I stutter.
I’ve never really talked in detail about this before, only just mentioned it. I guess I was just testing out the water before, but I am jumping in today.
For as long as I can remember I have stuttered. And from childhood into college it was pretty severe. This speech impediment was very difficult for this naturally expressive, extroverted and outgoing girl and because I am also a very sensitive, intuitive and socially attuned person, so this difference/fault/challenge and people’s reactions to it were really hard, and really chipped away at my self-esteem. I walked around feeling ashamed and broken, and used a lot of energy and effort trying to be different, “faking” it and keeping quiet.
And it held me back. Correction, I allowed it to hold me back. But, I am compassionate about this now, because I know simply didn’t have the emotional tools back then to handle my difference with anything but self-loathing.
Well, like I said I struggled with my stuttering through most of college. I had successfully crafted my life and schedule to have the least exposure to avoid any “unpleasantness”. Well, I found myself in an upper-level class, with a pretty big speech/talk looming. This speech/talk was a major part of the grade, so there was no getting out of it. The day of my speech arrived and I found myself in front of a room full of my classmates and facility in my nutrition program. I started speaking and I started stuttering really badly, with long pauses of silence and blocking. I could hardly get a word out. And the more I spoke and saw the look of horror, shock, and embarrassment on the faces of my fellow students, and the averted looks of the teachers the harder and harder it was to speak. I was only about ½ way through my talk when I just said, “Ok, the end” And I stopped, gathered up my papers and walked off the stage, took my seat at the back of the room and prayed I wouldn’t start crying. Then I ran out of the room as fast as I could, when class was dismissed.
It was awful.
I felt terrible, and I am sure I was incredibly mean to myself about it too. I am sure, in the moments that followed that traumatic, excruciating experience, I was saying awful things, like “ you were terrible” “you should really be embarrassed by that” “it was really ugly to watch” “they probably think you are an idiot”…and all the other shaming statements my mind could dig up in the moment and confirm the “you are pretty awful” beliefs I had about myself. (more about this in another post)
It is dreadful, but it was also so graceful too, because there is something so magical about defining, bottom-of-the-hill moments like these. They are life altering. And you have the choice to be brave and decide enough is enough. Or you can take a big ole tumble further down. Full Disclaimer: I of course didn’t realize at the time, that this was a life-altering moment, All I knew was that it sucked a lot and that I felt pretty crummy sitting in the middle of this huge emotional sh$t-storm and I want out.
So, I decided to be brave. I decided didn’t want to suffer anymore. I was done pretending that it wasn’t happening, and I knew I needed help, I couldn’t do it on my own anymore. I was currently finishing up my nutrition degree at the University of Texas, and they happened to have a pretty amazing speech therapy program there, so I decided to sign myself up for some speech lessons. I was going to learn some strategies so I won’t have the go through that again. I was going to learn some new strategies to speak more fluently.
But I was wrong, this is not what happened. Well, it did, I learned a lot of new and useful fluency techniques, but much to my horror, my therapy was not centered around trying to “avoid” my problem but instead was focused on purposefully causing myself to stutter in public situations.
Pseudo- stuttering, that’s what it’s called. Sinister-sounding isn’t it.
I was like “are you kidding me!” ( may have said a few expletives in my head). And “wow, these guys really don’t know what they are doing.” I thought this Ph.d student was some kind of a sadist, that enjoyed torturing poor stutters just like me. I think I told her, “No, I will not do that. I know what it feels like to stutter, it sucks, I hate it and doing on purpose will only make things worse. Ok, here is what will work, you just give me some new coping strategies to help me speak smoothly all the time and I will be on my way.”
She sweetly said, “ Please, just try it. The purpose is to help you get more comfortable with it and embrace it, so you don’t fight so hard to avoid it. And then when you do encounter moments of disfluency, you will know you can work through them.”
Again, I was like “What?!, is this girl for real?! I don’t want to be comfortable with it, or embrace it. I want it to GO AWAY!”
Eventually, I agreed, and tried it and practiced it and suffered through it, and got better and struggled, and practiced and eventually, overall became more fluent. And was less fearful.
So it worked.
Because the thing is, and what I didn’t know then, is that my stuttering would never go away, it was apart of me, for good or for bad. Stuttering is a trait in my DNA, it is part of my unique jumbled makeup. And the more I denied it, I was denying who I was, who I am, and the harder it was to be fluent and be myself.
And be whole.
I write and speak a lot about embracing your uniqueness, because our uniqueness is what makes us beautiful and amazing. And this is true, it’s 100% x 1 million the honest-to-God truth of how we step into our power and live our full purpose in this universe. But, it’s, hard, really hard accept the (perceived)”crappy things” about ourselves and our lives. Whether it’s our stuttering, our body shape, our appearance, our family, our money situation, our whatever. It’s hard to love those “less desirable” things about ourselves.
The idea behind Pseudo-stuttering is that we must not run from or pretend that we don’t have difference or flaw. We must see it for what it is, accept that it’s not just going away. And learn to have faith in yourself that you can ease through it when you are struggling with it. #selfcompassion
Brene Brown says “Owning your our story is the bravest thing you will ever do.”
Owning it. Not running from it. Not hoping it will change. Not pretending it’s not there. Not trying to put makeup on it.
Owning it. And loving yourself unconditionally, in spite of it and because of it.
Loving yourself as you are now, today.
I haven’t thought about this story in a long time. But recently I was having a beautiful, hard conversation with a friend who has a pretty noticeable physical difference, due to a medical crisis a few years ago. It left her appearance permanently altered in a way that is very noticeable and hard to “hide” and she tearfully expressed how she is struggling to come to terms with it. And how much she hates the stares and looks and comments she gets when people see her. She also hates having to choose clothing items and makeups tools to “cover it up”. And this sucks, it’s not fair, and I hate it for her. But her struggle reminded me of my own struggle with being different and getting stares. I struggles a different, but pain is pain. trauma is trauma and I shared my story with her.
I have become more fluent over the years through practice, but I still stutter. And I still struggle with worrying about stuttering. But its easier now, to pull myself out of the difficult situations, but not because I have gotten really good at my fluency techniques, but because I practice, on a daily basis, being kind and loving to myself. And because of this practice I know that when I do stutter, and I get the “ what’s going on here” looks, I know those looks are not about me, but about the person who is doing the looking. And because it is not about me, I no longer have to take them personally.
And I know I am worthy and valuable, stutter and all.
And I practice feeling worthy and loving myself, on a daily basis. The practice is easier sometimes than others. But with each practice I get stronger and better at it. Sometimes I forget, but because I have stratigies for that too, I can pretty easily get back in the groove.
It’s obvious I still have some shame around my stuttering, because I was sure I would write a post about it, and I thought it would be nerve racking and gut wrenching, but I am surprised about how not gut-wrenching it is. But it’s important to share my story with yall because when you shine light on your shame gremlins (thanks, Brene’) they stop have power. And I want them to stop having power, because I want to stop holding myself back, because I have an important message and I want to speak it.
This has been emotional to write and a little scary, but it is also freeing. And I feel brave, and that feels good too.
With Love,
Sally
