Do You Ever Wish You Lived On A Shadier Street?
In looking at all the different shades of YOUR stuttering, have you ever wished your shade was different?
Like, if you’re mostly out and overt, have you ever wondered what it would be like to successfully hide your stuttering, or change the shade? I used to think about that a LOT when I was actively covert – I’d wonder what it would be like to just let go and just let it all hang out!
Can any of you relate?
Thanks for your thought provoking question, Pam.
Throughout my life I’ve had so many shades, all from dark to light and all possible colors. I’ve been hiding, I’ve been open, I’ve been angry, sad, frustrated, happy, proud, and all in between. And it’s still changing. From year to year, but also from moment to moment. Depending how I feel, who I talk to, my surroundings, etc. And yes, I’ve wished to be fluent, to be mute, to be… gone, but most of all to be my true self.
I’m not thankful for my stutter and if I loose it, don’t pick it up and bring it back. 😉 But nowadays mainly for practical reasons. I get a headache and hiccups when stuttering a lot, and I feel frustration that my witty comment doesn’t come out soon enough. But this journey taught me a lot, not in the least how to deal with my illness, ME/cfs, where I again had the same thoughts, the same reactions from people, and the same zillion shades that comes with a chronical illness.
So, would I be the person I am if I were fluent? Probably not. Would I be happier? Probably not, as I would talk people off their feet, as I love talking. 😉 What I do know is that, thanks to all the shades I’ve been through, I finally found my true self back. And that my 50 shades of life have taught me so much, which I’m now passing on to the next generation.
Shades help us hide, but they also give us cool. Whatever we choose in life, may it be what WE ourselves want, and not what society expects from us.
Thank you Anita – may everyone who stutters see this. May the shade we occupy be what we want, not what someone else has predetermined is our place.
Pam
Thank you Pam. It is a beautiful question.
Growing up in India, I was taught to hide my stuttering, and when it was not possible, to not speak at all. It was a way to cope up with heavily perfection- chasing society, especially for women.
I could never be a covert stutterer,as my stuttering was always visible. Many times than I could imagine, I wished to not stutter at all. I wished to achieve the shade of perfection, the one who could speak up in class, could do a debate, could stand up for herself, to not be the shy girl but true to my nature-which is an extrovert. Now I am a bit older, I love the shade I am in, transparent stutterer who has nothing to hide 🙂
Hi Shilpa,
Thanks for sharing. You mention that growing up in India, you were taught to “hide” your stuttering. Who taught you? Was it clear that stuttering was “wrong, bad or unacceptable?” Were you told specifically how to hide it?
I figured it out on my own after being shamed by my father.
Pam
Thanks for the interesting question, Pam!
My stuttering has always been too severe to be covert. So I’ve hever had a true covert mindset, as such.
BUT – I can relate in a different sense: Many decades ago, I was a client of quite a few fluency shaping programs. The one in which I experienced the greatest success was the former Precision Fluency Shaping Program of the old Hollins Communications Research Institute, Roanoke, Virginia.
Through that program, when I very intensively practiced their complex fluency techniques daily, I was able to maintain consistently fluent speaking.
When speaking fluently with people, using those techniques, listeners did not realize I had stuttering if they had not known me previously. So in a sense, this was similar to being covert.
Although I enjoyed speaking fluently, I also felt uncomfortable – perhaps this was a feeling comparable to those with covert stuttering. In fact, I often felt so uncomfortable with my super-fluent speech, that I made it a point to tell new listeners that I was a person who stuttered, and that the fluent speech they were hearing was only the result of intensively practiced complex fluency techniques. After telling that to listeners, I felt much more comfortable.
When meeting a new individual during that era, I would think to myself: “Is it likely that I will see this person again?” If my internal answer was yes, I would tell myself: “I better tell this person about my stuttering!” And so I did.
Maybe this was similar to the feeling of those who “hide” their stuttering. In a sense I was hiding it, when beginning to speak fluently to a new person. But it was no longer a hidden fact after informing people about my stuttering and practiced techniques, and that very much increased my comfort level.
For me, maintaining fluency was tough work, and I could only manage to do that if I spent an hour or more daily in intensive practice. Eventually I just gave up my quest to become a permanent fluent speaker – it was just too much work, and I decided it wasn’t worth the enormous effort.
Today I simply and calmly accept myself as a person who happens to stutter, a person with a speech difference. And that made life so much less pressured!
In essence, “hiding” my stuttering with fluency techniques just felt very unnatural. Although I block often, this feels like natural speech to me, and it feels like ME. I feel more like myself when not pretending I’m a fluent speaker.
During my era of practiced fluency techniques, I was certain that was the shade I preferred. But I’ve changed that mindset, and now I’m perfectly happy with the self-acceptance shade that I have embraced.