My Journey
My stuttering journey began when I could speak. I was born with stuttering, like many people who have it. I wasn’t even aware that I spoke differently, since it was just who I was and how I spoke. Because stuttering is variable, for days, weeks, and even months at a time my stutter was barely noticeable growing up while other times every time I spoke I would be disfluent. I was never really bothered by it in elementary school, just on a few occasions when kids would ask “why did you say it like that?” and I wouldn’t have a response because I really didn’t know. That’s when I began to question my speaking and wonder why I sometimes had to repeat words and prolong sounds, and couldn’t physically just talk “normally.”
When I became more aware of my stutter and understood that I just talked differently, I got more self-conscious about it. No one I had ever spoken to had a stutter like me, and there wasn’t any representation in the media which made me wonder if stuttering was even a real disability people had. I was afraid of judgement from people who would think I was weird because I spoke in a different way. Because a lot of people associate stuttering with someone who is nervous or anxious, I was afraid that people would think I was always nervous and anxious, when in reality I really wasn’t. So for a little while, I tried to hide it by not talking as often. I wouldn’t raise my hand in class, volunteer to read, or even start conversations with my friends.
When the pandemic started, my stutter started to become more frequent. One theory I thought as to why it became more frequent was because I went from talking and seeing a lot of people to basically only my family; so on average I just spoke less. In my head, I thought speaking less and avoiding talking situations would hide the truth and just try to shove the stuttering away forever. The truth I realized was that the less I talked and spoke when I wanted to, the more frequent the stutter would happen when I would talk. Talking more and speaking when I want to and just practicing speech strategies in general would improve my speaking skills in the long term. Over quarantine I came to that kind of mindset and became more confident. I started to ask employees at stores where different foods were, I would ask the waiters where the bathrooms were and other simple things like this. These seem like really easy things to say, but to a stutterer it really takes a lot of patience and courage. Something to note is that it isn’t a linear relationship. Everyday, it's not like I always have good days. Some days I am super fluent and able to have great conversations, but other days I stutter so much and just feel so exhausted from talking.
An important thing to note is that stutterers can just stutter; they don’t always have to be focusing on being fluent. It’s not apparent, but sometimes I just don’t want to talk because stuttering is also somewhat painful. When I don’t speak up, it’s not because I’m afraid of judgement, but sometimes I just know it's going to be painful and uncomfortable. When a stutter happens, there's tension in your throat, mouth, and lips which is not the most pleasant feeling. It also takes a lot of energy to say simple things so in certain situations I just don’t say anything because my energy is drained.
As I became more confident, I started to feel like myself again. When I was hiding my stutter, I wasn’t really happy because I wasn’t being heard. When I did talk, my words were coming out and being heard. Now, there are still good and bad days. I do get tense when teachers say “I’m going to call on you randomly now,” because I feel like what I have to say in my head isn’t going to come out how I want it to. That’s another part of my stuttering, like many others. I always know what I want to say. The words are all there in my head, in perfect sentences. But when I do talk, and I want to say those things, the stuttering moments throw me off and the phrases come out broken. One analogy I made is that stuttering is like a food grater. The food in whole represents the perfect sentences and when the words start to come out, it goes through the grater and instead comes out in bits and pieces.
All in all, I am still on my journey. I am working on talking when I have something to say, and not hiding back. I like to challenge myself, but I do let myself not go overboard and challenge myself all the time because it takes away a lot of energy. I have a supporting community around me which makes me feel a lot more comfortable in myself.