About the Author: Sybren Bouwsma is a person who stutters from the Netherlands. Stuttering has brought him into stuttering communities around the world and into organising international Youth Exchanges for young people who stutter. He is project coordinator for Stamily and chair of the Dutch stuttering and cluttering association Demosthenes. Beyond stuttering, he works as a coach and facilitator and enjoys nature, travelling, meeting people and discovering different ways of looking at the world.

This summer, I stood in front of a group of young people who stutter during the Open Mic on the last day of a Stamily Youth Exchange. The theme of the week was “Take up space”. During these exchanges, we have a tradition of writing small notes to each other and putting them in personal envelopes. I told the group about one note I had received during an earlier exchange, a few years before. The note contained only three words:

“You save lives.”

Those words still touch me. Not because I see myself as someone who saves lives, but because they make me realise that something that has made me feel small for so much of my life, my stuttering, has also enabled me to create spaces in which other people can grow, find confidence in themselves and connect with others.

Stuttering has been with me for almost as long as I can remember, and as long as I can speak. A few years ago, I wrote a letter to my own stutter for a book that was published in the Netherlands. In that letter, I called my stutter one of my oldest acquaintances, but I couldn’t quite call it a friend. Looking back at that letter today, this still feels surprisingly accurate. My stuttering is a part of me that I know very well, but don’t always like.

My stutter was there at many life-changing moments. It was there when I was bullied at primary school. As I grew older, it was there during silent crushes, when approaching someone I liked felt almost impossible. It was there when I missed opportunities at work and when I didn’t say what I wanted to say. Stuttering made me feel smaller than the people around me.

But interestingly enough, my stutter has also been present at some of the most beautiful moments of my life. Because I stutter, I started meeting other people who stutter. I became involved in different stuttering communities and organisations, visited meetings and organised activities. Eventually, I started organising international Youth Exchanges for people who stutter. One of these exchanges became the place where the idea for the international stuttering association Stamily was born, so in a way, I was there at its very beginning. Today, Stamily is behind the organisation of these Youth Exchanges, with me in the role of project coordinator. Along the way, I made deep friendships with people from different countries and generations whom I would probably never have met without my stutter.

So when I look at my stuttering today, I don’t see one shade. I see many different shades. Some of the shades connected to stuttering I would still happily live without. Others have become part of who I am.

Increasingly, instead of focusing so much of my life around my stuttering, another question occupies me:

Where does my stuttering end, and where do I begin?

Who would I have become without my stutter? Would I be the same person, with the same qualities and imperfections? My stuttering has clearly shaped me through many different experiences, like the ones I described above, and it still does through new experiences. But it is no longer all-defining in what I do. I am discovering and showing other sides of myself as well.

Maybe that is also what “taking up space” increasingly means to me. It is not about waiting for other people to give me space. It is about finding my own way and my own space. It is about discovering who I am, with or without my stutter.

That doesn’t mean that taking up space has suddenly become easy. I can sometimes still feel very small because of my stuttering. And there is still a small threshold every time I approach someone I don’t know. But usually my curiosity is bigger than my fear of stuttering, so I cross it anyway. I let my stuttering be what it is and give space to other parts of myself.

Sometimes my stuttering creates unexpected and funny situations. When I block on an S, for example when I try to say my own name, Sybren, a room can suddenly become completely silent because people think I am saying “Sssshhh”. At a conference unrelated to stuttering recently, a Nigerian woman even thought I was imitating her language because of all the sounds I was making while stuttering.

Perhaps being able to laugh about these moments is another shade of my stuttering. Sometimes it feels awkward, but I think humour is an important shade that can help release tension in contact with others.

I also notice that my stuttering can create space, rather than only take it away. People sometimes tell me that when they talk with me, they feel they have more time to think about their own response. And because speaking can take more effort, I sometimes say less, but what I do say may come closer to what I really want to say. My stuttering sometimes makes me feel smaller and insecure, but it can also create room for silence, for what really matters, and for genuine connection.

Over the years, it has also changed how I look at leadership. I am not someone who naturally likes to be at the front. I would often rather give other people the floor. For a long time, I may have associated leadership with being the person in front of the troops: speaking first, knowing the direction and telling others where to go.

My experiences have taught me that I can lead differently. And perhaps that is closer to my natural self, separate from or beyond my stuttering.

During the Youth Exchanges, I often have to make decisions, respond to unexpected situations or stand in front of a group. I do this while stuttering, and this is often a challenge for me. But I have increasingly learned to trust that leadership can also mean creating the right conditions for others. There is a form of leadership that doesn’t have to be directive, but can be more guiding and gentle. I can create conditions in which other people take responsibility, find their own strength and organise things themselves. I don’t have to draw every line beforehand. Sometimes being in the lead means, at the same time, standing a little more in the background, offering inspiration, trust and support instead of knowing it all.

Maybe my own vulnerability, together with an open and questioning nature, even helps to create that space. When I stand in front of a group and stutter, speak to a journalist while stuttering, or simply go to a reception desk and struggle to say my name, I am showing that you don’t have to wait until speaking becomes easy before you participate.

This summer, I saw young people discovering this in their own ways. Some spoke more openly than they had ever done before. Some dared to simply let their stutter be heard instead of trying to hide it. Some discovered sides of themselves that had been hidden for years.

And I am still learning alongside them.

A question that was asked during one of the Youth Exchanges was: if there were a button you could press and tomorrow you would never stutter again, would you press it?

Years ago, I might have thought the answer was obvious. I would have pressed it immediately.

Today, I am not so sure.

I still struggle with my stuttering. It still frustrates me. There is pain, sadness and difficulty connected to it, and I would certainly not describe stuttering simply as a gift. But if that button were in front of me tonight, I don’t think I would press it immediately.

I would need some time.

I would need to acknowledge what my stuttering has brought into my life, as well as what it has taken away. The friendships. The encounters. The communities. The adventures. Perhaps even some of the qualities I now recognise in myself.

In the letter I wrote to my stutter a few years ago, I ended by saying that I would have loved to have missed it in my life. But I also wrote that if it continued to accompany me, I hoped we would still have some beautiful adventures together.

Looking back, we certainly have had some new adventures.

But I am also starting to see myself as separate from my stuttering. Maybe now I am slowly outgrowing not my stutter itself, but the need for stuttering to define me. It can still frustrate me, connect me, surprise me and change an encounter. It is still there, sometimes somewhere in the background and sometimes very much in the foreground.

But I am increasingly curious about all the other shades of myself as well.

My stutter can come along. I am just increasingly finding my own way, with or without my stutter.