About the Author: Anita Blom, born and raised in the Netherlands, is living in Sweden. She worked as an operation manager for the Workers’ Educational Association. She has been a board member, incl chairperson, of stuttering organisations on local, national, European and International level, and an advisory board member of several international stuttering organisations.  She was a national and international keynote speaker on stuttering, had her own stuttering consultant company, was one of the Stutter Social hosts, was a project leader of several stuttering projects, and twice Member of the Year. She was also a leader of national and international children and youth camps for over 20 years.  Anita, aka Scatsis, has stuttered since she was 9 and had a troublesome youth because of her stuttering. She went from being silent, to giving stuttering a voice, from pre-school children to the European Parliament, now inspiring people who stutter of all ages, they can make a difference. Do check out her previous papers to the ISAD online conferences. Due to health issues she now has to take it slow, but is still an inspiration to many, acknowledged by Voice Unearthed on the Wall Of Inspiration, and many others. Her device, that’s now been used all over the world is “Sure I stutter. What are you good at?”

Being seen, being heard. I so wish I was back then. Oh sure, I was seen and heard alright. Until I was nine I was acknowledged for my personality, my skills, my looks. A cute, naughty extrovert little girl, the youngest of seven. But when I started to stutter at the age of nine, I was seen and heard for just that. My stutter… From that day on there was always a ‘but’ attached to any positive remark. 

After years of bullying, silence, and even a suicide attempt, I got a summer job where my boss once again saw me for my skills, and I was hired. I got a boyfriend, and later my husband, who saw me for my personality. But I still was silent. When I finally realized, at the age of 27, I was not alone with my stutter, I knew it was time to be heard. For my stutter to be heard, instead of pretending to not speak or not know what to say. I came out of the closet. As I let go of the unseen part of the iceberg under the surface, it began to float and my stutter increased even more, but this time I no longer tried to hide it. I am a Person Who Stutters. 

The more I stood up for our right to speak, I realized we’re not seen. Too often schools don’t recognize students who stutter, and once they do, they have no clue how to deal with them, as they lack knowledge. Employers hear the stutter, but not the person who stutters. There is a lot of great information out there, but somehow it often stays where it is: with the stuttering organisations and with the Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs). 

People who stutter, and our allies around the world, are working so hard to get the word out, but it’s hard when we’re not listened to. We’re still seen as less intelligent, less capable to talk, and we’re not many enough to tell them they are wrong. There’s much time and money spent on other disabilities, and even language disorders, but stuttering is still either abnormal and needs to be “cured,” or “stuttering is not a problem, so why should you get any help.” You don’t force a blind student to read a book, or a student in a wheelchair to get out of his chair and run to get good grades, but students who stutter are often denied adjustments and graded less because of their stutter. Movies and documentaries are focused on PWS that have struggled, but who are “cured.” Yes there’s a shift going on, where focus is now on accepting, saying what you want to say, no matter what, and just focusing on ways to make speech easier, but there are still many countries where stuttering is “wrong,” where stuttering therapies and research focusing on people becoming fluent (or silent…), and where you can’t become an SLP when you stutter.

No, King George wasn’t cured. He learned techniques to give his speeches. No Mushy (known for the documentary where he learned the McGuire method) wasn’t cured. He was recently interviewed and not only stuttered, but was terrified to speak. Why was teacher Quirinus Quirrell in Harry Potter given a stutter, and appeared to be evil, and to even fake the stuttering to be “weak and nervous?” Why was the lawyer in My Cousin Vinny portrayed as incompetent? There was a Swedish comedy series where a PWS was violated, tied down, with a football horn pushed up against his ear to “stop being a woodpecker.” I went to the national media and the character was pulled out of the series. The actor blamed me for “disrupting his career.” I blamed him for incitement to violence, as a young boy who stutters was pulled into a shower and they put a shower head on his ear saying “we’ll flush your brains out to stop you from being a woodpecker.”

So in a way we’re being seen and heard. But in what way? Many years of hosting camps for children and young people who stutter, show there still is so much shame even today. Parents are heartbroken as if stuttering is the end of the world. Teens are talking about suicide and are hiding their stutter due to non-acceptance from the outside world. But how can that be when stuttering associations, PWS, clinicians, VIPs, and slowly even the media are speaking up for our right to stutter, without bullying, therapy or “good advice on how to get rid of it?” 

Is it because we ourselves feel this is a utopia, too good to be true, so we don’t really believe it and rather remain silent and thus invisible? Is it because those VIPs who talk about stuttering no longer stutter enough to really represent PWS? Why are PWS in movies played by non-PWS, who need to learn from a PWS how to stutter? Is it because movies and documentaries about PWS are still about the “amazing cure” as if that’s the only reasonable plot? Is it because we still lack movies, documentaries or even game shows, not about stuttering, but simply with PWS as a part of society? And the few times we’re “out there,” for example in Idols of Talent, we’re “brave,” and “role models,” instead of being applauded for simply being good at what we’re doing?

As that’s what we are. Good enough. We can speak. It just comes out in a different way. So let’s stop the shame and speak up, roar so that we’re being heard. In school, at work, in social life. For as soon as we stop showing, and feeling, shame, and simply speak the way we speak, the world will take us seriously. As soon as we start speaking up for ourselves and no longer accept bullying and discrimination, stop the portrayal of PWS as being the object for ridicule, pity or violence, people will look and listen to who we really are, the person behind the stutter, with a great personality and great skills. That’s how we want to be seen and heard. 

Not everyone might see Stuttering Pride as being proud of your stutter, but we darn well should be proud of how we keep talking, despite the way some people still see and project us. So join the movement to get PWS out of the closet and find their peers, stand up and speak up about stuttering, and disobey the norm by staying calm and stutter on. 

It’s not us who need to be “fixed.” We have the right to stutter. As that’s how we speak. 

Happy ISAD

“Sure I stutter. What are you good at?”
Anita “Scatsis” Blom