Would you change it if you could?
Hello! My name is Autumn and I am currently studying to become an SLP or perhaps an audiologist. I wanted to ask if you could go back and change your life path, would you make it so you did not stutter? Please feel free to elaborate on your thoughts and opinions, I am sure you have many experiences that could change your answer. Thank you, have a great day!
Autumn
Hi Autumn! Thank you for your question. Looking back I would not change a thing. If you’d ask me a couple of years ago I definitely would’ve wanted my stutter to go away, as I believed that was the reason for a lot of things I hated about my life. Today I would not change a thing and believe my stutter is part of what makes me, and I wouldn’t be myself without it. It’s given me way more than what it has taken away.
– Andrea
Hi Autumn
As we cannot go back in time, and everything we do and happens to us shapes us, it’s hard to know if things would have been better if I had made other decisions. I might have talked more, but have been obnoxious. 😉 I might have chosen other studies, but not sure if they would have made me happier. I might have had another job, met other people, but would that be better? Stuttering has taken from be, but also given, and shaped me into the person I am today, a person just good enough. 🙂
Stay safe and keep them talking
Anita
Thank you for this most interesting question!
Indeed this is a question that I have discussed in the past in some stuttering support groups.
For a long time, until about age 46, I had a standard answer to this question. Many members of these support groups answered no to this question – that stuttering had made them a better person, a more understanding and caring person, and that therefore they would not live their life over, changing the fact that they stuttered.
But I had a different answer: To me the aggravation I had experienced in my life from stuttering was something I would not want to repeat. Despite having made quite a few friends who stutter – through support groups, therapy groups, and national stuttering conferences – I answered that I would gladly sacrifice those friendships for the chance to live life over again as a normally fluent person.
But then at age 46, there were major changes in my life. I met a fluent woman online through a stuttering-related website, and moved from Massachusetts to Norway to marry her. I loved the new beautiful environment that I moved into, and the lovely new land and caring society that I moved into. Also I found rewarding new work as a foster weekend father for a girl with special needs. Stuttering brought all these new life changes to me.
Now I say that I would not change my life to begin life anew as a normally fluent person. Stuttering has brought positive changes in my life – changes that I want now to keep!
– Paul Goldstein