Affinity Group

We all want to align ourselves with someone or a group with whom we have somthing in common in an attempt to make ourselves feel more comfortable with who or what we are. There are credit cards with your alma mater, AARP, or Disney logos or one of the other many designations showing that you belong.

We have our own affinity association known as "stars and other important people who stutter."

Bruce Willis, James Earl Jones, Tiger Woods, John Stossel, and Carly Simon are a few of the celebrties that you might not know who stutter. Now when I have the unfortunate circumstance of a stuttering block the first thing I begin to assess is ,"what would Bruce do." I figure that anyone who would not stutter in one of the many stressful situations Bruce Willis has encountered as John McClane in Die Hard, Die Hard 2, and Die Hard with a Vengeance, has got to have this thing licked. Wait! It's only a movie and in real life he probably would have been trying to put into practice what he had learned from speech therapy and Simon Gruber (brother of Hans Gruber from Die Hard) would not have taken him seriously as a hero. Mr. Mclane, what is this breathing you are doing, and why are you talking so slowly?

The truth is that we all want to have someone that we can look to. Someone who shares our condition, someone we can relate to. Just seeing what these individuals, among others, have done in their lives despite the fact they stutter, or did so in the past, is commendable. So the next time you hear someone struggling with their words, think of James Earl Jones or for that matter Moses (why do you think he told God he was not up to the task). And don't you dare laugh because you might hear the voice of Darth Vader or God.

Perspective

There are times in which it is very difficult for me to speak and I am sure I am not the only one. However, from where I stand, what intrigues me is the look on people's faces when I do stutter.

The times I do stutter the look of both surprise and helplessness on the face of the person I am trying to speak to is evident. Immediately, I am assuming they wonder what they can do to extricate themselves out of a such an uncomfortable situation. The problem is that when I see someone who stutters I get the same feelings. I know this seems strange because I should understand their situation.

It all comes down to perspective. When we are speaking with someone we want to hear the content of that conversation so we can respond. When that content is interrupted by a stutter followed by a series of blinks and inflections that look as if the person is having a seizure, it throws everything else off. From that point the focus is not on the conversation but the interruption. So we, and I include myself in this, wonder what we can do to help this person and get on with the conversation. But we want to do everything but acknowledge the relatively large elephant in the room.

We tend not to notice the things that we should acknowledge. If someone is stuttering it is okay to talk to them (us) about it. As much as we try to hide the fact we have a stutter, I think the gyrations and facial ticks we employ to hide it (not very well I might add) do not work very well. We know we stutter and we know that you know that we know . . . I think.

Just as it is an imposition to grab a blind person by the arm and lead them across the street, it is an imposition to say the word a stutterer is trying to say. Besides, the blind person may not be crossing the street and then you can be charged with assault or kidnapping. Don't be embarrassed as they struggle with the word. Believe me, it will come out at some point ( hopefully before lunch) and we will move on.

The Salesman

In my last post I said that most people who stutter tend to be employed in fields where they are not likely to be engaged in a lot of conversation. I said this because conversation, as matter of fact as it is for most, is not an easy thing for the stutterer. However, I have always been employed in a capacity in which daily interaction with co-workers and customers is a given. I work in sales and most of my time is spent in face to face meetings, making cold calls on the phone, and preparing for both.

I can't tell you I'm not apprehensive when I go into meetings because I am. When I introduce myself, it is a crap shoot as to whether or not I will be able to say my first name. Sometimes it comes up seven, sometimes snake eyes. I cannot say that I will go into meetings and not stutter because I do. But I have learned to make the work more important than the stuttering. I can focus on what I need to do in order to get the job done.

Scan Man

I don’t believe I would be incorrect in saying that most people who stutter tend to gravitate towards those professions that lend themselves to little discussion. We want something that no one can refute and we can go along on our merry way. Two plus two will always equal four no matter how many times you do it. However, when you get into a situation where you are working with differential equations or astrophysics and suddenly two plus two makes a number that looks like it came from another solar system, then there is some explaining to do. For me and probably a lot of other stutterers this is where the adventure begins. Getting into a prolonged conversation is like walking on a pond that's not fully frozen. You know that you are going to be in trouble but you don't know exactly when. At any time during a conversation there will come a point when I will not be able to say a particular word that I plan using in my discourse. Not one particular word but any word in the lexicon.

I know what I want to say but the best laid plans can go awry. For a long time I would try to push the word out and my face would look like that of a constipated baby. You could only imagine the look I received from the person on the other side of the conversation.

In later years I learned there was more than one way to skin a cat and more than one word for “obtuse.” I learned a lot of synonyms and, when confronted by a stutterer’s block, I became pretty adept at being able to change to another word on the fly. It’s quite a game I play and the “scanning”, as I call it, comes in handy. But it’s not always that easy. The last thing I want to have happen is to be in the middle of a conversation is to not be able to say a word and compound it by the fact that the word I picked up during the “scan” won’t come out either. What a revolting development this is! However, there is nothing for which I am not prepared.

The trick here is to con the person you are talking to (and yourself also because you really have to sell this thing) that you suddenly forgot what you were going to say. Snap your fingers, blink a lot, and look up in the air (while stroking your chin) until you are sure you can say the word you want to use. By this time it will work because the different physical movements you employed will enable you to push that word out without looking like the constipated baby. Then you can go on along your merry way with your stuttering secret still intact.

Obviously, there is no way anyone knows I stutter. Well, that’s my belief and I’m sticking to it.

Just one story from my world.

First Post

First and foremost let me put forth that I am not mad in the sense of being angry. The title is catchy so I used it. This is my first post to my blog and I am both nervous and relieved. I will tell stories about my life and the things I see from a stutterer’s eye view, so to speak. Some of the stories will make you realize just how central speech is to our lives and how difficult it is to get your point across because you cannot get your words past your lips. You may laugh, you may cry, and some of you may even wet your pants (I couldn't resist!).

I do not profess to know all there is about stuttering but I know it very well. Does that make me an expert? No, but I am as close to expert status as I want to be but not far enough away. There may be some cure out there but I am not hopeful, so I live with it and deal with it as best I can.

Those of you who stutter will know what I am talking about and others can only imagine. But let's have fun with it and enjoy each other's views and comments. I am happy to be here so let's blog!