June 12 Meeting Update: Challenging Assumptions

Five people attended our meeting. After reading the Welcoming Words and introducing ourselves, we had a free-flowing discussion that kept returning to the idea of challenging assumptions about stuttering. It's our most important responsibility as people who stutter, and also the most difficult one, because many of us have internalized these assumptions without really examining them to determine if they're right or wrong.

One person in our group was told by his boss that his stutter was going to be a problem in an upcoming oral examination. Our group member gave the perfect reply: Why? He studied hard, he knows the material, and taking longer to give the right answers doesn't change the fact that they're the right answers. Stuttering doesn't cancel out competence. Self-confidence doesn't just depend on how fluent we are when we speak. Many people don't believe this. But it's up to us to show them that it's true.

Another person in our group had to give a last-minute presentation at work. It didn't go as well as he would've liked, in part because he didn't have a lot of time to prepare. He received positive feedback about the presentation, as well as advice to practice more. But he questioned whether he deserved to be paid for his work since he couldn't give presentations as well as fluent speakers.

But why do we assume that fluent speakers are by default good presenters? I've heard many who aren't. And why do we assume that our stutter cancels out all the other work we do at work? Why not focus on the fact that we are dedicated, finish projects on time, stay late to do extra work?  Many people think that if you sound "weird" when you speak, you must be "weird." It's up to us to show them that they're wrong.

Of course we can continue to work towards fluency, but without making it the be-all and end-all of our lives. One member shared that he's able to maintain fluency when he tries to speak like he writes: using phrasing and punctuating his speech with pauses like commas and periods. Another member said that what feels to him like speaking too slowly sounds "just right" to his listeners. We have to remember that our internal clock as stutterers doesn't keep time properly. We have to retrain our sense of timing in order to stutter more easily and experience fluency.

Sounds like a lot of work! And it is. Often it can be frustrating. But it can also be amazing to change someone's mind, as well as our own, for the better, and to realize how much potential we have as human beings to get better and make the world a better place.