8
So, here's the thing, I actually couldn't write this chapter
until months after the rest, even though I had always intended for it
to be here on this page of the unfolding of my life. I've spent my
life accepting the fact that I stutter, even though not liking it,
yet somehow the thought of writing a segment about it still freaked
me out. Unlike everything else in the book, I guess writing about my
stuttering was too personal for me. Something too
personal, yet on display in public every day of my life. How
about that?
At the start of second grade, my friend 'Paul' came over to my house
after school for play. He was the kind of person that was
comfortable asking the type of questions people shied away from. And
so he asked me, ''Why do you talk like that?''
''Talk like what?'' I asked back as I hadn't a clue. So he said
something with the common stereo-type of the repetitive first
consonant, then the rest of the sentence. ''I talk like that?'' I
asked.
He said, ''Yes, and your lips repeat what you just said afterwards.''
At my surprised expression, he said something, then mimed saying it
again silently.
''I didn't know I did that,'' I returned. And while we continued to
play-out our time together I began to think about it and pay more
attention as I talked to my family members that evening and at school
the next day. Sure enough, I started to hear myself stutter and even
notice my lips moving again once I was done talking. In the case of
the moving lips, that was easy to put a stop to and it was soon
suppressed.
In the case of the stuttering, though, my noticing it just seemed to
make it that much worse. In fact, while I apparently had been
stuttering all along, I had still been getting through my sentences.
But now it became debilitating in class and at home and I began to
avoid talking all together. In the case of class, I'd just no longer
raise my hand to give an answer. In the case of my friends, I'd just
reduced myself to single word responses to what they were talking
about: ''Yes,'' ''Uh-huh,'' ''Okay.''
As time went on, I realized I would be more likely to stutter on
certain sounds, so I would start swapping my word choices around.
I'd think, ''So, how's your mother doing?'' and say ''I hear your
mom's better?'' As the years went on, I became very good at avoiding
a stuttering moment with this rephrasing and word substitution on the
fly. Though occasionally it'd trip me up as well. One time I said
to a friend, ''I think you'll like this music group because they're
–'' Silly, I was going to say, but felt I wouldn't be able
to do it and quickly popped in ''– stupid.'' instead.
My friend was stunned by this and returned, ''So you think the music
I like is stupid?'' I immediately realized the mistake of
picking that word, but I also learned through hard experience that
trying to explain why I had said a different word than I had wanted
to say just made me look desperate and that much more guilty. It was
something I just had to accept.
Talking became kind of like surfing, you catch the wave and start to
say something and then with each word you're rejudging your balance
and direction and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, the
wave is done. But most of the time I'd wipeout somewhere along the
way.
Then one discovers the trick of forcing the words out. I now
know it's called a 'Conversion Disorder' but when you start, it seems
a simple solution. As you reach a word you think you're going to
stutter at the start of, you stomp your foot and that seems to get
you through the moment without the stutter, or blink your eyes midway
through a word to not get stuck in the middle, or clench your fist to
force the end of the sentence clearly. The problem is, these tricks
lose their power the more you use them, but since they once worked
you keep on doing them more. Now you not only sound funny as you
stutter throughout the day, but you also look funny as well stomping,
blinking and clenching as you talk.
It eventually came that I was mortified to go to school, for I knew
going to school came with a guaranteed moment or more of making a
fool of myself from the stuttering and the additional behaviors I'd
developed surrounding it. But at the same time I just couldn't stop
going to school, no longer leave the house and just hide in my room,
no matter how much I wanted to. And so I just had to get through it,
each day. Accept the fact that I was going to be the silly kid in
class, that no matter how much another kid might embarrass
themselves, I would soon relieve them of the spotlight by having to
say something... Or trying to say something.
This became the daily moment of courage for me, each morning for the
rest of my school years. I'd crawl out of bed, clean up, get
dressed, grab my lunch -- all just fine -- and then that pause
between opening the front door, but before going through the storm
door. There was that pause as I accepted that I was going to
make a fool of myself today and I would get through it. And going
through the storm door was my affirmation 'I was going to get through
it.' And I would make
a fool of myself. And I would
get through it. And then the next morning I'd be back between the
doors and take that pause.
help me break even: Shop
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