Fourth Quarter

October 22, 2019 by

I’m trying not to be so lazy with regards to this blog. International Stuttering Awareness Day is going to help with that!

I think in the past I’ve mentioned wanting to do something more this month with regards to stuttering. And every time I have not. So instead this month I’m going to just reflect on how my stuttering has been for the past few months.

It’s been good.

I would say that I’ve been more fluent in the past few months than I have been in many years. I think this may be in part due to the new job finally not being new anymore. The city I grew up in and moving back to being the city I … now just live in. The school year going steadily for the kids.

And frankly during the fourth quarter of the year with work, I haven’t had much time to think about stuttering on a daily basis. There’s a crush of work to be done (spend money!) and it’s to the point where I just make phone calls or schedule meetings or speak up at meetings because if I don’t, things won’t keep moving.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still stuttering. The good news is that it’s not avoidance though. (Remember, if you avoided a word and ended up being fluent … it’s still stuttering. Your audience may not know it, but you do.) Occasionally I will stutter (mostly getting stuck on a word) and it’ll be kind of jarring to me. Like, oh yeah, I still do this from time to time. But the frequency is so low, and the trauma so light that I don’t even keep track of them anymore.

If you asked me right now what the last thing I stuttered on was, I couldn’t tell you. I think that’s a good place to be.

I know if you’re just finding this blog and reading this, it may not help much. But what I would say is that — I’m forty. This was a journey that I didn’t even start on until I was nearly 30. And even then it took over 7 years to feel this way. It won’t happen overnight. I certainly wish I had started on the journey a lot sooner, of course. But I am where I am, and I’m happy where I am. I know looking back with regret won’t achieve anything, so I don’t.

If you’re just finding this blog, I would encourage you to go through the archives. See what those years were like. Before and after I started down the road of acceptance. It was long, it was painful, but it was ultimately what I needed to do. And that journey has helped me in many other areas of life as well. I’m far more patient than I ever was. I listen more. I want to understand what’s going on underneath. None of that could have been possible without a stutter.

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately Tagged With: , , , , ,

Stuttering Tournament

March 18, 2017 by

Well, it’s NCAA Tournament time, and since my alma mater isn’t in it, I’ve got the mental capacity for my own tournament. (And was rather amused by being able to autofill in a dozen brackets on ESPN).

So here’s what we’re going to do. Since 64 is going to end up being a long list (and it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want) I’m going to list 32 stuttering circumstances, and we’re going to find out the most unpleasant one. Now I understand about acceptance and testing the waters and putting yourself out there, but this is for fun, and this is looking back on what life was like growing up — and about a lot of the feelings that have been burned in. I also know there are a lot of things I didn’t/couldn’t include. There’s a lot of mental blocks that could probably be in their own tournament.

So of course we’re going to have four regions, and then 8 circumstances. Our four regions will be:

Phone, Audiences, Food, and One-on-One

In my view, here’s the seeding for each. This is based on how uncomfortable I’d be for each. Your circumstances may certainly differ! In the coming days I’ll describe each of these more in a paragraph, and then the tournament will get going next Friday with the first matchups. By the end of next weekend, we’ll be down to the last 8.

If you have comments or think a seeding should be different, let me know!

Phone

  1. Cold-calling a senior person at a company
  2. Making an urgent phone call
  3. Calling in a food order to a busy, noisy place
  4. “Going around the room” on a conference call
  5. Phone interviews
  6. Cold-calling a business to ask them detailed questions
  7. Ordering a new service (i.e. cable, new gym, etc.)
  8. Speaking to parents of your students (if you work with students)

Audiences

  1. Being asked to make a speech on the spot (including introduction)
  2. Giving a wedding speech
  3. Reading religious text aloud at a service (church/mosque/temple)
  4. Meeting and speaking in front of the family of your partner
  5. Fielding questions from a group
  6. Presenting at work
  7. Running a meeting at work
  8. Responding when called on directly in front of a group (class, meeting)

Food

  1. Ordering for a noisy car full of people at the drive-thru
  2. Saying grace/prayer for a meal in front of family
  3. Ordering food at a bar when the bartender is busy
  4. Complaining about food or service at a restaurant
  5. Giving a custom order at a busy lunchtime
  6. Ordering while at a business lunch
  7. Speaking in a dark and/or loud restaurant over other people
  8. Asking for a menu clarification

One-on-one

  1. Going on a blind date
  2. Confronting a neighbor you’ve never spoken to before
  3. Interjecting / trying to interrupt someone
  4. Getting pulled over and speaking to an officer
  5. Being interviewed while being recorded
  6. Immigration official at an international border crossing
  7. Meeting friends of friends
  8. Answering detailed questions about your work and personal life when getting to know someone
Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Link Roundup – Who I Met

July 9, 2014 by

Alright, I’m going to do two days of link round up goodness. Today will be a look at the people who I met at the NSA conference. I’ll have to update my Resources pages as well …

Tomorrow I’m flying out from the States to France for 3 days. Going to chase the Tour and meet up with Tom from The Stuttering Brain over in Luxembourg. It’s turning out to be quite the stuttering vacation. I will certainly try to set up some entries to post during my European adventures.

Ok, so first up is Pam from Make Room for the Stuttering. She spoke at the First Timer’s workshop, and I talked to her a little bit there and during the conference. She also spoke at the online panel discussion listed below.

What really got me right off the bat at the conference was that the people doing the workshops mostly stuttered. They were just up there, saying their piece, stuttering, smiling, and carrying on like it’s another normal day at the office.

Here’s a look at some of the leadership who were at the conference.

On I think what was the second day, I met Ben North at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby. He was standing in front of me. The person behind me asked what this conference was all about, and Ben replied. I thought, well, here we go, I’m here to meet people, so let’s keep meeting people. My usual state of sweating and being nervous surfaced, but Ben responded as everybody else did at the conference — with patience and understanding.

I was on a panel discussion hosted by Katie Gore regarding online communities for stuttering. Katie reached out to me through reddit. There’s a few people on reddit who discuss stuttering on a regular basis. Jump over there and join their discussion.

On that panel were:

Daniel Rossi, who wrote a book on stuttering. I bought the book and will start reading and reviewing it soon. He and Sam (below) work on Stutter Social.

Jacquelyn Revere. She’s started a vlog on stuttering.

Samuel was also on the panel. He talked about Stutter Social:

Stutter Social is an organization that connects people who stutter (PWS) through Google+ Hangouts. Participating in a Hangout is a fun, free, and safe way to connect with other PWS. Discussion often revolves around stuttering-related issues, but sometimes we just chat about our day or a good movie. We are a very welcoming and friendly bunch so don’t be shy and come join us whenever is convenient for you.

Not on that panel, but during the conference, I met Dhruv from the Indian Stammering Association. He’s working on setting up an annual conference for the Indian Stammering Association this October. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend, but will find ways to help them out anyway.

I got to watch a movie about stuttering — not the King’s Speech, mind you. And no, I still haven’t seen that yet, either. Maybe I’ll finally watch it on the plane ride back to the Kingdom.

This Is Stuttering was shown during the conference. Watching Morgan stutter while talking on the phone during the film was just like watching myself. Morgan was also at the conference to talk about the movie and what has happened since releasing it to the public. If your friends don’t know what stuttering is like on a daily basis, by all means, send them the link.

Lastly, some people had mentioned going through therapy with the American Institute for Stuttering. I’m not going to pick one organization over another. I just happened to go to an NSA conference. My opinion is that the larger organizations are all there to help those of us who stutter, our parents, and children and teenagers.

So tomorrow will be a more traditional link roundup with stories from this past week and a half. If you’ve got any stories to share, do pass them along!

Filed Under: Link Roundup, NSA Conference, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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