Choices

The focus at our support group meeting yesterday was voluntary stuttering. We talked about it at length, asking very specific, detailed questions. What is it, exactly? How do you do it? Why in the world would you want to? And how does it work to make stuttering easier, sometimes make it even disappear?

To be perfectly accurate, voluntary stuttering isn't really stuttering as we commonly think of it. When you stutter on purpose, the point isn't to make believe that you are a stutterer. As one of our group members put it, you're not Colin Firth playing King George VI. In voluntary stuttering the focus is much narrower. Your goal is simply to elongate the first sound of a word--one that you don't fear, at first; later you work up to feared words--in a relaxed, calm manner. Instead of I'd like some ice cream, you say, I'd lllllike ssssome ice ccccream.

No doubt about it, you will sound strange. You will probably feel as nervous and self-conscious as when you're stuttering "for real." And the last thing you need, as a stutterer, is to put yourself in situations that will make you feel weird and nervous and self-conscious. You get enough of that without asking for it. Why in the world would you seek it out on purpose?

There's a strange magic in making a conscious choice to do something. It puts you in charge. Things are no longer happening to you while you're standing by, helplessly caught in the current of the moment. You are the one who is making things happen. It doesn't matter that they may be unpleasant. Choosing to do something difficult changes the difficulty of the thing itself. More importantly, it changes what you get out of doing it.

What I get out of stuttering on purpose is a sense that I'm not a victim. Sure, I didn't choose to be a person who stutters. But I can definitely choose how I go about being a person who stutters. There's a difference, a subtle but important one. It's as if someone had thrown me in a game whose rules I don't understand, and all that happens when I'm on the field is that I get hit in the face with the ball. I can choose to give up, run to the remotest corner and hide there out of the way of the ball. Or I can decide to learn the rules of the game, confusing as they might be, and get out there and try to hit the ball myself and score a goal. I can choose to play.

To me, voluntary stuttering is choosing to play. The ball will hit you in the face from time to time. It will hurt. But other times you will find yourself running free, in complete charge of what's happening, knowing exactly what you have to do to get the ball through the goal posts. For that feeling, for that moment, it's worth playing with everything you've got.

Article: The Paralysis of Stuttering

The Paralysis of Stuttering by Francine du Plessix Gray, a former stutterer herself, in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, discusses stuttering and several excellent books (both fiction and non-fiction) on the subject. Well-worth reading.

Eye Contact

It's easy to forget, when you stutter, that the way people communicate with one another isn't just through words. Non-verbal communication accounts for at least half of the information that gets exchanged when we talk to someone else. Our posture, hand gestures, and tone of voice matter a great deal. For stutterers, this isn't always a positive thing. Sometimes we try to compensate for the hesitation and fear and distrust we have about words by exaggerating (often unconsciously) our body language.

But there is one unequivocally positive component of non-verbal communication that we can focus on when we talk to someone: eye contact. It isn't very hard to maintain eye contact when we are fluent. It becomes almost impossible when we get stuck and stutter. This makes sense. It feels strange to look into someone's eyes when your mouth is open and no sound is coming out, or when the sounds that do manage to come out are repetitive or garbled. It's humiliating and embarrassing. So we look away. In the moment, it gives us a little break. It makes things easier.

Long term, however, it makes things harder. By looking away we're unintentionally sending the message--to the other person and also to ourselves--that we're not really worth talking to. We imply that our words don't really matter because we're not saying them with perfect fluency. We give short shrift to what we have to say and overvalue how we say it.

I told myself for a long time that I would maintain eye contact when I stuttered just as soon as I gained enough confidence to do it. But confidence doesn't work that way. It doesn't grow by itself; it's fed and strengthened by what you do. At first, you have to maintain eye contact even if you don't feel like it, even when it seems stupid and pointless. You do this again and again until something changes. And something does change. You begin to feel a difference.

What's the difference? The conviction--slow but sure in coming--that you are the equal of the person you're talking to, no matter that the other person is fluent and sometimes you're not. People respond to that. More importantly, you'll respond to that. It's easier to work on improving your fluency when you think well of yourself. When you believe that you have something worth saying, chances are you'll say it better.

And if you don't say it as well as you would have liked, that's just a temporary setback. There's always next time. For people who believe in themselves, failure is just another chance to get better.