate or the other way around. I'm guessing the negative thoughts and bumpy speech fed off each other and my new positive thinking just broke the downward spiral of negative thoughts leading to more bumpy speech leading to more negative thoughts leading to even more bumpy speech and so on.

What's concerning me now, though, is that my speech hasn't gone back to the way it was before this recent slump. It's better than it was during the slump but noticeably worse than before the slump. And I'm wondering whether this conscious attempt to think more positively has added yet another layer of analysis to my speech.

Now whenever I go to say something, I'm afraid my brain does something like this:

Original analysis: Will I stutter and if so how can I hide it?

Got-to-stop-hiding analysis: Nope. Stop hiding. Is what I'm about to say what I really want to say or just what I think I can say without stuttering?

New positive-thinking analysis: Wait a minute. Are you thinking bad things about yourself? If so, don't. Tell yourself you're doing okay. Tell yourself you're doing okay.

I now see why some people liken stuttering to an onion—with layers of hidden stuff piled on top of layers of hidden stuff. If I'm not careful my stuttering onion will be the size of a watermelon soon.

So I'm back to the same old question: How do I get rid of all these layers and, well, just talk?

Fully Blocked

2006-05-11T06:47:00.000-04:00

Ah! I can't think of anything to write.

As if it wasn't enough to endure all these speech blocks, I now have to have writer's block as well.

[heavy sigh]

Hopefully, something will come to me in the next few days. Think positively, think positively, think positively . . .

Is My Stutter a Cause or Effect?

2006-05-09T06:31:00.000-04:00

These past few days I've been in a slump. Everything I do seems to be wrong or at least grossly inadequate.

I've been questioning my abilities in almost all areas of my life—all the other mothers on the playground seem to have a much better handle on the whole parenting thing than I do; recipes I've done successfully hundreds of times before for some reason are no longer working, etc.

And my speech has been simply horrid. I'm blocking, pausing, and hesitating on practically every sentence. None of my tricks are working, which I suppose is good in that it's forcing me to stumble over my words noticeably, but speaking in general has turned into a hideous ordeal.

I have to find a way to snap out of this. But I don't know where to start.

I have no clue whether my bumpy speech is a cause or an effect. Is my choppy speech causing me to view my other capabilities negatively? Or is my dim view of my other capabilities causing my speech to deteriorate?

Since past experience has shown that it's virtually impossible for me to force myself to speak smoothly—the more I think about my speech and try to control it, the choppier it becomes—I guess I have no choice but to start thinking more positively about the other things I do and hope that helps my speech.

Hmm. Something positive?

I managed to turn on the computer properly this morning. Does that count?

Voice Recognition

2006-05-06T06:12:00.000-04:00

Previously, I had mentioned (in "My Stutter Gives Me Away") how people I call often know who I am the minute I get past "Hi, th-this is" and that I was certain it was because of my stutter.

Well. Perhaps I was wrong.

The other day, a friend who doesn't stutter called me, and I inadvertently did the same thing to her. I answered the phone. She said "Sophie? Hi, it's..." and before she could finish I recognized her voice, and before I realized what I was doing I blurted out "Hi" and her name.

So maybe it is my voice people recognize—not my stutter.

I wonder whether there are other things I automatically attribute to my stutter that I possibly shouldn't—like when I call to make an appointment and the receptionist is somewhat abrupt. Perhaps they really are just busy and would have responded exactly the same way if I hadn't stuttered.

Not Stuttering Openly

2006-05-04T06:13:00.000-04:00

Drat!

I had the perfect opportunity to stutter openly to a stranger yesterday afternoon. But I didn't do it.

I completely forgot to. In fact, I even felt good about managing to say everything smoothly.

I'm never going to get out of this closet at this rate.

Stuttering Openly

2006-05-01T06:50:00.000-04:00

One kind person has suggested that purposefully stuttering in an easy dignified manner will keep my speech impediment out in the open and help me feel more comfortable with the fact that I stutter. And that does seem like a plausible solution for getting me out of this closet.

The more obvious it is to the rest of the world that I stutter, the less I'll need to hide my stutter. And the less I try to hide my stutter and worry about whether I will stutter, the more I'll just talk without thinking about it. And eventually perhaps speaking will become as effortless for me as it is for a non-stutterer.

But honestly, I find the thought of stuttering openly completely terrifying. I've finally gotten to the point where I feel comfortable telling others that I have a stutter, but to actually stutter openly and visibly in front of them? That's way outside my comfort zone at the moment.

What I fear the most are the odd looks I'll get from people who know me if I suddenly start stuttering noticeably throughout each conversation.

While I don't doubt that anyone who has heard me speak has noticed occasional hesitations and oddities in the way I talk, I don't think any of them would think those incidents qualify as stuttering. The traditional notion of stuttering involves frequent syllable repetitions, and that's not what I do.

When I stutter, I block—my face freezes in some bizarre position and nothing comes out. And because of all the concealment tricks I can't seem to get rid of, my noticeable speech blunders can be quite infrequent.

So I really think I'll have an awful lot of explaining to do if I start stuttering openly and frequently. Even if no one questions it, I'm still going to feel like it's obvious to everyone that I'm faking it.

I suppose I could start with strangers and see where that gets me. But even that's going to take quite a bit of courage.

A Way for Me to Stop Stuttering?

2006-04-29T06:29:00.000-04:00

On Thursday morning, somehow I managed to speak normally, like a non-stutterer. I didn't stutter at all. It was amazing—and wonderful. Speaking was effortless.

For whatever reason, I haven't been sleeping much lately and that morning I was beyond exhausted. Usually when I'm tired, my speech is more choppy than usual. I think it's because being tired hampers my ability to substitute words and use other tricks to conceal my stutter.

This time, though, I was so tired that I didn't even have the energy to think about how my words were going to come out or bother with any tricks. And my speech just flowed automatically, presumably like a non-stutterer's speech does.

I really think that if I could just completely forget about how I talk and think only about what I want to say, I'd no longer stutter. But other than never going to sleep again, I don't quite know how to do that.

Voice-mail Woes

2006-04-27T05:58:00.000-04:00

My heart sinks every time I end up in voice-mail. The whole concept petrifies me.

Whatever I say (and however I say it) is being recorded—permanently. The person I'm calling can listen to it over and over and over again. They can also replay it for other people to listen to.

I realize it's unlikely they'll actually take the time to do either of these things, but the potential is there and that's enough to terrify me.

And then there's the usual problem with the phone of not being able to see the other person. Call me paranoid, but I always visualize them rolling their eyes and laughing at me whenever I get stuck on a word.

Because of all this anxiety, I stutter far more when leaving a voice-mail message than in any other situation. And whenever I stumble over my words while leaving a message, I convince myself that the person I'm calling won't understand what I said, so I try to say it again. Of course, I stumble again (in pretty much exactly the same way as I did previously), convince myself they still won't understand me, try to say it again, stumble again, and so it continues over and over and over.

A few days ago, I left a voice-mail message for someone and ended up saying essentially the same thing four times, but after I hung up I still had no idea whether I had gotten my point across.

The person did call back and amazingly had understood my message. In fact, I've never had anyone not understand my messages, so I should probably just stop repeating myself.

At the time, though, it seems so impossible that they will understand me, and it still puzzles me as to how they do. But then I suppose they don't hear all the distracting thoughts that go on inside my head about whether I'll stutter, whether I can avoid stuttering by using a different word, whether that new word is as accurate, whether I should do as I vowed and go ahead and stutter anyway, etc.

I should be pleased voice-mail systems can only record what I actually say without all those confusing thoughts blurring my messages even further.

My Stuttering Expands

2006-04-25T06:35:00.000-04:00

My speech has been particularly choppy and convoluted lately. I'd like to think it's because I'm trying to conceal my stutter less and going ahead and saying what I really want to say more often, but I'm not so sure.

I still don't feel like I'm expressing my thoughts clearly, and more and more I end up combining the first part of one word or phrase with the last part of another word or phrase, which just blurs what I'm trying to say even further.

The technique (trick) I've used most often to avoid stuttering is to replace a word I think I might have trouble saying with a synonym. Usually, though, the synonym doesn't fit the sentence or meaning of what I'm trying to say as well as the original word, and inevitably some of my point gets lost. So this fuzziness in getting my point across is nothing new.

The difference now, though, is that when I used to substitute these not-as-effective synonyms, I'd at least end up talking smoothly. But these days I still stutter, and these new merged words and phrases are just plain silly.

For example, the other day, I asked my son do to something. As usual he said no. I went to say "fine," but my brain substituted "fair enough" and then I guess realized it shouldn't be subsituting anymore, and what did I end up actually saying? "Fair."

If I was truly going ahead and stuttering, presumably I would have just blurted out "fine," possibly with some stuttering mixed in.

So I'm wondering whether consciously trying to go ahead and stutter has, instead of removing the mental acrobats I've used for decades to hide my stutter, just added another step of sending me back to the original word. And this additional u-turn is interrupting the flow of my speech even more and causing me to say these nonsense terms.

Somehow I have to unlearn and remove the initial analysis of whether the words I want to say will come out smoothly, but if telling myself to go ahead and stutter doesn't do that, then what will?

If I continue to tell myself to go ahead and stutter, will the ingrained attempts to hide my stutter eventually go away, or will I forever be doing my usual mental acrobats plus this new u-turn?

My little brain hasn't a clue.

Focus Won't Budge

2006-04-23T06:28:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid my attempts to focus on enjoying talking instead of worrying about how words will come out, as I vowed to do in "A Change In Focus," have been total flops so far.

The main problem is that I can't seem to remember to do it. It's so ingrained in me to think about how words will come out that I forget to concentrate on enjoying the conversation.

On the rare occasion when I actually do remember to focus on the conversation itself, the minute I stumble over a word, any glimpse of enjoyment I might have been experiencing immediately evaporates. And I go right back to concentrating on how words will come out—to avoid going through that discomfort again.

I've only been trying this for a few days so I'm going to keep trying, but it's definitely turning into one of those easier-said-than-done things.

What Causes Stuttering?

2006-04-21T13:58:00.000-04:00

Recently, someone asked me what I thought caused my stutter. Keeping in mind that no one knows for certain what really causes stuttering and that I have no scientific evidence to back this up, here is my guess:

I think stuttering is a normal stage of speech development, which lasts longer for some individuals than for others.

Many, many neurological impulses and muscles need to work exactly in sync for smooth speech to occur. The slightest incorrect movement, even for a few thousandths of a second, interrupts the flow of speech. (Marty Jezer explained this more thoroughly on pages 40 to 42 of his book, Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words.)

As I understand it, each of these muscles and neurons can develop at different rates. So until everything fully develops, or "catches up," these many different parts might be out of sync, which can interrupt the flow of speech and cause the person to stutter. We see this in many toddlers and preschoolers as they begin to master talking.

For most children, all these muscles and neurons "catch up" to each other by about age six or so, and the stuttering stops. These are the children who "grow out" of their stuttering. But just like not everyone's hair turns gray at the same age, not everyone's speech parts "catch up" at the same age.

I believe that for those people (like me) who stutter beyond the preschool years, their speech parts just haven't fully developed and come into sync yet. Eventually they will—maybe in the teen years, or early twenties, or possibly much later—provided nature is allowed to take its course. But it isn't.

Our society's high regard for fluency and low regard for choppy, hesitant speech pressures the person whose speech parts have not yet come into sync to make their speech smooth.

They start thinking about how they're talking. They start scanning ahead, trying to push out words, and trying to speak smoothly. They insert a conscious element into the speech process that shouldn't be there. What should be automatic is now manual.

So even once all the necessary parts for speech have caught up, the flow of speech is still broken because now this conscious element messes up the timed execution of all those neurons and muscles.

Unfortunately, once that conscious element exists, it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to undo. It's like trying to not think about something you're already thinking about—every time you open your mouth to talk.

All this would explain why stuttering in older children and adults doesn't go away easily; why a stutterer can talk smoothly when they just blurt something out without thinking about their speech beforehand; and how an older stutterer who actually manages to stop worrying about whether they'll stutter or not (in effect removes the conscious element) can start talking exactly like a non-stutterer.

I have no idea if my guess is true. But it would certainly make my life easier if society viewed stuttering as a normal stage of speaking instead of a disorder that needs to be fixed.

Clarification: When I propose that nature should be allowed to take its course, I do not mean to suggest that parents do nothing if their child stutters. Until society loses its strong preference for smooth speech over hesitant speech, no matter how much the parents or caregivers ignore the child's bumpy speech, the child will still feel pressure at some point to talk more smoothly. So while in an ideal world it might be better to allow a child's bumpy speech to smooth out in its own time, in the real world early intervention by a qualified professional (one who is knowledgeable about stuttering) is most likely better.

And to reiterate: Everything written above is merely a guess.

A Change In Focus

2006-04-19T06:13:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was in the Caribbean. Everyone there takes a relaxed and laid-back approach to everything. No one sweats the petty stuff (being late, things not working out as planned, etc.) and everyone seems, well, happy—and a lot less stressed out than many of the people I see here (including me). And it got me thinking about how to achieve true happiness.

I'm finally beginning to realize that it's not what you do in life that counts, but how much you enjoy doing whatever you do. And I wonder whether this also applies to stuttering.

Perhaps it's not what I say or how I say it that matters, but how much I enjoy saying it.

I suppose one could argue that speaking smoothly is far more enjoyable than stuttering (which it is, believe me), but maybe if I focus all of my attention on enjoying each conversation and speaking opportunity, my concern for how words come out (or whether they'll come out at all) will slowly disappear and talking will become far less stressful.

My stutter probably won't go away, but perhaps it'll turn into an ice chip instead of the iceberg it is now.

Public Speaking At Last

2006-04-17T05:59:00.000-04:00

Before the age of ten, I loved reciting passages and acting in front of an audience. My stutter wasn't even an issue.

For some reason, rehearsed speaking was completely different from everyday speaking and reading aloud in class. Rehearsed speaking was immune from my stutter; everything else wasn't.

By the age of thirteen, though, that changed. My fear of stuttering spread. Rehearsed speaking was no longer a safe haven. And eventually, I gave it up. I stopped entering speech contests and auditioning for speaking parts in plays.

It almost killed me to give it up. I've regretted doing so ever since, and I've missed it dreadfully. Recently, though, I stumbled upon a solution:

Talk to classes of speech-language pathology students about what it's like to have a stutter.

The beauty of these public speaking opportunities is that it doesn't matter if I stutter (in fact, it's almost expected that I do), so once again I have complete freedom from my speech impediment (or at least from worrying about it). I've found another safe haven.

It's odd. My stutter took public speaking away from me, but it's that same stutter that has brought it back.

Terminology

2006-04-15T05:37:00.000-04:00

Several terms exist for people (like me) who go to great lengths to hide their stutter.

Probably the most accepted term within the stuttering community is "covert stutterer." "Secret stutterer" also surfaces from time to time, though.

A new term I just stumbled upon in Marc Shell's book, Stutter, is "silent stutterer." I think he's referring to covert stuttering in general, but he could also be referring to the silent blocks (complete stoppages in speech) that many stutterers experience.

Of course, if you like big words, there's always the British term "interiorised stammering."

(For what it's worth, I've always preferred the term "stammer" over the term "stutter." To me, "stutter" sounds more disease-like, while "stammer" sounds more like something one happens to do. But that's just me and since I live in the U.S. I'm pretty much stuck with the word "stutter.")

Of all the terms, though, I'm going to stick with "closet stutterer."

It's the one term that does not imply or require a high level of outward fluency, which is always a matter of heated debate among stutterers: Is any stutterer truly covert or are the so-called covert stutterers just fooling themselves into thinking they're successful at hiding their speech impediment?

I'd rather not have to answer that question, so a "closet stutterer" I'll remain.

Mistaken Contagion?

2006-04-13T06:01:00.000-04:00

A child we know has started repeating syllables occasionally. Most likely it's normal childhood disfluencies, and I don't even know if her parents have noticed.

I know it's silly, but whenever I'm around her I find myself going into ultra-conceal mode. I think it's partly because I don't want her to think I'm mimicking her, but it's also because I'm concerned that if her family finds out I stutter, they might think she "caught" it from me.

It's a known fact that stuttering is not contagious and cannot be learned from being around a person who stutters. In fact, even if a child decides to copy a stutterer's speech pattern, they'll soon realize it's a pain in the a--, get tired of it, and go back to talking normally. But what if I'm not able to convince them of this?

The part I feel most guilty about, though, is if the parents are at all concerned about her speech, I might be able to offer some support, or at least point them in the direction of the National Stuttering Association and other helpful resources.

I guess I'd better put my worries aside and openly stutter around them. Who knows? Maybe I haven't been as good at hiding it as I think and they already know anyway.

A Gesture's Worth 1000 Words

2006-04-11T05:37:00.000-04:00

When I went to pick up a pizza on Sunday, the store was pretty crowded. As I was waiting for my order, a man came up to buy a pastry. His mouth was full, so he conveyed everything he needed to say by shaking and nodding his head and by using simple hand gestures:

"No, that's not it." "That one over there." "Yes, that one."

Not one word was spoken and yet he communicated perfectly. It reminded me of the tricks I've used in the past to hide my stutter—pointing to items on a menu, holding up fingers for certain numbers, etc. (I've even put food in my mouth right before I needed to talk to make such gestures more plausible.)

I found it refreshing to watch someone else (presumably a non-stutterer) use similar tactics in the natural course of things.

Don't worry, I'm still keeping my vow to "go ahead and stutter." When I called the store to order the pizza, I asked for it to be ready by "four . . . . . . . . . . . . th—th—th-thirty" instead of "half-past four."

Now if only I could like myself more after sounding like that.

A Little Dilemma

2006-04-09T06:17:00.000-04:00

I've posted before about how I have trouble saying the store's name "Broadway Panhandler." No matter how hard I try, I always end up saying "Broadway Panhan-haaandler" or some similar concoction.

Friday afternoon, I had to go there to buy a blender. I told my son where we were going, and he starts chanting, "We're going to Broadway Panhanhandler. We're going to Broadway Panhanhandler." It seems that because I've consistently stuck in the extra syllable, he thinks the extra syllable is really part of the name.

I'm not sure what's the best way to handle this (no pun intended). I've vowed to "go ahead and stutter" (not that any trick has enabled me to say the store's name properly anyway), but I'd like my son to learn the correct pronunciation.

Perhaps if I voluntary stutter on "Broadway," then "Panhandler" will come out smoothly and my son will eventually get the idea. I just hope I don't transfer the problem to the word "Broadway."

Latest Tactic Backfires

2006-04-07T05:39:00.000-04:00

Recently, I mentioned that to avoid double embarrassment when my three-year-old asks me to repeat things (see "What Did You Say?"), I throw it back to him by asking what he thought I said.

Well. He's wised up.

Now when I respond with, what do you think I said? instead of repeating what I said for me, he says, "No, you tell me." I guess he senses my need to stop avoiding.

Right. That's the second post in a row about a trick not working. So from now on, I'm really going to stop hiding my stutter. [gulp]

Double Failure

2006-04-05T05:19:00.000-04:00

One of the tricks I often use to avoid stuttering is to replace a word I think I might have trouble saying with an "easier" word. For example, the word "thirty" almost always gives me trouble, so whenever I have to say the times 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and so on, I'll say "half-past one," "half-past two," etc.

Because I live in the U.S. where "half-past" is rarely used, though, it's not always as effective as I'd like.

A couple of days ago, I had to make an appointment. I wanted to make it for 3:30. Suspecting that I might have difficulty saying "thirty," I asked for "half-past three."

The receptionist looked a little concerned, studied the schedule book for a minute or two, and finally said, "Hmm. I can give you a 3:30 appointment. Would that be okay?"

So not only did I fail at "being more open and going ahead and stuttering," but my little avoidance tactic didn't even enable me to get my point across.

Two Fs for Sophie.

Bungled Introduction

2006-04-03T05:13:00.000-04:00

A week ago, I forced myself to walk up to a couple of parents from my son's school and introduce myself. Using my new approach of "stop hiding, just go ahead and stutter," I managed to stumble on every word, except perhaps the initial "hi."

Amazingly my listeners didn't seem at all fazed by my turbulent speech. They carried on as if I had spoken smoothly, which seems to suggest that how fluidly I talk doesn't really matter.

But despite how often I tell myself that, whether I stutter or not still matters to me dreadfully. Look—I'm still obsessing about it a week later.

My Stutter Gives Me Away

2006-04-01T05:53:00.000-05:00

This almost always happens, even with people I've only spoken on the phone with a couple of times.

The person I'm calling answers, I try desperately to introduce myself smoothly but it inevitably comes out as "Hi, Thi-This is ...."

I don't even have to go any further and I get, "Oh. Hi, Sophie."

It's uncanny how few times I have to call the person before this happens. It certainly makes my life easier (I don't have to struggle with my name), but I'm trying to decide whether I should be bothered by this.

On the one hand, it shouldn't bother me --- I just have a unique way of talking. It's no different than if my voice had a particularly high or low pitch that made it easily recognizable.

On the other hand, it makes me think of myself as "Sophie, the Stutterer," and I guess I'm not comfortable enough with that label yet to not be bothered.

Unreturned Phone Call: Why?

2006-03-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, I called a local business to ask if they would donate something for a fundraiser, and I ended up being transferred into the manager's voice-mail.

Well, speaking on the telephone is my second-worst speaking scenario and talking into an answering machine is my absolute-worst. Something about the permanency of being recorded and not being able to see the other person's reaction increases my usual fear of talking, and the likelihood of my stuttering, exponentially.

Anyway, despite my desire to hang up, I did leave a message. I think it was understandable, but I did hesitate in several places, stumble over a couple of words (like my name), and use a bunch of ums and ers.

As I feared, the manager has not called back.

Now, I suppose the rational conclusion would be that they're not interested in making a donation, but being as paranoid about my speech as I am, I can't help wondering whether my bumpy speech turned them off.

I guess I'll never know for sure, unless I call again and again until I actually speak to the manager, but would I be considered a pest? And more importantly, do I have the guts to go through that again?

I'll have to think about it.

"What Did You Say?"

2006-03-23T06:48:00.000-05:00

This is my three-year-old son's favorite question these days, and as a stutterer, it can be pure agony.

If I happened to have said a difficult or feared word without stuttering, chances are I'll never be that lucky the second time around.

But the worst is when we're in a public place and I stumble over my words the first time. I have to go through double the embarrassment.

A couple of days ago, we were walking down the street and my son saw a small crowd of people standing outside a store waiting for it to open. He asked innocently, "What's that store called?"

I always have trouble saying this particular store's name, and I knew there was no hope in front of all those people. I had no choice, though. I couldn't make up a different name with everyone listening. So I mustered up some courage (trying to tell myself it's okay to stutter but not really believing it) and responded with "It's Broadway Panhan-haaaaaannndler."

I wanted to crawl into a hole but I was at least somewhat relieved it was over. Until my son responded with "What did you say?"

Argh! I didn't want to go through all that again, so with some quick thinking, I asked, "What do you think I said?"

Much to my relief, he repeated the name of the store correctly (much better than I had done, in fact).

So now I've found a way to handle his favorite question without additional humiliation. And I justify it by telling myself it's fostering his listening skills, but could it be just another avoidance tactic, pushing me deeper into the closet?

Two Words That Don't Go Together?

2006-03-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

"I" and "stutter."

For almost two decades I could never admit to anyone that I stuttered. I didn't even think of myself as a stutterer. I knew stutterers existed, but it was inconceivable to me that I might be one myself.

It didn't matter that I often ordered food I didn't want because the dish I really wanted started with a feared letter. Or that I drove miles to avoid making a phone call. Or that I almost always spelled my name before saying it.

There were stutterers and then there was me. I knew I had speaking issues, but a stutter? No way. That couldn't possibly be what I had.

Sure. I had stuttered as a child, but I had gotten over that. I simply had a bizarre left-over problem that didn't really qualify as any type of disorder. It was just this hideous part of me that I wished would go away and that I felt compelled to hide at all costs.

Thanks to the Internet, though, I eventually learned that every stutter is unique—not every stutterer repeats syllables—and many stutterers use elaborate tricks to hide their speaking difficulties. And suddenly, a light bulb went off. I realized:

I stutter.

I still wish those two words didn't go together, but I'm slowly learning to live with the fact that they do.