Things you wish others knew-cassidy
What do you wish people knew about your experience with stuttering?
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Things you wish others knew-cassidy — 3 Comments
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What do you wish people knew about your experience with stuttering?
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Hi Cassidy
What an interesting question!
I wish others would know that stuttering is not very pleasant, as it gives me physical tension, a migrain, a hiccup, and makes me tired. But what makes stuttering a real issue is people’s reactions to it. These can cause shame, helplessness, loss of self-worth, insecurity, silence and sometimes even worse…
Stuttering on itself is not a disability, but we get disabled by not being allowed to stutter. By being told we can’t do things. By being hung up on the phone. By voice activated services and devices that can’t wait for us to finish a sentence. (And this goes for people as well.) By not getting the job we’re highly qualified for. By being laughed at. By not giving me the few adjustments in school so that I can show my skills, but simply in a slightly different way.
So help us to talk. But not by making decisions for us, not by telling us to get “cured”, not by filling my words. But to simply listen. As what we say is worth waiting for. 😉
I’ve written a paper in this conference, and also in previous ones, that might shed more light.
Keep (them) talking
Anita
Hi Anita,
I am currently a master’s student completing my degree in speech-language pathology. I was wondering what strategies you have found to be helpful when you are experiencing physical symptoms like tension and hiccupping?
Are there different ways that you approach an unfamiliar person in conversation, compared to someone who you have known for a while?
Thank you, Cassidy, for this most interesting question!
My expectations are that people who I meet are fully accepting of me as a person who happens to stutter, a person who has a speech difference.
If people mention my stuttering, or have questions about it (this seldom happens these days), I would explain that stuttering has deep neurological roots, that it runs in my family, and that I have been stuttering since I first starting putting sentences together at age 3. I might also mention that stuttering has no generalized scientific/medical cure. I might also mention that I had been through many therapies when I was younger, with some temporary successes of fluent speaking – that only lasted as long as I daily and intensively practiced fluency techniques.
And – if I mention all this, I would also conclude the narrative by saying that eventually I just decided this was really too much for me, and I eventually decided to simply accept myself calmly and peacefully as a person who happens to stutter, and that’s it.
In the distant past, when I often spoke fluently due to well-practiced fluency techniques, I often talked about stuttering to others who I met. At that time, I felt more comfortable in explaining to people that my fluency was the result of intensively practiced techniques.
But after I adopted my current philosophy of self-acceptance, I was stuttering in almost every situation, as I no longer had well-practiced techniques. Now I no longer saw much point in routinely talking about stuttering to almost everyone. The stuttering was there almost always, heard by everyone, and I just calmly accepted that. And I also expected my listeners to do the same thing – which they have done almost always.
In addition I realized that most fluent people really don’t have much interest in discussing my stuttering. Therefore, I don’t routinely bring up the topic in conversation. Once in a while I do, though, if I see a positive context for it in the conversation. (Examples would be if I recently attended a gathering of people who stutter, or plan to in the near future; or if I’m involved in a stuttering conference, such as now.)
So to summarize: These days, I just expect that people fully accept myself as I am, as I myself do. And generally, people do.