About the Author: Samuel Sinanan was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to Canada in 2018.  He is a Chemical Engineer by profession with 30 years experience.  Samuel is a person who stutters and works with the Canadian Stuttering Association (CSA) as a Support Group co-leader in Toronto and as a Project Manager working on strategic projects.

My name is Samuel Sinanan and I am a person who stutters.  I was born in Trinidad and Tobago.  Trinidad and Tobago is a beautiful twin island republic known for its warm beaches.  The steel pan was invented in Trinidad  and  Tobago.

I always had a stutter since I started to speak.  There are different shades of Stuttering. My stutter is mild to moderate. I recall my mom taking me to the doctor since she thought I had a medical condition that can be cured.  My doctor recommended that I do speech therapy so I did I did speech therapy when I was about age 10.  Speech therapy helped me with the severity of my stutter. It helped with my breathing.   I used to close my eyes at lot and used to move my legs to help me get the words out which went away after speech therapy.

Like most people who stutter I had a difficult time in school.  In elementary school, kids used to laugh when I stuttered.   I recalled a time there was a letter writing contest in school and  I was selected to read my letter on radio.  I was to be recorded reading my letter.   During the recording, I stuttered a lot and I felt like I couldn’t get it right.  Eventually they decided to move on to the next person and I wasn’t allowed to read my letter on radio.  I felt very sad about this.  I felt that they were not being patient with me.  I don’t really recall talking to anyone about how I felt including my mom.   Sometimes these feelings still remain with me even today.

In high school, I used to dislike going to a new class when we had to introduce ourselves as the other kids would laugh.  Sometimes the teacher would ask the kids not to laugh.  However, once the kids got to know me, they would stop laughing at me. My teacher did ask my parents to try speech therapy again which I did.

Despite this I dreaded doing presentations or any sort of public speaking in high school.

I went to university and I did a degree in Chemical Engineering. I started to work as a chemical engineer at an Oil Refinery.  At work, I avoided making presentations or speaking up publicly. I was really good at my job otherwise.   I recall having a large work meeting with visitors and we were doing introductions and I before my turn came, I pretended that I had to go to the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to speak.  This is because of the sense of shame I felt.  One of my managers told me that although I had the required experience and skills, I would not qualify for a leadership position because I stuttered.   This made me sad and compounded the sense of shame I felt.  I decided to do research on ways of reducing stuttering.    I also did speech therapy again.  I researched the use of  drugs that help reduce stuttering.  This was in the year 2006 so all the research at the time was highly experimental.   In my research at the time, I found that there were also fluency devices that help with stuttering.  I decided to get a fluency device, the Speech easy device which works on the principle of the choral effect.  It worked for me.    I used to stutter far less than before.

I did have the opportunity to meet another engineer who stuttered.  Although his stutter was more severe than mine, he did not seem to feel that sense of shame that I was feeling.   Meeting him inspired me a bit.

Although I wore the device which helped with my fluency, I still had a deep sense of sadness and shame that I was a person who stuttered.

In my personal life this affected me as well.  I used to avoid public speaking in public and therefore my wife used to do the majority of speaking such as ordering food in a restaurant.

I moved to Canada in 2018 with my family. I found that the work environment in Canada was a bit different to what I was used to.  One time I had to make a presentation to the management team and I was nervous.  I stuttered a lot during the presentation and I felt really bad.  I thought one manager gave me a strange look during the presentation. I was really angry about this. While I worked there I avoided the manager after that.   I did not have a good relationship with him.  This also affected my work as  I didn’t want to do any more presentations or share information although I was a very experienced engineer.

In retrospect, I deeply regretted that I did not have a good relationship with this manager as I could have learnt so much from him.  He was a very experienced manager.   I should have had a conversation with him about the presentation.  I also should not have had such a reaction to his response.  I was not certain that my listener response was negative.  I should have accepted my listener’s responses.

I first got to know the Canadian Stuttering Association community in 2020.  I joined the Calgary support group for people who stutter.  This was during the time of the pandemic meetings were done online.  It was great to meet other people who stuttered.  I often ask myself why does it help when we meet other people who stutter?  We do not feel alone as we are part of community.

During the pandemic I lost my job and therefore I had to do what most people who stutter dreads… job interviews. I am not sure what was more stressful, the uncertainty at the time or having to practice, prepare, rehearse for interviews.  I did share my fear of interviews with someone in a hiring team.  He gave me some great advice.  He told me that I should disclose that that I have a stutter which I did.  I  did manage to land jobs a few times so I was grateful for the advice.

Over time, I no longer felt a sense of shame of speaking in public, asking questions or speaking up.  I realized on my own that most people do not really care if I stutter or not.  I really don’t have to be scared of stuttering. I do not have to be frustrated about my stutter.

Sometimes I reflect on the sense of sadness and frustration that I would have felt for so many years. But then I remember that I have to be patient with myself too.

What I wished I knew earlier: Have patience with your yourself, forgive yourself.   Look at the best in yourself.  I learnt that communication is the key, not really fluency.

In my perspective, acceptance means that I have no longer feel a sense of sadness over my stutter.  I think all us probably wish they didn’t have a stutter but for me acceptance means that I no longer define myself by my stutter.

But there are different shades of stuttering so acceptance has different meanings for different people.  Acceptance does not mean giving up hope on a cure for Stuttering.  Acceptance does not mean giving up on speech therapy or using technology that helps.

In May 2025, I joined the Toronto regional support group as co leader. I would like to thank my friend Daria for starting the Toronto support group for people who stutter.  I was very happy for doing this as it was a great opportunity to be there for others, be part of community, share experiences, meet new people, listen to and support others, be there for others them during bad days.  You just don’t know, how one conversation, one moment of encouragement can impact someone.

I joined the Singwell project last year.  SingWell is a research project to assess the impact of Group Singing on fluency and wellbeing.  It is a choir comprising of people who stutter.  For most people we do not stutter when we sing.    I never really sang before in a choir but it turned out to be fun.  I realized that for singing is somewhat therapeutic for most people who stutter.  I think that when people who stutter have bad stuttering days, they should sing.

It is important that we celebrate as a stuttering community.  Every year for International Stuttering Awareness Day, the CN Tower in Toronto is lit up in commemoration of ISAD.

In conclusion, I would like encourage others to share their story and also listen to others’ story.  Also, I would like to encourage others to write articles, present workshops, attend conferences.