August 12 Meeting Update: A Different Way of Looking

Here's a different way of looking at the phone: as an opportunity to practice fluency techniques without having to worry about how you look. A new group member pointed this out at our last meeting; he actually prefers the phone for some types of speech practice! It's a positive side of this much dreaded instrument that I didn't think about before.

When it comes to face-to-face conversations, the emphasis in our discussion fell once again on eye-contact. It's valuable in so many ways: to build self-confidence, to clue in your listener about how to react when you stutter ("Stay calm, everything is okay"). A group member mentioned another benefit: keeping eye contact makes it less likely for your listener to interrupt you.

But there's also that awful moment when, even though you're keeping eye contact as you try to get through a block, your listener looks away. Your heart sinks; negative thoughts flood in. That makes the block worse and traps you in a vicious cycle. What to do? This is the time to remember that we're not responsible for other people's reactions, only our own.

Another frequent topic at our meetings is introductions, and we touched on it again yesterday. We talked, in particular, about the benefits of being open about stuttering right off the bat when you meet someone new. The biggest obstacle is awkwardness, not being sure how to broach the subject. But there are other ways of incorporating advertising into conversations than just to say bluntly, "Hi, my name is... I stutter." You can use a block (an unintentional one or a voluntary one) as an opportunity to mention that you're working on your speech. At a job interview, when the question about your greatest fear or challenge comes up, you can bring up your speech and your commitment to improving it and doing your best at your job in spite of the difficulties that your speech puts in your way.

It's a different way to look at stuttering: as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, a source of strength rather than a weakness--and to teach others to look at it in the same way, too.

July 8 Meeting Update: Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bushel

A poster from the conference.

As we went around introducing ourselves at the beginning of our meeting, I was struck by one member's approach: after saying his name, he went on, "I'm a person who stutters. Sometimes I stutter less. Sometimes I stutter more. Today, we'll see." It's such a concise way to put it and captures so well what it's like to be a person who stutters.

Before introductions we read Welcoming Words as a group, and afterwards we did two exercises. First, we listed two things we stutter on all the time. Some people had sounds or words that often gave them difficulty--b's and p's, words with v in the middle, or words like burrito, design, little. For others it was particular situations where they tended to get stuck: the classic one of having to introduce yourself, or of saying what your occupation is. It was interesting to see the common threads and the differences.

The other exercise we did was to graph our speech experiences, bad and good, on a timeline from birth to now and, into the future, our hope for how our speech will evolve. Many of our most negative experiences clustered around our school years, and the most positive ones around the time we decided, as adults, not to hide our stutter and/or to seek speech therapy.

At the end of the meeting, two group members talked about their experience at the NSA conference last week. One attended with his teenage daughter and told us about a parent's perspective. He also gave a summary of a workshop where dealing with stuttering was compared with running a small business. Success in both is not a straight line of steady progress, but ups and downs that move gradually towards the desired goal.

The other member (me) described how the conference is a "charmed" place where stuttering is no big deal and everyone talks freely--people come up to you and introduce themselves without hesitation, and keep eye contact while stuttering. As a result, you stop paying attention to how people talk and focus on what they say. You find that people who stutter are funny, intelligent, and charming. You realize that it's possible to be an interesting and successful person even if you stutter. Stuttering doesn't have to eclipse everything else that you are.

Attending the conference was a difficult experience at times--intense, overwhelming, emotionally draining. But I came away from it with knowledge about myself and stuttering that I don't think can be gained anywhere else. The conference is something you have to experience for yourself at least once in your life. There's nothing like seeing with your own eyes that you shouldn't hide your light under a bushel because you stutter. And there's nothing like realizing how brightly and beautifully that light can shine when you let it.

June 25 Meeting Update: Summer

We had a small, laid-back meeting, with just three members. As a result, our speeches were on the informal side. Some of us gave presentations about our summer reading and read out loud from a collection of short stories and a novel. One group member talked about his travels through California.

Next week is an exciting time for me: I'll be attending the NSA conference for the first time. I look forward very much to being among so many other people who stutter, and to learn about other support groups and what's new in speech therapy. Knowing other people who stutter and seeing how well they do in their lives in spite of--sometimes because of--their stutter has been a great source of inspiration for me.

See you at the next meeting, and enjoy your summer!

June 10 Meeting Update

One of my biggest fears as a person who stutters is that in case of an emergency I'm going to block so hard that I won't be able to make a 911 call to save someone's life. I was much encouraged and relieved this week when a group member shared how during a very difficult and high-stress situation he didn't stutter and was able to do the right thing. Often we get through tough times by the skin of our teeth; it's great to be reminded that there are times when we do so with flying colors.

Another highlight of our meeting was the exercise "Repeating Questions." We divided into groups, chose a question related to stuttering or any other aspect of life, and then each person in the group was asked that question repeatedly for several minutes. Here are some of the questions we came up with:

• How do you perceive your stutter when you're at a party?
• How important is it for you that people think well of you?
• What are you most proud of about your speech?
• I understand you're going through a tough time right now; tell me more.

It turned out to be an interesting process. Being faced with the same question again and again forces you to examine it from different points of view and to explore parts of it that you might not have thought of before. Many things in life benefit from this approach, but especially stuttering because it's so easy to look at it one-dimensionally, as something horrible that we have to get rid of at any cost.

One answer that was given stuck with me: "I don't go out of my way to be liked; I'm myself and let people make up their own minds." It's a great motto to live by. We do what we can to live up to our best selves, and we let everything else go.

100stutter Project

Here is the very inspiring story of a man whose goal is to advertise his stutter to one hundred people. His blog is worth checking out, too.

May 13 Meeting Update: Success

As people who stutter, we face failure on a daily basis. When we decide not to let stuttering rule our lives, we learn how to deal with failure in a mature and positive way. We train ourselves to see it in perspective--to move away from catastrophic thinking, as one of our group members put it--and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Learning and growing, we're often told, are slow. Sometimes we don't see progress for weeks or months at a time. But eventually our efforts pay off in a wonderful way. Some of our group members have experienced this recently: one of them gave a talk to a group of speech pathology students for the first time. Another got a new job after going through three interviews. Another found a good way to deal with a block that kept recurring. They have a lot to be proud of and to celebrate.

Speaking of celebrating, this week is National Stuttering Awareness Week. We talked at our meeting about what this means to each of us, and what specifically we can do to educate non-stutterers about stuttering. There are brochures, buttons, bracelets and t-shirts available on the NSA website. But I liked best this idea for raising awareness: STUTTER! Make the choice to be open about your speech. Instead of thinking of it as a wall between you and other people, use stuttering as a bridge--a way to connect with others.

A long-time member of the NSA, from back when it was called the National Stuttering Project, told us about a t-shirt he's had for many years. On the back it has the logo of the NSP; on the front it goes: I'll say it my way. How's that for a definition of success: SAY IT YOUR WAY.

April 8 Meeting Update: Rough Patches

We began our meeting by reading aloud together the Welcoming Words. This is how they end: "We who stutter, and those who support and help us, are not alone. Together we are strong." It was a particularly useful reminder, since in the last few weeks many of us have had challenges with our speech.

Stuttering goes through cycles. These are familiar to each of us. For weeks at a time fluency just seems to happen. Breath, phrasing, articulation are all in sync. Then out of the blue a block strikes, and, as if a magic spell was lifted, everything becomes difficult. It's a struggle to get almost every word out. Even in easy speaking situations we get stuck, our voice gets cut off, our speech is choppy and tense.

Sometimes the reason this happens is clear: lack of sleep, stress at work, anxiety, increased pressures bearing down from every direction. Other times, there's no rhyme or reason to it. I used to spend a lot of time asking why--why is this happening to me, why isn't it going away no matter how hard I try? But I've come to think that the "why" isn't so important. How we deal with it is.

Here are some of the coping mechanisms our group members have tried:

• being open with others about what's happening
• using a stuttering modification technique (like easy onset or voluntary stuttering)
• practicing acceptance and focusing on other good qualities we have
• if possible, postponing challenging speaking situations until the rough patch passes

That's something to keep in mind: it will pass. It might feel like it's going to last forever, but it won't. Meanwhile, you can take comfort in the fact that you're not alone. You don't have to go through this difficult time by yourself. Talk to a friend. Come to a support group meeting. And remember that everybody struggles with one thing or another all the time. That doesn't make people less interesting, likable or worth listening to. Actually, it makes them more so.