About the Author: My name is Willemijn, I am 23 and I am from the Netherlands. I am a person who stutters, and I was lucky to find the stuttering community pretty early in my life. When I was 19, I met other people who stutter for the first time. Meeting other people who stutter has helped me to grow as a person, and become more open, confident, and comfortable with who I am. It also inspired me to make art and share about my life as a person who stutters, to support others and spread awareness.

I used to do everything to try and hide my stutter. I would switch words, remain silent when I wanted to speak, and avoid almost all social situations. Luckily, I quickly realized that this was no way of living, and I decided that I would rather stutter than live my life hiding. With the help of the stuttering community, I started opening up about my stutter, and allowing it to be there. I started going to more social situations, and doing things I was afraid of. What I found difficult, was that I felt so ashamed. Not just because of my stutter, but because I was terrified of things that were so normal to other people. Saying my name, ordering food. Things that everybody does all the time, and I was so terrified of them. I felt like I had failed as a human being for having these fears. Even though I now did not avoid these social situations anymore, I did avoid being around other people while I faced my fears. I didn’t want people to see that I was afraid of doing such normal things. I only ordered food at a counter if none of my friends were nearby, I only made a phone call if my family members couldn’t hear me. I was facing my fears, but there was nobody to celebrate this with me. While this felt very lonely, it also gave me the idea to start celebrating it myself.

I started writing down all the fears I faced, all the little victories. I started drawing them, and posting them to Instagram. It was quickly getting noticed. I started getting responses from people who understood, who knew what it’s like to fear restaurants, or their own name. They celebrated with me. I felt seen, I felt heard. I felt proud. It made me feel more accepting towards my fears, and safe enough to finally start allowing my fears to be there while I was around other people.

This year I went to a youth exchange for people who stutter. I had been there two times before, and they were transformative experiences for me. In these exchanges we get together for a week with a big group of people who stutter, and we do workshops, share about our cultures, have fun, and make new friends. In this year’s exchange there was the possibility to give a workshop, and I took the chance to share about my way of celebrating little victories. I felt unprepared, but this was the perfect moment to try it out. With the help of another participant, we planned the workshop in 15 minutes and gave it to a small group. We talked about what fears we had overcome that week, and we made drawings. Not only was it fun to draw, it felt very nice to talk about the week with each other and celebrate our strength and bravery. I received positive feedback from the participants, and I decided to give the workshop to the whole group the next day. A lot of the participants presented the drawings of their little victories to the group, and talked about overcoming their fears that week.

The fears were about things that are normal to a lot of people. Fears that I used to be ashamed of. But this time, instead of shame, I felt proud. Proud that we all opened up about our fears and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. Proud that we, as people who stutter, could create this environment for each other where we feel safe enough to be vulnerable. An environment where we feel seen, heard, understood. It’s something we people who stutter are good at. We might experience fear doing everyday things, but that gives us the opportunity to show others that it’s okay to be human, to fear things, to be vulnerable, to not be perfect, or to be perfect just the way we are. By allowing our fears and showing our vulnerability, we can encourage others to be themselves. And I think that is amazing.

Here you can see some of the drawings that participants in my workshop made about their little victories: