Your experience with stuttering
As an SLP graduate student, I am wanting to know more about your experiences with stuttering. Have you ever been told negative comments about your stutter? If so how do you cope with people telling you these negative things? I watched a film about stuttering recently and these questions came up as I was watching it.
Hello (I assume that your name is Riley?)
Yes, negative comments about my stuttering have been given to me quite often. These include:
1) No on will ever hire you (because I stutter)
2) Your stuttering is not so bad
3) You sound wonderful!
4) Did you forget your name? (after blocking on my name)
Coping consists of a multitude of actions, all focused on achieving unconditional self-acceptance.
– Educating myself about stuttering
– Understanding stigma, shame and fear
– Understanding how to differentiate between primary characteristics of stuttering and secondary (struggle) behaviors
– Finding community, breaking the isolation, attending conferences and self-help groups
and more.
All this helps me, in the moment of stuttering and when receiving negative comments, to not take ownership of those comments. I have to believe that I am not defective, and that I do not need validation from others about my speech.
I hope this helps.
Good luck
Hanan Hurwitz
Hi Riley,
I was a sensitive kid and still am as an adult. So, my skin wasn’t always the thickest when it came to taking criticism.
With that in mind, I was told that I wouldn’t be able to find a job, have many friends, not me but a friend of mine that he would never find love — all because I, we, stuttered.
So, having thin skin, these comments and assumptions unfortunately got the better of me. It led to many years of deep depression, it led to a lot of anger and bitterness, which was especially worse as a teenager.
But I like to reference 2016, a very dark but pivotal time in my life.
I was let go from a job in what I thought was an unprofessional manner. I was left feeling angry and bitter, despondent, and content to lie around and mope rather than be proactive.
After a couple of weeks of being stagnant, I pushed myself to try something challenging: In my case, that was interviewing many former hockey players on the phone.
As a Person Who Stutters, speaking on the phone has always been daunting. But I had nowhere else to be and quite frankly, I was sick and tired of residing on, “Too bad I stutter,” and avoiding situations without even trying.
So, with some help from an app, I got through the phone interviews and that paved the way for better things and a better mindset.
I began to take criticisms, dismissals, etc, with a grain of salt. Then, soon enough, I began meeting other stutterers, connecting with them, and learning about what they’ve been through.
That was a real game-changer. So, while those old assumptions still annoy me to a degree, I can’t help but laugh at the ignorance behind those assumptions.
Rome wasn’t built in a day but I’m gradually distancing myself from those assumptions and investing less and less in them.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve received a negative reaction to my stuttering, but there were many instances of this when I was younger.
Usually I didn’t react much, except ignoring the person and avoiding the person afterwards.
I’ll come up with five of those instances from my memory (there are many more).
– After my mother passed away, there was a large gathering at my sister’s house for her shiva (the Jewish memorial week). One woman who I didn’t know began a conversation with me. I blocked. “Tough day, huh?” she said to me. I began to speak again, and blocked again while getting some words out. “Wow, this must REALLY have been a tough day for you!” I had enough of this, and just moved away from her to talk to others.
A short while later, I was speaking with a group of people, and she came to join the conversation. Then she realized her error, and apologized to me profusely. “Oh, I’m SO sorry! I really didn’t know! Please forgive me. I’m SO sorry!”
– Many years before, I was at a shiva for an uncle. My stuttering then was very severe with really long blocks. My grandfather introduced me to a friend of his who I didn’t know. My grandfather’s friend started talking to me, but I was just unable to respond, due to very severe blocking. The man turned to my grandfather, and while looking at him, pointed a finger at me. “What’s wrong with your grandson there? Why can’t he talk?” My grandfather, who didn’t know much about the nature of stuttering, tried his best to explain. “I paid for him to go to a doctor in New York and he learned to speak beautifully. He came back, and I understood every word he said. But he has forgotten what he learned. He should go back to that doctor, and I’ll pay again. But this time he should write down what the doctor says, so he won’t forget!”
[The “doctor” referred to was Martin Schwartz, a speech scientist who taught an airflow technique. His technique worked for me for a while in some situations, but I couldn’t maintain it in the long term. I never did go back to him, but experienced some later success with other therapy programs. My grandfather didn’t understand that relapses aren’t simply a matter of “forgetting”.]
– Shortly after I began graduate studies in music, a professor of mine called me into his office. He told me that the department head had asked him to have a talk with me. The professor complained and ranted about my stuttering. “Don’t you realize that you can’t make a living from composition except to teach? And don’t you realize that with your speech, you can’t teach anybody anything? You can’t even say your own name, for crying out loud! I’ll be blunt – what the hell are you here for? What do you expect to do afterwards?”
[I don’t remember what I responded, or even if I was able to respond at all. But interestingly, five years later, the department did hire me to teach an advanced graduate course in music theory, as no one on the faculty had the mathematical background necessary to teach it. So I did prove that professor wrong.]
– As an undergraduate, I was at the university’s pub. (I seldom drink, but was at the pub mainly to socialize.) A woman who didn’t know me began to converse with me. After a minute or so of my stuttering, she asked me: “Do you have some kind of a disease, or are you just a very nervous person?” In that particular situation, I did attempt to explain that I stuttered, but I’m not sure she understood. Needless to say, I moved away from her rather quickly.
– Also on a different occasion at the same pub, a classmate of mine got quite drunk. He asked me: “Why? Why? Why do you stutter so much? Why? Were your parents mean to you or something? Did you hate your mother or something? Why?” I think I attempted a brief explanation that no, that’s not the reason. But I didn’t go into further details – he was just too drunk for that.
Hi Riley
During my youth I hear so many negative comments. It was bad, shameful and I faked it to get attention. I was stupid, nervous, a laughing stock, failure, never gonna get anywhere as noone would take me seriously. I was also a lot of positive things if only… I wouldn’t stutter. I was bullied, hidden, had no friends and no self-worth because of all this. Until…
I got my first summer job and my boss told me I was doing a great job and could stay.
I got a boyfriend who liked me for me, and later a husband and a family.
I was always headhunted for my jobs, despite and later even thanks to my stutter and for the strong person I’d become.
But most of all, I found my community, and thanks to them, my voice, my self-worth and my resilience. Instead of further tries to take my own life, I realized I was not alone, that what I was saying was worth repeating, and that I was good enough (see my paper in this conference). It was like a domino effect, where simply taking away some of the falling stones can put you back on track and stand tall. It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes only a few positive people to brake a negative cycle.
So keep them talking
Anita