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.