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Did you know? It’s Stuttering Awareness Day. So I’d like to take a second to talk about my stutter.
Imagine your brain’s speech center as a revolving door with thoughts starting inside and stepping outside in an orderly fashion.
Now imagine it doesn’t spin consistently. Or it periodically stops. Or maybe one thought gets stuck and goes around and around.
That’s stuttering.
Now imagine it doesn’t spin consistently. Or it periodically stops. Or maybe one thought gets stuck and goes around and around.
That’s stuttering.
I started stuttering when I was 12 and it made my school years miserable. I was teased every day for years and learned it was better to say nothing at all than be made fun of every time I opened my mouth.
In college it got better, then worse, then better again. I learned coping strategies. These days you almost never hear me stutter except when I’m overly stressed or tired, but I still don’t take my fluent-speaking days for granted.
I work in a job now where I’m expected to pitch and speak to groups pretty frequently. It’s terrifying every time but I’ve learned not to let that fear consume me. That the stuff I have to say is worth it even if it gets a little mangled sometimes.
I don’t talk about this much, because it’s hard and still tinged with shame and embarrassment, but I’m trying to be the kind of stuttering role model I wished I’d had when I was young. I stutter, and I turned out okay. If you stutter, I know you’ll be fine too. I believe in you.
