Hello. I stutter.

Monday Stuttering Link Roundup

November 3, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Alright, here it finally is, a link roundup.

Of course everybody by now has seen this list on buzzfeed.

Yes, I “get” everything on that list, and yes, I’ve done most of that stuff. It’s pretty funny, sure. Only we would understand — but isn’t the point to educate others? I mean, yes, it was cool going to the NSA conference and meeting other people who stutter and laughing about things that we’ve experienced (most of this list, actually). But if only we understand, then we’ll continue to face the same kind of environment we already have. So with that in mind, I’ll post commentary this week on this buzzfeed piece — a primer for those who are fluent seeking to understand what it’s really like.

This article in the Washington Post is about those with disabilities seeing the doctor. This real life story is about someone who stutters. It’s a great story and nice insight to what we face with a simple doctor’s visit.

By the look on James’s face, I could tell that he understood just fine. I did, too. I closed the door. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Let’s start over. My name is Leana. I’m your doctor. I’m also a person who stutters.”

If you recall, it’s something I talked about recently.

Do you stutter? Are you young? Do you live near Purdue? Want to join a study? Here’s one for you:

The project is using a newer, noninvasive neuroimaging technology to examine the brain at work during speaking. Walsh says few studies have looked at the neural mechanisms of stuttering in the seven- to 12-year-old age group due to the challenges other brain imaging techniques pose.

I don’t watch British television, so I don’t know exactly what this show is all about, but here’s a nice piece in the Guardian about a reality tv star with a stammer. He’s only 18 now, so it’s interesting to read about his journey through school and how he built up confidence.

“As crazy as it sounds, my stammer makes me want to work harder every day. I would rather have this stammer than not have it. It’s made me brave, and it’s made me want to go that extra mile.”

Arthur Young talks about his lifelong stutter and how he came to terms with coming out. He’s now an active member of the British Stammering Association.

In 2013, I found a stammering community on Facebook called the British Stammering Association and this provided me with a whole range of information, and most importantly, shared experiences with fellow stammerers. I learnt about overt and covert stammerers and coping mechanisms – some work and some have no evidence, but the group explained the pros and cons from their experiences.

I’m not familiar with this site, TES, but it’s got good quick advice on educating people about stuttering in a school environment:

Understanding how the stammerer feels is an important step to helping support them; why not use an assembly to raise awareness of the condition and tackle some of the myths that surround it. Explore the story of a child who stammers and discuss the challenges his stammer places on his daily life.

And lastly, here’s some interesting news on stuttering research … and seeing what your brain is up to. I definitely wish I could participate in this! What’s interesting about it is that I had a brain MRI done (for something unrelated — an eye twitch) so I wonder if that would be of interest to this team.

Delaying auditory feedback of speech, altering its pitch, singing, speaking in unison with another speaker, or speaking in time with a metronome are all ways of temporarily enhancing fluency in people who stammer. These observations tell us that the cause of stammering may be due to a problem in combining motor and auditory information.

If you have a link or story about stuttering, do please send it along. I try to do searches often online as well as on Twitter. But things have picked up a lot lately because of International Stuttering Awareness Day. I’m sure I’ll find more things over the next few days.

Filed Under: Link Roundup, Uncategorized

Stuttering Selfies

October 30, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I’m putting together a longer link roundup for the next day or so, but for now all I have to say is that I’d like to think the person who invented the selfie was a covert stutterer.

I mean, c’mon, think about it. It’s the perfect avoidance tactic.

Like, he was on vacation in Venice, walking around enjoying the sights. Then thought he should have a photo of himself and the beautiful surroundings.

“I could go up to this nice person over there and ask them to take a photo of me while I stand in front of these gondolas. But they look pretty Italian. I bet they don’t speak English. Maybe the guy — the gondola guy? What do I call him? Anyway, maybe he’s used to this sort of thing. I could ask him. Or wait a minute. What if I just … if I just pointed the camera at myself and then … click. Yeah, that should work.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: covert, fears, selfies, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Stuttering and Not Stuttering

October 29, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

It’s been a while, so here again is a quick post on what I’ve been stuttering on lately. But this time with a little twist at the end.

I got a bike fitting, and so I had to tell people about the fitting … except I really dragged out that f. Forever. It’s even more annoying when you’re dragging out a letter while riding a bike and trying to talk to others. Traffic rolls by, makes noise, makes it hard for people to hear you when something does come out, etc., ugh.

For whatever reason, I was talking about May, and so well, dragging that m out quite a bit. There’s work related stuff happening in May, but also my birthday is in May. Usually on the phone (with the electric company or whatever) having to say my birthday is a true pain.

Those are the two big ones that I can remember lately. I’ve also noticed that I’ve been avoiding and substituting here and there which is still frustrating. I try not to, but sometimes I just get tired of it, and I don’t think it’ll make a difference for the listener. But sometimes I really get out of hand with substituting, and all of a sudden I don’t even make sense to myself anymore. Good times.

Ok, what I wanted to add to this today is something a little different. People who stutter often spend a lot of time obsessing over the words we do get stuck on. We see them from afar, start thinking, start switching stuff out, start changing the subject, whatever it takes.

But what about what we don’t stutter on? I know stuttering is random and can strike any word at any time. But I’ve noticed that well, there are some words that are mostly immune. Sure I get stuck on them once in a great while, but basically I know I can roll on through them usually.

For example, I went to school in Pittsburgh. When people ask, I can say “Pittsburgh” without stuttering at all. “Pennsylvania” is also pretty easy (where I grew up). There are also certain greetings — I noticed in France I never really stuttered on “bonjour.” I can say at least one (of three) of my kids’ names without any problems as well. (When I’m talking to others about them. When I’m just calling the children, there’s no stuttering.)

I could probably make a longer list — certain months, certain countries, cities, etc., But you get the idea. The point is that while we usually fear certain words and situations, we can still be fluent (reliably) in others. And that should help our confidence out.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, words

Stuttering Collaboration

October 28, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I read this article about how millennials aren’t buying as many cars and houses. Down toward the end of the article, they had this interesting bit:

“Our wealth, after all, is determined not only by our own skills and talents, but by our ability to access the ideas of those around us; there’s a lot to be gained by increasing the odds that smart people might bump against each other.”

This sounded familiar… oh, right. I had read something like this before about Pixar:

The biography adds that Jobs believed that, “If a building doesn’t encourage [collaboration], you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity. So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.”

Well, well, well. Collaboration! Through random meetings and bumping into people. Networking at your own company, so to speak. Now thinking about this as someone who stutters, I think, well, that ain’t gonna work for me! For all the jobs I’ve had so far, they’ve been in more “traditional” offices. Cubicles, closed offices, no centralized meeting space. For any office meetings, they’d been with people I had been introduced to. I worked at one client site that had several buildings connected together through large hallways, but I never bothered introducing myself to people I ran into.

So would an open office work for me? If I worked in one, what would I do? Would I just “bump into people” and introduce myself or start talking to them? How terrifying is that?

I think at first I … wouldn’t. I’d just keep my head down and keep walking. I’d have to make a lot of repeated eye contact or share a hello or see them doing something that I could talk to them about (maybe comment on their bicycle or car if saw them come in).

Then I might try to tag along with someone else who’s more social. I know I’ve said I’d try to be more open about my stuttering, but jumping into a large non-stuttering crowd (unlike the NSA Conference, say) is pretty scary.

The more I think about it, it seems that what might happen is … a quick conversation. Just as desired. But it’d move along quickly. And no introductions would happen. Then a few days later, something would be added. And then the stress would continue to mount. Because short conversations probably equal little to no stuttering, but as they continue, the desire to introduce myself would get stronger — and the inevitable question from them.

See how this stuttering works? Elaborate scenarios! Then just shutting it all down.

Filed Under: NSA Conference, Uncategorized Tagged With: fear, nsa conference, offices, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Stuttering and the Therapist

October 27, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I had such a positive experience at the NSA Conference this past July that something occurred to me — I should try to be an SLP. The joke of course is, “when I grow up [and have life figured out].” Obviously it’s hard to make a wholesale career change after working for 15-20 years. But if I save up enough here in the Kingdom, I could conceivably pull it off when I return Stateside. (And no, I don’t know exactly when that’ll be … it’s … complicated. Anyway). Reading this post on Reddit also made me think about it pretty hard.

So what would it end up looking like — three years of going back to school? A year for some prerequisites and then two years of a master’s program? Let’s assume I can even get in someplace to begin with.

Here’s where being someone who stutters comes in to ruin the decision-making process: I often think about jobs that other people have and think, “there’s no way I could do that.” Which seems absurd in light of being an SLP.

(Note: if you’re fluent and think about jobs for yourself, what do you feel the limitations are? I have a feeling it’s more like, “I don’t think I’d like that.” But you know you could physically do it. That’s the difference. If you stutter, you start imagining all sorts of speaking scenarios…)

It’s not that absurd especially considering that there were a handful of SLPs at the NSA Conference who also stuttered. But my thing is — what about parents bringing in their children and seeing that me, the professional who knows about this stuff and who’s supposed to help, can’t even speak fluently? What about telling the patient that they’ve got to get out in public and interact with total strangers, stuttering-be-damned? Would I even be willing and able to do that? What if I have a bad stuttering day? Will that affect the patient? What if I have a bad stuttering day during a first-time meeting with a patient? Or a parent?

Is all this just in my head?

Yep.

Is it all hooey?

Yep.

Can I overcome all of this?

Yep.

But you see what being covert for so long does. What stuttering does. It gets into everything.

Aside: I’m not sure if it was a workshop or not, but I’d like to sit in on a discussion between SLPs who stutter and people who stutter who are considering it as a career. I know that the number would be really small, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

The thing is, outside of high school therapy, I didn’t go to any kind of therapy. So I’m just guessing on a lot of stuff. What I really need to do is reach out to some SLPs and find out what their educational experiences were like. And for those who stutter, how they told parents and patients about stuttering, its lack of cure and ways to see and/or measure improvement.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, jobs, nsa conference, SLP, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Advertising your Stuttering

October 24, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Since stuttering got a lot of attention over the past few days thanks to International Stuttering Awareness Day, I thought I’d talk about … advertising.

Advertising your stutter, of course. When I went to the NSA Conference, this came up a lot. That we should advertise our stutter to listeners before we get rolling. It’ll take the edge off. It’ll inform them. It’ll make us more comfortable and maybe we’ll stutter less.

I’ve never advertised. I was really trying hard to think back and … no. I never prefaced a single conversation with this. That’s of course thanks to being covert for such a long time. However, now that I’m out about it a little more, I’m still not sure if advertising is something I’ll do. And why not? Well, easy — I know I’ll stutter on the word “stutter.” Yep. Fear of stuttering … when advertising … stuttering. I know it’s maybe the point — if a listener hears you stutter on “stutter,” then they might make the connection rather quickly. Right?

So how do people do this? When is it really worth it? I don’t remember hearing too many examples (if at all) during the conference of how people do this. Isn’t the question or conversation that you would like to ask/have going to be your basis for advertising? That is, if you have a quick question, are you going to preface it with a long, stuttering introduction of yourself?

(Stuttering) “Hi, I wanted to let you know that I stutter. But I don’t want it stop me from talking to people. Do you mind if I ask you for directions?”
Them: Yeah, sure.
(Stuttering) “Ok, well, can you please let me know where the Starbucks is around here? I’m supposed to meeting a friend.”
Them: It’s the next store over.
Me, not stuttering: Oh.

And with people at work, isn’t there a window of opportunity for this? I mean, if you don’t do it your first few days there, can you really pull it off two years later?

My inclination would be to advertise after I’m having a hard time speaking, not before. Like, I’d be in a work meeting with some new people and during the presentation, I’d have a really bad stutter. Then, what, make some off-handed remark about how I stutter and “sometimes it’s a little bad. But we’ll get through this.”

When I’ve been meeting people here in the Kingdom, I certainly haven’t told them that I stutter. My thinking is that they’re adults, and they’ll figure it out. And they won’t judge. None of them have. Am I just lucky with the people around me? Is my stutter not that bad anyway after I get my introduction out (or try to get it out?)

I’m just not sure about this advertising because of my recent decision to try to … say what I want more. I stutter more, yes, but I’m saying what I want. And just carrying on. And forcing people to sit and listen. The stuttering is advertising itself, right?

I think one of the shortcomings of just stuttering on through is that my listeners are still uneducated. I still get the occasional person trying to finish my words, people talking over me because they think I’m done … but then again, maybe some of this is just my own perception of things.

Anyway, sorry for the somewhat rambling post. I think the point of all this is that I’m not sure how to advertise, and I need to connect with people who are good at doing this. Either online over the next few months, or try to make a point of it during the NSA Conference next year in Chicago.

If you advertise your stutter regularly to listeners, I’d love to hear in the comments how you do it. If you can give actual conversational examples, that’d be awesome!

Filed Under: NSA Conference, Uncategorized Tagged With: advertising, confidence, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

International Stuttering Awareness Day today

October 22, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Hello and welcome! It’s International Stuttering Awareness Day today. You can find the background on this event here at the ISAD page. I posted this before, but it’s worth repeating — here’s a link to all the older ISAD online conferences.

What I wanted to do for today is round up a few articles and stories regarding stuttering. This will be a bit more than I usually do for a link roundup.

First with some blogs:

Pam at Make Room for the Stuttering is still busy doing interviews and podcasts. Here is her submission for the International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conference.

Here’s a new blog from someone who stutters, Mark Nolan. He’s posted quite the story about getting stuck on a word.

Second with some conferences:

Outside the US, there were some Stuttering-related events that recently took place. One was the National Stammering Awareness Day 2014 (Ireland). There’s a fantastic write up on the event here.

The next speaker was Conor Tiernan who has recently shaken off his covert cloak to embrace his stammer. I enjoyed Conor’s speech more than any other because his story was my story. His story was our story. His story was honest and raw and it came from his heart. Every single listener sunk into his or her seat as Conor explained his journey from never wanting to accept his stammer to finally admitting that his stammer would be with him forever.

The Indian Stammering Association had their Annual Conference earlier this month, and here’s a detailed summary of the events.

Here’s their blog post from today that really makes me think about what I’m doing with the fluent words in my speech:

When I analysed my recorded conversations, I found that at non problematic words I was unable to pronounce words as it should be, let alone the stuttered words, so it further complicates the already fractured speech to the listener.

Thirdly, the organizations:

The British Stammering Association has a lengthy page regarding today.

I’m still learning a lot about the Stuttering community, and so I should probably get a green wristband at some point — from the BSA’s page:

Why sea green for stammering awareness? Michael Sugarman who founded ISAD writes:
“The color ‘blue’ has traditionally been associated with calm while ‘green’ represents liberty, freedom and justice. The combination of these colors for People who Stutter shows the bond between ‘peace’ and ‘liberation’ when finding support and community with other people who understand and share their experiences.

A few articles about the day:

From the Poconos, here’s a story about a young man helping to raise awareness.

“When I was in high school I was very covert about my stuttering. Actually, even up until a few years ago I used to pretty much hide it and I was very good about hiding it,” said Stavros Ladeas, a 1999 graduate of Stroudsburg High School who’s now a web developer in New York and the chapter leader of the Midtown Manhattan National Stuttering Association.

Here’s a story that came out about a week ago regarding a Kiwi who used to stutter. He’s apparently worked through it and has done very well.

“I have a huge amount of empathy for other people who stutter. I look forward to sharing my experiences with people and telling them how I got through this,” he says, adding that he hopes to inspire others to believe “you too can go on to do great things”.

Also from Australia, teachers are being informed of possible stuttering in students.

“This is maybe the fourth time we’ve held this forum and the idea is to alert student teachers to the fact that they might have children in their class who stutter and they are just not aware of it. Treating school-aged children requires special sensitivity, so it’s critical to regularly host events like this to build awareness and help ensure the next generation of teachers knows where to turn for help.”

(I find this rather fascinating, actually. I am curious what is done in the States for this if anything. I think when I was growing up, it was like, well, one teacher would identify a specific student, they’d get help, but then the others would only hear it through talk in the teacher’s lounge. Or maybe the guidance counselor made a special visit to say, my French teacher?)

The Canadian Stuttering Association is having a conference this month as well. Here’s what they had to say about surviving it …

Imagine you walk into a big conference room full of people. You suddenly start feeling anxious, excited, and a tiny bit scared all at the same time. You start contemplating turning around on your heels and heading back home, when all of a sudden you hear someone experiencing a block. But now what do you do as you stand there listening to everyone else’s conversations? Do you go up and talk to someone, or randomly join a group of people already chatting? What if you stutter on your name or experience an awfully long block?

That pretty much sums up my experience at the NSA Conference! Scared and anxious at first, but now I’m already planning for the next one (Chicago … July 4th weekend).

Alright, so that’s quite a few links from a lot of different places. There’s of course twitter, which has even more links and information. I’ll be going through that over the next few days for even more ideas. I think for now I’ll retweet a few things.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: conferences, confidence, ISAD, links, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Stuttering with the Doctor

October 20, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

One of the things I’d like to do with this blog is to educate fluent people what specific interactions are like for those of us who stutter. I’ve outlined a few of these already when I talk about what I’ve been stuttering on. So here’s another one — related to the doctor’s office.

I read this article regarding doctors and the current state of health care here in the US. I just want to focus on the bits relevant to stuttering.

I think most of us know that a visit to the doctor’s office is full of a lot of waiting punctuated by a quick conversation with the doctor. I’m not even sure you can call it a conversation at times. More like an interrogation, a pause, and then a diagnosis followed up quickly by a good bye and then wondering how to get through the maze of offices back out to the reception area.

The demoralized insiders-turned-authors are blunt about their daily reality. The biggest problem is time: the system ensures that doctors don’t have enough of it. To rein in costs, insurance companies have set fees lower and lower. And because doctors tend to get reimbursed at higher rates when they are in a network (hospitals and large physician groups have more leverage with insurance companies), many work for groups that require them to cram in a set number of patients a day. Hence the eight-minute appointments we’re all familiar with.

Ah yes, the quick appointments. They are intimidating to me as well. I feel like if I start asking the doctor about some other types of medications, other problems I’m having or whatever-else, it’s wasting their time. So I don’t. I also give quick, short answers because I don’t want to stutter. I think in some cases it’s all on the doctor how I’m going to talk … or not. They can easily come off as being rushed, being more important, or being distracted. All of this adds up to a less-than-optimal visit.

I guess my problem is that because of technology, I don’t see the point (and thus justify) in asking the doctor a lot of questions about whatever ailment I have. I can just go home and look it up.

So what can I do? I want to be able to talk, to engage. To get my eight minutes’ worth!

Here’s what I’m thinking. What about advertising my stutter to the nurse who takes my vitals and asks me what’s wrong in the first place? They might put it on the chart for the doctor to read. I’m usually more relaxed for the nurse anyway — more time, less tension … they wear bright happy, colors. I don’t know. It’s just easier to talk to them.

Yes, I could certainly just advertise to the doctor anyway, but that might not go well considering the aforementionned intimidation and perceived time constraints. At least this way if the doctor reads it, he might even ask about it. Or understand that it’s hard for me to talk — so no, I don’t need pills for anxiety or anything like that.

Maybe what else I can do is prepare a short list of questions so I don’t forget to ask something.

This of course is all for back home in the States. Here in Saudi it’s a whole other ball of stress because of the language. None of the doctors at our local hospita/clinic are native English speakers. And they’re not used to any kind of stuttering anyway. I’m not even sure advertising would do me any good. I also don’t have a doctor who I see all time because I go so infrequently.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, doctors, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Stuttering around the kids

October 16, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I talked a little about stuttering and children’s books. I’m happy to say that I’m still doing pretty good (read: perfect) on reading children’s books to my kids. And it’s not just the simple stuff like Dr. Suess. It’s longer stuff with a page full of words and a single picture. Got through Rapunzel today without a single stutter which I was pretty happy about.

But overall I’ve noticed that I’ve been stuttering more around the kids in just talking to them. And this is somewhat upsetting. I’m not sure what the cause of this is really. When our first son was born, I never stuttered around him. Not until about a year or two ago (when he was 6/7) did I stumble here and there. Maybe because he’s getting physically bigger? Seeming more like an adult? Does that even make sense? Maybe because he’s passing judgement on some of his classmates or what people out at the mall (or wherever we go) are doing? What, am I afraid he’s going to pass judgement on me? That’s he’s already thinking negative things about me?

All of that being given … isn’t it my job to educate him on this? We’ve never talked really about stuttering — he’s 8 now. I said in passing once, “you know how sometimes it’s hard for me to say stuff …” but I still get “private” when it comes to editing this blog or looking up stuttering articles when he’s around.

There’s a lot online about how a fluent parent can talk to their stuttering children. I need to see if there’s anything that’s the other way round. Is he going to make a reference to Porky Pig that’s going to get me emotionally? Maybe I’m afraid that if we start talking about it, he’ll try to emulate me? He’ll think about it more and that’ll cause problems? That’s totally irrational though.

Last year during our parent-teacher conference, his teacher mentioned how often my son talks about me during class. I think this is true of any parent — they’re the center of their child’s world. I think for fluent people this isn’t a big deal — they understand their role and will just continue doing what they’re doing. As someone who stutters, I’m so hyper-aware of how I’m coming across — to everybody, including my son — that it only makes me more nervous and puts on more pressure to keep up that perfection.

Maybe that’s what’s bothering me as he’s getting older.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: children, fears, fluency, reading, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Stuttering and traveling

October 15, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

This is going to be a sort of “what I’ve been stuttering on lately” post that focuses on my recent trip to England. The thing about my trip is that other than the thought of stuttering with the bike fitter, I wasn’t sure what else to worry about. I didn’t spend any time getting worked up or worried. That’s how my stuttering usually goes — the fear and worry only manifests itself minutes before the event. Unless of course there’s a meeting that I’ve known about.

That being said, here we go —

I flew from Saudi to Istanbul to Manchester. So in Istanbul, I stopped at the Starbucks. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. (We don’t have one in our small town in Saudi — so it’s a treat). As I was standing in line, I was slowly starting to sweat over my impending stuttering. I knew I would. The distance between me and the person behind the counter was pretty great, there were people in front of me in line, there were a lot of people in the airport in general, it was noisy … but nobody behind me … well, for a few minutes anyway. I did stutter on “mocha” as I usually do. Also, I’d rather not have cream which always end up as, “oh, and no … cr-….” Cream? Yeah. “cream.” There’s a certain point when you’re standing in line and freaking out that you think, you know what, I actually could just walk away…

Getting into Manchester, I was a little nervous at the passport control. She asked where I had flown in from, and I dragged out the sssss for Saudi Arabia. Then some mundane stuff — what do you, how long will you be here. She saw that I was from the States, so asked where. I replied with a smile, “Pennsylvania.” She seemed happy with that and made a comment about how nice it was. It left a positive taste in my mouth at least.

Right after that, I was walking out — no checked bags — and a customs person asked where I had flown in from. I told him Ssssaudi as well. He said, “through …?” Oh, Istanbul. “Ok, you’re fine then.” And off I went.

During the few days I was there, my buddy would usually do the food ordering. He didn’t do this because he was considering my stuttering — he did this because that’s just how he is. He’s got three kids, so he goes around, gets their orders, considers it as the whole, then figures out what’ll work out best. So I just add in my needs. For the drinks though, I was usually on my own. I had some relative success saying “diet coke” for the four days.

When I checked into the bicycle fit, I didn’t actually tell them my name. Just that I had a 1 p.m. appointment for a fitting. They already knew what was up. I had considered advertising to the fitter that I stuttered, but then thought, no, there’s really no point, is there? And would I advertise to the person who checked me in — eh, no. Here, just fill out this form, have a seat there, he’ll be right with you.

Lastly from what I can remember at the moment was ordering pizza at the Istanbul airport on the way back home. Sbarro. A counter. A man behind the counter. So I just held up two fingers, and I pointed to the two types I wanted. I suppose I could have said “that one,” and “that one,” but there was really no need. He knew what I was pointing to. See, it’s things like this that make me wonder — am I justifying my silence or avoidance, or just being practical? I think it’s a fine line at times. I mean, if I didn’t stutter, wouldn’t I do it the same way? The guy in front of me basically did the same thing.

I stuttered pretty fiercely on that particular diet coke at Sbarro which was annoying because there were people standing around. Then I didn’t even check to see that he filled it up with the right stuff. It tasted a little off …

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately, Uncategorized Tagged With: bike fitting, confidence, covert, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, travel

After the Bike Fitting

October 13, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Well, I’m back from a few quick days in England, and so I thought I’d first start with how the bike fitting went. Then I’ll get into other stuttering aspects of the trip later this week.

To summarize — the bike fitting went really well and exceeded all my expectations. I didn’t think I’d worry too much about stuttering during the process, and that’s how it turned out.

My work colleague joined me for the adventure — since he drove me there — so I was at ease a little bit already. The studio wasn’t that big and had two offices that were separated by glass. There were people in them working. I didn’t think about how they couldn’t hear me. I don’t think I would have been too bothered even if they could — the whole studio gave off a strong air of professionalism.

The first part of the fitting process was just a quick conversation — what kind of riding I do, how often, what the problems are. I was obviously pretty familiar with all of these, and also filled out part of it on a form anyway. Then we got into a physical assessment — not much talking — just standing, sitting, stretching (or not) to see what my joints and muscles were capable of. I suppose during this time I could have asked what each assessment was going to help determine further down the line as far as the fit — but it didn’t occur to me to do so.

After that, he checked my feet to see what size they were. And then quickly sorted out why my foot was going numb — I had placed the cleat in a horrible position, so my foot was compensating … a lot. My feet are the same size as well. So the shoes are fine. Again, not much talking other than answering what part of the foot goes numb, and when.

A good thing to point out now is how quiet and relaxed the whole setup was. I don’t remember seeing a clock. I wasn’t in a hurry. I never felt rushed. My fitter seemed to have a set path to follow and did so confidently — which made me feel better, too. There was no uncertainty about any concern or problem I had — he heard the issue, considered it, then gave his assessment. Then fixed it, then asked for feedback.

Once that was all done, it was time to get on the fit bike and started turning the pedals. After putting on sensors on various joints, he monitored me and the various angles that my joints were making. He’d come up to the fit bike, made a change, and then see how that would affect the angle. It wasn’t a process of “is this better? Or this?” as I thought it might be. It was getting the angles within a specified range (based on years and years of collected data, I’m sure) and then going back to see what might be fine-tuned.

I won’t get into too many more of the fit details (you can e-mail me separately if you want them) but as for the stuttering, I managed to ask just a few things that were bothering me at the time — my hands were really hurting, my butt started to hurt after a while (he changed the saddle which took care of that issue quickly), where is my butt actually supposed to be on this saddle, and I asked for a fan to be placed back near my face since I was warming up. But that was really it. During the fit he gave some commentary on what was going on and how changes would impact my riding. Very informative.

I can happily say that the stuttering didn’t affect the fitting process at all. Win.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bike fitting, confidence, fears, retul, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, vacation

Bicycle Fitting and Stuttering

October 8, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I’ve mentioned before my fondness for bicycling, and I thought I’d let you all know I’m traveling this week to Manchester, England for a bike fitting. Well, it’s actually in Newcastle, but the friend I’m staying with (and the airport I’m flying into) is in Manchester.

We have a few days off this week in Saudi for the Hajj holidays, so I thought it would be a good time to go. The problem I’ve been having is that after an hour on the bike my left foot starts going numb. Then the left hand goes numb off and on. Random back pain (probably due to not being in the greatest shape, actually). But the main thing is that I think my feet are slightly different sizes, and one foot is wiggling around in the shoe a lot more causing the numbness.

I bought the cycle-specific shoes I have now online. I ended up buying three pairs and returning two of them just to get what I thought was a decent fit. For the first few months I had them, I was only doing an hour or less on the indoor spin bike. So I never noticed or really felt any discomfort. But when I started riding with other people — and doing much longer rides — the pain started.

Anyway, so … stuttering? Right. The point is that I’m going to use a bit of vacation and a bunch of money to travel to England for what’s mostly a bike-fitting holiday. They’ll put me on a Retul Muve bike and get me sorted out. I’ll have to … answer questions. And pose questions (I’m sure) to get the fitting and comfort right. That means saying what’s on my mind and not holding back. That’ll also probably mean using specific words no matter how hard they might be to say at the time.

Honestly though, I’m actually not thinking about the stuttering right now. I mean, I’m not imagining the conversation ahead of time, what he might say, what I might say, what I might have to ask … just … no. Not doing that.

I know I’ll have to talk, but I think my mind will likely be on pedaling and thinking about comfort and responding to slight changes they make for me. Maybe it’ll be like the optometrist — what’s better, this … or … this? First one, or … second one … or … third? First or … third? Now … ok… third or … fourth …

This all being said, I’ll definitely give a little wrap up on the whole deal to let you know how it goes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, vacation

International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conference, 2014

October 7, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

From Oct 1 through Oct 22, there is the International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conference. Keeping in mind that I’ve been covert for such a long time, I … never knew about this. Which of course is horrible. Particularly because it’s all online! I wouldn’t have had to talk to anybody! I’m not sure if knowing about it would have made me go to an NSA conference sooner, or if reading and commenting online would have made me justify never going at all … I’m happy I went to the NSA Conference, so … I suppose I’m satisfied.

I wanted to write a short post on what I’m seeing so far and what I’m thinking I’ll try to do over the next few days with this.

From the site’s page:

The contributions in this conference reflect professional and consumer interests about stuttering and are presented by many different countries. Each paper also has a threaded discussion at the bottom of the page for your comments and questions. Authors of the papers will respond as they wish. Feel free to post your questions/comments at any time and check back for any response from the author.

Perfect. Reading and commenting. I can get on board with that.

With a little pointing and clicking, I found this as well:
http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/isadarchive/onlineconference.html

That’s right — all the archives from all the past conferences are right there. Plenty of papers and comments to read! What an awesome resource. The comments of course for those are already closed, but it’ll make for some good reading at least.

My goal I think will be to read as many papers as possible from 2014 over the next three weeks and comment where I can. If there’s something even bigger that I think is worth expanding on, I’ll elaborate here on the blog.

Please do leave a comment if there’s a particular paper or topic that you find really interesting from the conference.

Filed Under: NSA Conference, Uncategorized Tagged With: conferences, ISAD, resources, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Sensors and Stuttering

October 6, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I came across this article the other day.

Reading this, I thought it would be very interesting to apply this to stuttering. They mentioned that they’re already using it for some physio purposes:

In similar work with the English national rugby team, McLaren engineers took data that the coaches were already gathering from sensors placed on players during practice and designed algorithms to glean new information. Hargrove’s analysts were able, for example, to determine how fatigued a player was—and therefore how susceptible to injury—by how long it took him to get up after being tackled and how much his pace declined over the course of an afternoon.

And as someone who was on the Pagoclone trial, this was really intriguing:

For all the sophistication of the drug discovery process, trying them out on people remains a time-consuming, low-tech process. Volunteers take the drug (or a placebo) and then are monitored by a doctor through visits every few months, so data points are few and far between. Mayhew wondered whether patients could be monitored remotely, like rugby players and pursuit cyclists. If information could be constantly logged and transmitted back to the testers, a drug’s effects—or lack thereof—could be spotted much sooner, saving labor, time, and maybe a lot of money.

What didn’t impress me about being on the Pagoclone trial was what it says above — the visits that were few and far between. I was asked to rate my stuttering in the past few days (or weeks). And it never occurred to me to keep a journal about any of this. So it was not only really, really subjective, but probably wildly inconsistent as well.

So how would this work for those of us who stutter? Well, something like a [better looking] Google Glass apparatus that records verbal interactions. And then …? I’m not a speech pathologist, but I imagine it would be interesting to go back through a bunch of the communications that happened in the patient’s life. But of course there’s the “big” part of the “big data.” That is, so much data to sort through. Hours and hours of conversations. The user would probably have to actively (or after an interaction) edit or tag or save the conversation. Or maybe they could push a button on the glasses or click on an app that would place a marker in the recording for reference later.

And then? Well, it’s good and evil, right? It’s good because the SLP can see if the patient is making progress. The patient can also set forth challenges and slowly improve with fluency and confidence. They can practice techniques out in the wild and know they’re using the same technique in different situations — or a few different techniques in the same situation.

But there’s the evil, too … you can go through your own data and say, well, I always stutter when I’m checking into a flight in person. So I’m only ever going to book flights on airlines with check-in kiosks. The data could show that you always stutter when at a certain restaurant … or with a certain person.

Would I do something like this? Yeah, it’d be fun for a few weeks, I think. It’d be interesting to look at the data. We probably think we stutter a lot more than we do. We probably do a lot better than we think — especially on thing like the phone or in conversations (after we’ve introduced ourselves.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: big data, pagoclone, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, technology

Stuttering and Path

October 2, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I’ll admit that when it comes to the latest apps and programs, I’m not up to date. That’s mostly to do with living in Saudi — we don’t exactly have things like Groupon here, and the shop down at the corner only takes cash — they probably won’t care about Apple Pay any time soon.

That being said, I do try to keep up with what’s going on back home. I read this with some interest about Path via daringfireball.

From the site:

We’re thrilled to announce Path Talk 1.1, with the goal of giving you a new super-power: putting the power of a personal assistant in the palm of your hand. It’s called Places, and it lets you interact with any local business. No phone call needed.

Places gives you the power to message your favorite local businesses to request appointments, make reservations, or even check out prices and hours. It’s all by text. And it’s all for free.

Um … wow. Ok then. This really ties up well with my recent post about a day without stuttering.

I’ll be honest, I don’t use Path right now for anything. And probably won’t while I’m still here in Saudi … I have messaging apps and Facebook that are working ok. But that being said, this sort of thing blows me away from a stuttering standpoint.

I mean, I won’t have to call a local business to … interact with them and ask them stuff?! Seriously?! Yes, there is a lot of information already online, but like they say, making reservations and whatnot can’t always be done via the web. And then the next point in this is having an online assistant making phone calls for you.

I’m not so sure my life would be so busy that I’d need something like this. But it’s only the beginning. Soon we’ll be able to text power companies and credit card companies… and the pizza place… and maybe even the fast food restaurant…

Which brings me to (assuming I move back to the States) do I download and start using this because it’s new and cool and useful and saving me time, or am I doing it because it’s a few less people who I have to talk to (and not stutter with?). Or is this something I can use (or a stuttering patient could use) little by little to help with certain hard situations — eventually weaning themselves off?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apps, covert, Path, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Cycling and Stuttering

October 1, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Continuing from yesterday …

She got a house number. Let’s say it was 540. Ok. I headed out the door. As I was walking over to 540, I saw a guy walking toward me. He had skinny legs. Could this be one of them?

I said hello to him and asked him if had been riding on his bike earlier. I said all of this, and I stuttered badly. But I wanted to just stop him and start talking before I could think twice about it.

I kept talking to this guy. I kept on stuttering. A lot. I was not happy with myself. But I eventually strung a few decent phrases together. He didn’t laugh at me or look at me strangely. He did mention that his boss rode. Ah, so now we’re getting warmer. He pointed in the direction of his house. That’s where I was going. I was on the right track.

I said goodbye and headed over to house 542. That’s right. I was off on the number. So I went to the wrong house (but didn’t realize it at the time.) Again, before my stutter could protest (we just stuttered so much with that last guy!) I knocked on the door. No response. Another knock, still no response.

Well, I tried. Maybe I’ll track them down eventually. But before going home, I went to the first house I knocked on. Might as well try again.

The door opened. Oh crap! What was I going to say?

I stuttered a lot. I asked if they had gone out riding — well yeah, the bike is right there. The guy was nice and invited me in. I introduced myself and stuttered while doing so. He stood there patiently. He told me about the other guy and how long they’d been riding. He didn’t acknowledge the stuttering either. Awesome! We sorted out how far and how fast and well, they’re heading out tomorrow morning, so would I like to join? Yes!

The next morning I headed out with them for a ride. They talked, I talked, I stuttered, they didn’t mind. And it was a beautiful morning. The miles ticked by quickly. And we’ve gone out a few more times since.

Being out there and stuttering is still a new concept for me. But as I get older, my patience for my stutter grows less and less. Sometimes I just want something, and I’m not going to use stuttering as an excuse.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fear, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

A Hundred Stuttering Posts!

September 30, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

So here we are at a hundred stuttering posts. Thanks of course to all the visitors from 66 different countries who have stopped by. I think things are still going pretty strong. It’s getting difficult to post every day (not through lack of ideas, mind you), but hey, a few times a week is still pretty decent, right?

I put this two-part story below together for Tom over at Stuttering Brain as a guest post, but he ended up being busy and didn’t put it online … so I’ll share it here instead. I think it sums up nicely where I am with my stuttering and being determined to push through it when I really want something.

Please keep on reading, commenting and sharing! I appreciate any and all feedback.

Cycling and Stuttering

I’m someone who stutters, and I’m someone who also likes to ride my road bicycle. But when I came to Saudi Arabia more than three years ago for work, I didn’t know anybody who also rode. And since I was a covert stutterer, I didn’t really ask around too much either. I would occasionally go on solo rides on the wide open roads we have in our small town, but I missed the camradarie of riding with even one other person.

One Friday morning just a few weeks ago I was coming back into the compound with my family. I saw something strange. Two guys. Road bikes. They were also heading back into the compound. Finally! Other people who rode! I was in our car, about 500 feet behind them as we went through the security checkpoints. My wife knew about my cycling angst and thought I should go up to them and find out who they were. Yes, I needed to find out.

Excuse time. Remember, I’m a covert stutterer. Pulling up to cyclists in a car would necessitate an immedate greeting and question. They probably wouldn’t stop. I’d be stuttering. It’d be horribly awkward. What to do? I was trying to figure it out as they pulled away — I had to stop for some checkpoints that they sailed through.

I was getting angry and frustrated with myself. Here it was, the perfect opportunity to go riding with some guys, and my stuttering was getting in the way. Unacceptable. We followed them into the compound, but they split up. After parking the car, I thought I saw one of them go into a nearby house, but wasn’t sure. Great. Thanks stuttering. Thanks a lot.

As we got out of the car, my wife said she thought she heard a door nearby close. Oh? I was angry enough at my stuttering that I said to her, ok, you take the kids and go to our house, and I’ll catch up. I went over to the door that she said was probably it.

I knocked. No response.

I knocked again. I had no plan on what to say. I just wanted to start doing something before my stutter protested.

No response. Oh, fine. Still angry at myself. I went back to my house and told my wife that nobody was there. She mentioned that she knew the security guards pretty well and that she could call them and find out. Really? Yes, can you please call them? I felt like a coward for not making the call myself, but I’d make up for it soon enough.

To be continued …

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bicycling, confidence, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Summing up a Day of Stuttering

September 29, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

For the past three posts, I’ve outlined a hypothetical day in the life of a cover stutterer. I wanted to show how easy it can be to hide your stuttering from coworkers and friends. By “easy,” I mean doing things to minimize talking and interacting. All the mental planning to do so is certainly not easy and quite exhausting at times.

Here’s the Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.

Let’s review some of the actions from the entire day. Most of it was probably pretty obvious. For those of you who stutter or are covert, you can laugh and nod along. For your friends and family, I hope they see how sneaky we are really being. And what might seem like a “quiet” person may in fact be a covert person who stutters…

After about an hour, his buddy comes by and asks about going downstairs to the cafe for some coffee. They both go down, and when his buddy orders, he follows up with “the same.”

The nice thing about having a work buddy is familiarity. For me at least it’s easier to talk to them, and I don’t stutter as much. But then again, the pressure is also on in speaking situations to not stutter in front of them … even though they probably already know. The interesting thing about a drink order is that after a while, you’ll justify to others why you like it so much — even though several months ago you didn’t want it in the first place. It’s all you could pronounce. Small stores are also nice because you can just collect your snacks and drinks and put them on the counter, quietly giving cash or a card.

Back at his desk, he pulls out the power bill. Thankfully he sees that there’s a Web site on there.

Yeah, it’s 2014, and this is certainly possible. But not necessarily for every utility company. In the past, depending on the fee or problem, I would just let it go instead of calling to correct it. This is of course is annoying because on just about every personal finance page they talk about calling your credit cards and asking for reduced interest rates. Or calling your cable company to ask about a different package to save money.

Before going to the staff meeting, he prints out the spreadsheet that his boss will review during the meeting.

For me being prepared and comfortable with a situation reduces the stuttering possibility. I’ll know what I’m talking about. I can say, and hold up a piece of paper, yes, it’s been done. The other good thing about being organized is being able to bail out a coworker who isn’t.

He’s got a dentist appointment on Wednesday afternoon. But he’ll just send an e-mail to his boss who should be cool about this.

Yeah, because saying a “d” word during a staff meeting would have been pleasant …it’s also easier to e-mail a reason, date and time than say it.

“Can we talk about this?” The other person responds, “Eh, well, I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, so …”

I don’t do this that often, but there’s the cousin of this action — checking a calendar, finding someone busy, and then calling them to leave a voicemail. (painful in and of itself, but maybe you just hang up and then they’ll see your number.) The evasive maneuvre above is high risk, high reward, though. The person could easily just have said, “yeah, let’s talk. I was going to go to a meeting, but they cancelled it.”

Our PWS offers up the fast food place, “I ate healthy over the weekend,” but his buddy turns it down, “I didn’t.” Ok, well then how about no. 4 — we can get sandwiches there, and it shouldn’t take too long.

Ah lunch. A special kind of social pain. Again, this is a high risk, high reward tactic. Ordering fast food is also pretty nerve wracking. So his buddy could have agreed to it. But remembering what they did last week (maybe a lot of fast food) and maybe a text or two from the weekend about his buddy’s activities, he figured it was worth a shot. The restaurants were definitely not a viable option — having to talk to people — unnecessarily. And option 4 — I’m looking at you, Wawa and Sheetz, with your glorious touch-screen sandwich-making awesomeness.

Our PWS dials the number. As it’s ringing, he swings his chair towards the side of his cubicle and begins going through some folders.

The other option of course is to let the person who you called pick up, and then not say anything. And just look at the other person in the room like, “um, if you want to start talking right now, that’d be super helpful …” The best part is they’ll often say into the phone who they are as well as who you are! One less time of having to say your own name!

Our PWS whips out his iPhone and pulls up the pizza place’s web site. He puts in an order and hits submit.

Our PWS could have pre-empted this by asking on the invite call — should I stop by somewhere and get anything? Or, can you order pizza/sandwich for me? I’ll admit that no, there aren’t too many pizza-ordering apps out there. And maybe the local place doesn’t have an app after all. What our PWS would do in this case is maybe search around online for coupons to the local pizza place (but not call). Then when the buddy comes back from his errand and asks what’s wrong, say, oh, nothing, just looking for a coupon. Or do you have any? No? Then push it onto the buddy to call because it’s his place and he knows his own phone number and address …

Our PWS quickly gets up from the couch and walks to the kitchen to talk.

He’s being polite! He doesn’t want to interrupt the tv-viewing experience of his buddy.

They do this off and on for the second half of the game.

By doing this, he’s staying connected to his family without the added stress of the telephone. And it’s become such a regular thing, that his family doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

So there you go. Day after day, week after week … and so on. Pretty soon you can avoid having to talk to people without too much effort.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, phone, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, thought exercise

An Evening without Stuttering

September 25, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

After work, our PWS goes back home with not much to do but watch television. He gets a call from another buddy asking if he’d like to come over to watch the Monday Night Football game. Sure thing.

He heads over, and it’s just the two of them. His buddy asks about food. “Just call and order a pizza. I gotta run next door to my neighbor’s house to pick up his keys. He’s going to be out of town for a few days.”

Alright, no problem.

Our PWS whips out his iPhone and pulls up the pizza place’s web site. He puts in an order and hits submit.

During the game, our PWS doesn’t say too much about what’s happening on the field. He’s keeping an eye on his fantasy football team on his buddy’s iPad. He remembers an article he read about one of the coaches that was very interesting. He pulls it up and hands the iPad to his buddy. “This is crazy. Check this out.” His buddy reads the article and starts commenting on it for a few minutes.

At halftime, our PWS gets a call from his dad, whose favorite team is playing that evening. Our PWS quickly gets up from the couch and walks to the kitchen to talk. “Yeah, things are good. I’m just at a friend’s house. Yeah, we’re watching… I know, right? I can’t believe it either…That guy is incredible… Uh-huh… Yeah… Ok… Yeah… No.., work’s fine… It’s fine. Alright… I’ll talk to you later.”

Since he knows his dad isn’t a big texter, he texts his younger brother who is still living with his parents. They do this off and on for the second half of the game.

After the game, our PWS says goodbye and heads home.

In the next post I’ll go through what our PWS did during the day and point out all of his covert actions.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: covert, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, thought exercise

An Afternoon without Stuttering

September 24, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

We continue following our person who stutters from the morning into lunch. After tomorrow (when I talk about what he does in the evening) I’ll go back and review his actions and what manner of sneakiness he showed through the day.

For those who are covert, none of this is new. But if you stutter and your friends wonder what it’s like (or don’t think you stutter) then you can show them these posts.

Just before lunch, our PWS has a list of questions about a project he’s working on. He needs to talk to someone in a different department. He opens up Outlook and checks their calendar. He sees that it’s 11:15 now, and the person has a meeting at 11:30 for an hour. He gets up with his list and walks up a floor to meet them. “Listen, I’ve got a bunch of things I wanted to know about this project,” he starts, looking at his page of questions. “Can we talk about this?” The other person responds, “Eh, well, I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, so …”

“So maybe it’d just be better if I e-mail them to you?”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome.”

“Alright, cool.”

And that’s that.

Next up, lunch. The same coffee friend comes by and asks about lunch — where do you want to go? The options work out basically to: 1. Sit down place where the waiter takes your order. 2. Counter place where you order, 3. Fast food place and 4. Electronic ordering place.

After lunch is done, our PWS continues working quietly at his desk. He doesn’t get too many phone calls, but maybe the occasional visitor stopping by to ask something. Here comes someone now.

“Hey, how are you? Listen, for this report, it’s got this spreadsheet as backup. Where did you get these numbers from?”

Our PWS replies, “Oh, it’s from another department. Then I just check them against our information.”

“Ok, but there are a few things here that don’t add up. Can you get this resolved? I need this as soon as possible. Can you call them?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Our PWS dials the number. As it’s ringing, he swings his chair towards the side of his cubicle and begins going through some folders. “Let me see what we did last time for this.”

The phone picks up, and the person who stopped by sees that the PWS is busy rifling through folders. He begins talking to the person on the phone about the problem. Our PWS swings back and pulls up the spreadsheet on the computer and listens to the phone conversation intently. They work through the issue over the phone, and the person walks away satisfied.

Before leaving for the day, our PWS gets an e-mail from the electric company — the extra charge has been resolved and will be reimbursed.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: cold-calling, covert, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, thought exercise

A Morning without Stuttering

September 22, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

So for this thought exercise, we’ll be making a bunch of assumptions about age, career, education and so on. But you’ll see the concepts are the same — there is a possibility to avoid speaking in this day and age.

Starting with the morning, our fictional person who stutters wakes up. He gets dressed and decides to try something new for breakfast. Instead of cereal, he wants to cook some eggs. Not just regular microwave-scrambled eggs, but something with more flair on the stovetop. He had this idea last week, so this morning, he fires up his iPad and pulls up a Youtube video. He could have casually asked a coworker last week. No need. When he’s got a question or concern about how his egg is turning out based on this particular Youtube video, he searchs for another. Then finds out what he was doing wrong.

Since our person who stutters got home late last night, he didn’t notice the envelope from his power company on the floor by the front door. He picks it up and opens it. He sees that there is an extra charge on the bill. He folds it and puts it into his pocket and heads out to work.

He drives to work trying to think of what’s on the menu for today. Is there a staff meeting? I think so, it’s Monday. So that’s at 9. Once he gets to work, he smiles at a few people, saying hello. Let’s make him an engineer who works on datasheets and specifications for an engineering company. His company has an open-plan cubicle arrangement. After about an hour, his buddy comes by and asks about going downstairs to the cafe for some coffee. They both go down, and when his buddy orders, he follows up with “the same.”

Back at his desk, he pulls out the power bill. Thankfully he sees that there’s a Web site on there. He brings it up and searches for an e-mail address or help page. He finds it, enters in his information, and quickly types out his issue briefly.

Before going to the staff meeting, he prints out the spreadsheet that his boss will review during the meeting. It’s got a list of activities for the team members, and what progress is expected this week. He also looks at what was supposed to be done last week. It’s all done.

During the meeting when his boss calls on him, he quickly nods his approval “yeah” when his boss asks about last week, and then when asked about the next five days says, “no problem.” He knows that there is a problem, but it’s pretty small. He’s got a dentist appointment on Wednesday afternoon. But he’ll just send an e-mail to his boss who should be cool about this. Then just stay an extra hour or two to finish the work.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: covert, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, thought exercise, work days

Days without Stuttering

September 19, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Many years ago, after learning how to drive, I learned something else: that you have to pump and pay for gas. It’s simple, yes, but of course it’s an additional interaction that I had to deal with. More stuttering.

In those days (Let’s say the late 90s when I was leaving high school and getting into college) you’d pull up to the pump, get out, pick the gas you wanted, pump it, hang the pump back up, and then walk inside to pay. All the pumps had numbers, so you simply told them what number pump you were on.

Tell them. Numbers. Easy words. Not many words. Just one, really. Maybe a hello first.

I hated this. Some of the numbers were easier to say, sure, but you never knew how many other cars were going to be there. And you never knew how many other people would be standing in line inside, waiting to pay for sodas and Twinkies. And of course it was like, why would you hesitate on this answer? They’d ask, you’d say. How can you not know? The number is right there — it’s huge. And if there was a line, you’d feel the pressure of that as well.

Miraculously, a few years later, most of the pumps started to change. They took credit cards. I had a credit card. You swipe, pump, and go. No talking. No pointing helplessly. No anxiety. Swipe, pump, go. Swipe, pump, go. Everything should be this easy!

Over the past few years a lot of things have become this easy …

So over the next few days I wanted to write out a thought experiment of sorts — morning, noon and night as someone who stutters but has decided to not talk to anybody for anything. What would that look like?

I think it’s important to consider technology in our lives and what it can do to help those of us who stutter. If I have 30 activities in a day, I can choose a path where I don’t talk to anybody for all of them. The next day, I can challenge myself. I can talk on one of them. Then the next day, two, and three, and so on. I can slowly build confidence on my own terms.

Another way of putting this is to show people (those who don’t stutter) just how easy it can be to be a covert stutterer. (Note — I’m not talking about the emotional stuff — just the interactive stuff.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: childhood, confidence, covert, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

What I’m Stuttering on These Days

September 17, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Ok, so yesterday’s post finally closed out my trip to the NSA Conference, Tour de France chasing, and visit with Tom Weidig experience. Back to regular programming here … whatever that might entail.

Let me go with what I’ve been stuttering on lately since I haven’t done one in a while. Three main things come to mind, mostly news-related.

1. The whole Ray Rice incident that’s going on in the States. Since I’m in Saudi, I’m talking to non-Americans about these things. So I’d like to say the guy’s name, but of course I’m suffering on those two Rs. Then again, since I’m talking to non-Americans, I can also get away with saying “this football player.”

2. Apple announced their new iPhone as well as Apple Watch. The phone, sure, I know who’s interested in probably buying it. But when I’m talking to people, I’m wondering if they’d like to get the watch when it comes out. But boy oh boy is that a tough w word. Just this morning I spent a good 30 seconds (or so it seemed) making three attempts to get it out. Finally worked though. I’m not even sure that calling it the “iWatch” would have helped me any. I’m guess not since it’s a vowel rolling straight into that w.

3. One of the guys who used to work for me is applying for a job with a large multinational firm. I got a reference call from them today. My guy had asked me if it had happened yet (about a month ago) but I said no. Then forgot about it. Well, today when I got the call, I wasn’t really prepared and stuttered and stumbled a good bit. I did most of the talking, though. Nothing I said wasn’t true, but I felt like I was really trotting out a lot of cliches. The caller didn’t even ask anything real specific, just that they’re calling to find out about the candidate’s character. Fortunately I was able to take the call outside and be alone. I did say all the words I wanted to, and I think it was ok. I was thinking at the end of the call that I probably should have told the caller that I stuttered — maybe it seemed like I wasn’t sure or confused with all the stuttering. On the other hand, those kinds of calls are usually short. Just want to make sure there aren’t any red flags.

Lastly, a friend asked me if there were certain letters that I stuttered on more than others. I said yes, of course. I’ll make a list. It’ll have 26 items on it.

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately, Uncategorized Tagged With: stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering

Your True Self

September 16, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

The third and final thing I picked up from the Stuttering Brain is this:

3. After the stutter, we feel regret or shame. We identify ourselves with the stutter, and thus become covert. This becomes who we are instead of our true selves. Thus, we lose our authenticity.

I talked about authenticity before, but I wanted to make some more points. What Tom said is that if we are interviewing with a company, and they make a big deal out of our stutter, do we really want to work for them? Is that the type of unnecessary hardship we want to put ourselves through?

On the same interview idea, they should know that we stutter. This is how it’s going to be. This is how we are going to present ourself, but we can still tell them we can maange it, and we have pushed through it before. The work should define us, not the stuttering. We need to be our true self.

One of the more tricky points though about authenticity (in my mind) is that after so many years of covert stuttering, our personalities are set. Many things are defined by the stuttering. And now, at age 35, I’m saying I’ll put all that aside and let my true self out. But what is that true self after so many years?

Is it the true self who wanted to speak up so many years ago, didn’t, but then learned from experience that being a loudmouth isn’t always desirable?

Is it the true self who wanted to ask a question in class but instead had to find answers on my own — leading to a drive to be more self reliant?

Is it the true self who wanted to participate in a group presentation but told the others I’d be happy to put more effort into the presentation — making me a valuable and reliable coworker?

I guess the main question is trying to compare our stuttering self with what we think our non-stuttering self would be like. And that’s very difficult. We’d like to think we would have done things differently, said different things, had different outcomes. We’d like to think that version is better. So if we ignore the stuttering, push through it, and educate our friends, that better version will come out.

But I think that really discounts a lot of the positive outcomes of stuttering. We sell ourselves short by doing that.

I’m not saying we should let our stutter define us. Definitely not. But at the same time, we should acknowledge that it has had a strong effect on our lives — sometimes for the better. We are probably better listeners. We don’t make silly comments all the time. We are more patient.

I’m not sure if I’ve really expressed this the way I want. I may revisit it again in a few weeks once I sort out some more feelings on it. I suppose a relevant thought exercise is this: If you woke up tomorrow morning and didn’t stutter, what would be different?

I think there’s a big difference in that answer at age 10, 20, 30, 40 and beyond.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: authenticity, childhood, fears, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, stuttering brain

Your Stuttering Associations

September 11, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

The second thing that I picked up from Tom is closely related to the first but slightly different:

2. During the stutter, we feel that if we are stuttering, it’s a negative situation. Thus, we make negative connections with situations. Then avoid them in the future. However, these connections can be broken and positive associations made.

Whereas the first thing I talked about — theories — is more of a drawn out, lots of thinking approach, this is more of a gut feel. These are the results of actually having engaged and stuttered in a situation. These are ones we don’t even bother thinking about anymore. With the theory, we talk ourself out of calling the credit card company or approaching a stranger. With these associations, we either make a quick excuse to friends first, or just change the subject or walk away.

For example, if we are listening to a radio station, and they’re asking trivia questions. And you know the answer. Eh, whatever. Not going to bother calling in. Of if the teacher is asking for volunteers for some kind of speaking role. Or if you’re in a room full of mostly strangers — you just hang on to the those who you know and talk to them.

The point of this is that these are all negative associations we have built up. But what Tom said is that they can all broken. And not only that, but they can be built again in a positive fashion.

Again I’ll reference my France trip — I went up to a stranger in a small town. Sure he was an older gentlemen, but a stranger nonetheless. I didn’t want to. I didn’t have to. But I did. I made a connection. I spoke, I stumbled, but overall it was positive. Score one for talking to strangers.

Is it a long process? Oh yes. Is it pleasant? Probably not. But can it be done? With enough work, yes. We can go from not wanting to pick up the phone to hesitating to pick up the phone to picking up the phone. These are small victories, but slowly those associations and pathways are being rewired. As I said yesterday, the world isn’t going to end.

I suppose one thing I could do to nerd this up a bit is to make it objective, put it all down on paper. I write down those situations that scare the crap out of me (still). Write down the experiences that I can remember that make now feel this way. (I bet I would struggle to do this). And then seek out opportunities to engage people and change my negative associations.

It would also then be worthwhile to write down all the positive experiences. And weigh them against the negative. I know it’d be way out of balance. I know the stuttering isn’t a big deal for the casual listener. But it’s so engrained that it’d really take a lot of practice to change my own perceptions. But I’m willing to do that.

Are you?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: associations, confidence, fears, France, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, stuttering brain

Your Stuttering Theories

September 9, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

So here’s the first part of what I got from Dr. Weidig, the Stuttering Brain —

Before the stutter, we imagine what horrible things are going to happen to us if we stutter and if we are found out. But that’s just a theory. And theories should be tested.

What do we mean by this? Well, it’s rooted in fear and shame. We have fears of speaking and feeling humiliated. We are ashamed of our stutter, and how we are not perfect. So what we do is dream up scenarios (often elaborate) of why things will go south if we open our mouths:

1. If I call about reducing the APR on my credit card, they will ask for my name and date of birth. And other numbers. I don’t want to stutter through them. The APR is fine.

2. If I ask the police officer or security person for directions, he might think there’s something wrong with me. He might start asking me questions that I’ll stutter on. Better to just try to find a map and figure out where I am by myself.

3. If I ask the stranger on the subway next to me how to make a transfer, I might stutter. He’ll think I’m weird or on drugs or who knows what. I’m better off staring at the map and trying to figure it out myself.

4. If I advertise my stutter during an interview, they might not hire me. I’d better just suck it up at my current job.

5. If I speak up during a company meeting, my colleagues will think less of me. I’ll just stay quiet.

And so on.

So these are all theories. They deserve to be tested, no? Why not just speak and see what happens? Either what you think will happen will happen, or the opposite will. If it’s the opposite, then you got the information. You made a connection. You make your life easier. You conveyed information successfully. You’ve boosted your confidence. Your colleagues went up to you after the meeting and thanked you for speaking up and saying what they were all thinking.

If you stutter and crash and burn, so what? Did you die? No. (Tom made a strong point about this — it’s our caveman reaction to run from fear and avoid it. But we’re just talking. We’re asking for no whip on our venti nonfat mocha. We’re not facing down a mastodon). Did the world come to a halt? Did everybody at the Starbucks suddenly stop sipping and stare at you while you stuttered out your order in line? No, of course not.

I loved this idea because I really lived it while in France. I would go up to the bakery or whatever, roll out a “bonjour,” and then think of what I wanted and what I wanted to say. I was testing out theories. And in all cases, the world didn’t end. I didn’t get deported. My friend didn’t look at me funny. I got what I wanted when I tried to order.

Most importantly, I still want to go back and speak more.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, France, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, stuttering brain, theories

Meeting the Stuttering Brain

September 8, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

After the shenanigans in France, my buddy and I headed up to Luxembourg to meet Tom Weidig of the Stuttering Brain. And yes, it was a full-on stuttering vacation, complete with three countries and plenty of people who stutter.

I met up with Tom, and he gave me a great walking tour of Luxembourg City. What I noticed first was that Tom stuttered, but he just plowed on through, still talking, still communicating. And none of it bothered him. I was still getting used to listening to other people who stutter, but this was inspirational for me. Tom didn’t slow down one bit in his tour (he also walked pretty fast) and as someone whose family is from Luxembourg, he had a lot to tell.

We ate dinner, and he shared his thoughts about stuttering and his attitude toward it. A lot of what he said echoed the workshops during the NSA conference. But with Tom, it was more direct. It was great to meet and talk to someone who had such a healthy relationship with his stutter.

After dinner we walked through the city some more. Tom even tried to find someone who he knew just so I had to introduce myself! Fortunately he wasn’t successful. We had some ice cream — I ordered what I wanted — and then we parted ways.

Let me briefly summarize my understanding of Tom’s points on Stuttering. Then I’ll get into them more this week.

He didn’t state them this way per se, but after thinking more about it, it follows a natural sort of course.

1. Before the stutter, we imagine what horrible things are going to happen to us if we stutter if we are found out. But that’s just a theory. And theories should be tested.

3. After the stutter, we feel regret or shame. We identify ourselves with the stutter, and thus become covert. This becomes who we are instead of our true selves. Thus, we lose our authenticity.

You can see how they are tightly connected and flow into each other.

What I really enjoyed about Tom is that I felt challenged after talking to him. Everything he said was clear and made perfect sense. Everything he said could be put into practice to make myself more accepting of my own stutter.

Filed Under: NSA Conference, Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, Luxembourg, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, stuttering brain

Stuttering in France Part 4

September 4, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Alright, so this is the last installment of stuttering in France, and, well, it doesn’t involve any stuttering. But hey, I need to finish the Tour chasing story, right?

So here’s what happened in Fresnes from yesterday’s post:

@MatthewBusche yeah, we busted out the big flag for you since you were in the breakaway. pic.twitter.com/GxnNeyyMEe

— Rehan Nasir (@helloistutter) July 11, 2014

As well as this from Pannes:

@MatthewBusche we had a great day seeing you twice today! Here you are ripping through Pannes! pic.twitter.com/O3p48KhU9T

— Rehan Nasir (@helloistutter) July 11, 2014

In the bottom photo — it’s blurry — but Matthew is giving us a thumbs up! We were waving the flag and screamed his name as loud as we could. He ripped past us at more than 60kph I’m guessing — they were coming off a little hill around a curve. So he’s giving us the thumbs up through the turn — quite the professional!

I posted both of those on Friday evening, and @matthewbusche favorited both of them. Success!

We had parked up in Pannes and took the photo above. Then we got back into the car and tried to get to a third spot. Unfortunately, the tour-chasing app wasn’t updating regularly since we had spotty reception out in the French countryside. So while we thought we were ahead of the peloton, we were actually just behind it.

And that was it! In two days we saw the peloton five times. We saw a run-in to the finish as well as the start. All-in-all a good taste of what chasing the tour is like.

After leaving Pannes, we headed toward Luxembourg. I had an appointment with the great Dr. Tom Weidig from Stuttering Brain. He gave me an awesome tour of his city as well as some great advice on stuttering. (So yeah, it was a real stuttering-centric vacation).

I’ll get into what Tom and I talked about next week.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, tour de france

Stuttering in France Part 3

September 3, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

Chasing the Tour wasn’t too difficult for these early stages — the peloton traveled on smaller roads near a larger highway. So right after Epernay, we made for the highway, and made as much time as we could.

We looked at the map and found a small town — Fresnes-en-Woëvre. It was sort of near the highway, and the peloton would be there shortly — there is a timetable on the Tour’s Web site. So we parked up about 200 meters away and walked over to the route.

There were a bunch of people from the small town just standing around. No cars were going through yet. As we walked around a little (to take some photos of sunflowers, etc.,) we ran into an older man. We said hello, but he realized that we didn’t speak French. And he called to some people across the road — in French, he said we don’t speak French! And did anybody speak English? No!

Ah, here was my chance! So I said to this older man (in French!) that yes, I did speak French. He was quite surprised! So, in whatever French I could muster, I explained to him that we were from America, we were here to chase the Tour, and that we worked as engineers. I also said we just arrived yesterday, and that we would be leaving tomorrow. (Yeah, I know, it’s real simple stuff. But seriously, this was a huge win for me).

Then he began talking, and it was a bit difficult to understand. But I did make out that he was retired, and he had worked with disabled children when he was working.

And that was pretty much that!

Did I think about stuttering at all while talking to the old man? Not really. I was more focused on what I wanted to say and making sure I had some sort of accent so he would understand me. If I didn’t say something, it wasn’t because I was avoiding — it’s because I flat out didn’t know how to express myself.

But just to review: Did I approach a complete stranger? Yes. Was I anxious about it? Yes. Did I stutter? Eh, maybe a little. Did the world end? No. No it didn’t. Positive reinforcement.

We had brought along a large American flag to wave around on the side of the road. Using a tour tracking app, we found out that American Matthew Busche was in the breakaway! So as they were about to go past, we busted out the big flag and screamed Matthew’s name. They went by in a blur, but it was still really exciting. A few moments later the peloton went by.

Then we hustled back to the rental car, checked the map, and pointed ourselves toward Pannes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, French, language, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, tour de france

Stuttering in France Part 2

September 2, 2014 by Rehan Nasir

I know the expression “best day of my life” gets thrown around a lot, but hey, sometimes it’s appropriate. Of course there are the standard ones, birth of children, graduation from college, first job, etc., and so on. So let’s just throw this in the Top Ten of other stuff that doesn’t go in those categories.

And yes, one of the best days of my life involved talking to strangers. In a foreign language. And being anxious about stuttering. Continuing on yesterday’s post …

On our second day of chasing the Tour, we woke up in Reims and then drove down to Epernay. This was nice because the hotels in Reims were cheap that night! And it was easy to make the drive. Not too much traffic. We tried to get as close to the center of town as we could, but didn’t have any idea of where to really park or be. No matter. Just park about 2-3 km away and walk down. We got there pretty early — maybe around 10 — so we had time to walk around, get some food and take in the crowds that were already forming.

Before the riders pass through, there is the publicity caravan. They get going really early. So we stood around and watched them go by on the course, throwing out little samples and other stuff.

After that we noticed a large empty parking lot. We didn’t know where the teams were though — the buses? Were they parked up someplace else? We didn’t have any kind of local map or guide book to help us.

But after a while I figured, no, this giant parking lot is where the team buses are going to go. But when? Let’s let the stuttering try to take over:

Stuttering: Look, you already figured out that the buses and thus the teams are going to be here. Why do we need to talk to anybody?
Me: Because maybe they won’t be. Maybe there’s another parking lot within walking distance. It’s entirely possible.
Stuttering: No it’s not. C’mon. Think about it.
Me: Ok, smartypants, then when are the teams going to be here then?
Stuttering: They’ll be here when they’ll be here. Be patient.
Me: Unacceptable!

I saw a security-guard type fellow standing near the entrance of the parking lot — the parking lot led into a VIP-looking area. There were some other tourists milling about and talking to the security guard. I didn’t want to ask him something in French when people were around. (So, see, here we go — I’ll speak a foreign language to a complete stranger, but dammit, I’ll do it on my own terms.) Suddenly the security guard was alone, and I moved in quickly. My friend was right next to me the whole time even though I said, “hang on, let me check something.” I think my friend just wanted to hear the exchange.

I asked the security guard, in French, where the teams are. He said they would be here, in this parking lot. When, I asked. He said at 11 (I remember understanding the answer — pretty sure it was 11 … or maybe he said thirty minutes?). And that was all we needed. Ok! So, high school French used without issue! Did I stutter? No? Did I think about stuttering? A little — the anxiety part. Did I think I was going to stutter? Yes. But did I? No. So did anything bad happen speaking a foreign language? NO! Confidence boosted.

We then walked around to the other side of the parking lot, and when we got there, the buses started pulling in. Perfect! Apparently the parking lot was a wrist-band only VIP type area, but some of the buses parked along the perimeter fence so the public could walk right up. That’s where we were. First the mechanics came out to set up the bikes, and then a few riders came out to do interviews. As a cycling fan, it was all a dream come true!

After milling about for nearly an hour, we walked a block to the course and took up a spot with thousands of others. The peloton slowly rode by (they were still being neutralized) and then we ran back to the car to drive out into the French countryside and wait for the peloton to roll by again.

Next stop: Fresnes-en-Woëvre, and a lot more French speaking.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confidence, fears, French, language, stammer, stammering, stutter, stuttering, tour de france

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