Outlook on Life
As a PWS, in what is your outlook on life because of stuttering? What is something you wish people who don’t stutter knew about stuttering?
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Outlook on Life — 4 Comments
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Thanks for your question, Taylor.
My outlook is the same as everyone. To have a life that’s fulfilling, challenging, and when I’m in my rocking chair looking back with a smile. I’m not a youngster anymore, so I can both look back at a youth that’s been very tough (do check out my paper in this conference), and years of growth, love and success, and look forward to getting older and no longer care, paying forward all the positive things I’ve been given and the life lessons that I’ve learned the hard way.
I wish people would know that stuttering is a neurological disorder, that I don’t stutter because I’m nervous, and I’m just as intelligent, witty and normal like any other. (As if there were normal people. 😉 ) I wish people would understand that stuttering is not wrong and fluency is not automatically right. That stuttering a lot can be less of an issue to that person, than hardly stuttering is to another. That you don’t have to give me advice like “take a deep breath”, as if were that simple, I’d do that. I’d also wish for them to stop referring me to weekend cures, as there are none. Therapy is longlasting, hard work.
So, if they would simply stop focusing on my stutter, and start listening to what I have to say, without interrupting, finishing my sentences or looking away, stuttering is no longer a problem. 🙂
Stay safe and keep raising awareness
Anita Blom
Thank you for your response!
Well I guess it would be great if the public knew all about stuttering but I have found that it is not so much what other people think about my stuttering as it is what I think about my stuttering. I worked out a long time ago that I was my worst critic when it came to stuttering. No matter what the other person is thinking when I stutter what is more of a concern to me is what I am telling myself that the other person is thinking. I have found that I am deciding what the other person is thinking then bouncing those thoughts off the other person back at myself. I have also found that I am somewhat judgmental about other people’s shortcomings and even disabilities so I tend to judge myself with that same level of toxicity. I have had to work on being less judgmental of others and so I am now less judgmental of myself. Finally, I realised that if I can change the way I see stuttering as wrong I have been able to change my own experience of stuttering. So as I am saying it really doesn’t matter what the public is thinking of me, if I can change my own thoughts about my stuttering that will change “my experience of my stuttering” and at the end of the day that is what really counts.
Thank you for your response!