Disclosure Statements
What are your experiences with using a self-disclosure statement? When would using a self-disclosure statement be helpful/unhelpful?
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True story re self disclosure.
Over ten years ago a rat ate the wiring / plastic of my Porsche. It was parked in my garage in Crete (Greece) and the cost to repair / replace the damage was estimated at €10,000. I phoned my UK insurance company and while the girl at the other end of the phone was polite she was finding my stammer difficult to understand, wanted me off the phone and didn’t think my policy covered rats.
Midway through our difficult conversation I asked her to stop talking and listen. I told her I had a stammer, there wasn’t a problem with the phone or the connection and because I was worried about my car my fluency wasn’t very good and would she please give me a chance to get my words out.
She stopped speaking, said she was sorry and let me speak. My fluency improved, she gave me time, gave me advice, told me of course they’d help me, told me to phone her back if I had any further problems and said they’d cover the costs.
So yes, disclosure can have huge advantages and you shouldn’t be frightened to use your stammer to your advantage 😉
I stutter in nearly all situations, and in most sentences. So with me usually, there is not much of a self-disclosure issue. Most people who I am talking to for the first time know I stutter right away.
But in the distant past, I often experienced long periods of fluency – sometimes lasting for weeks or months, as a result of very intensively practiced fluency shaping techniques (I usually needed an hour or more of practice each day to maintain this). During my fluent periods, I always felt more comfortable if the person knew I had a stuttering disorder. So within the first few minutes of meeting someone new, if I thought I would likely see the person again, I usually mentioned that I had a stuttering disorder, and was maintaining fluency through specially practiced techniques.
If I didn’t do this, I would feel really uncomfortable – as I would wonder how surprising it would be for this person to hear me suddenly block.
But this was all in the past. Now I simply, calmly, and peacefully accept the fact that I happen to be a person who stutters. Since I don’t do any fluency shaping practice any more, I stutter in nearly all situations, and everyone I talk to knows I stutter. Interestingly, I feel much more comfortable this way – and self-disclosure is now irrelevant.