Hi Everyone,

I want to apologize, yet again, for not keeping up with this blog. A little less than a year ago, I told Bob, who manages and runs the masteringstuttering.com website, that I would no longer be writing the blog. However, today I went on the website to do some exploring and noticed the blog was still active. I decided I’d take that as an opportunity to write a little more. Maybe I’m not helping anyone by writing this, but there is still a slim chance that somebody out there stumbles upon this. Because of that chance, I am going to keep writing, because even if I help just one person, then I have done what I set out to do. 

Since I last wrote anything on this blog, I have discovered quite a few things regarding my stuttering. I have spent the past few months bouncing between avoiding stuttering so much that I decided to not say even half of things I would normally say and not wanting to really be involved in my social life, to trying to accept my stutter and to go about my life as I normally would, and for anyone who knows me, this means talking quite a bit! Here is what I learned from doing those two extremes, as well as just about anything in between.

Avoiding your stutter is probably the most detrimental thing you can do for yourself. At least it was this way with me. I found that it was like having a guilty conscience. The more you try not to think about whatever you’re feeling guilty about, the more the guilt builds. Avoiding your stutter is very similar. I found the more I tried not to stutter and just pretend like I did not have any sort of speech disfluencies, the more I stuttered. And the more I stuttered, the more I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from the world. I learned that avoiding your stutter is absolutely the fastest way to feeling the extreme embarassment and shame that no person who stutters ever wants to feel, yet unfortunately most of us who stuttered have felt exactly that at some point in our lives.

On the flip side, I learned a few very positive things. As I allowed myself to stutter, and tried my absolute hardest to not get mad at myself each time I did stutter, I felt a rush of adrenaline. This rush of adrenaline then converted into a confidence boost. With each stutter, and each moment of acceptance of that stutter, I felt better. As I felt better about stuttering, I actually began to stutter less. 

I also spent some time doing Skype therapy through the American Institute for Stuttering (www.stutteringtreatment.org). One thing I loved about AIS is that they are a very accepting organization. From my experience, many speech therapy programs are focused on speech techniques, and do not really care how you feel about stuttering. If they do care, they do not spend much time addressing the emotional aspect of stuttering (which, let me tell you, probably 90% of stuttering is emotional, at least with me). The American Institute for Stuttering not only works on speech techniques, but they also address the emotional and psychological aspect of stuttering, which I found to be very eye-opening. Not necessarily eye opening in terms of stuttering treatment, but if you’ll recall my first posting on here, I had completely shut the door on trying anything that involved speech and language pathologists, because every previous experience with them had been terrible. My experience with AIS was eye-opening for me because now I am not entirely against SLP’s. Just mostly against them. Just kidding. 

For now, I am not doing any form of therapy, but I am working on accepting my stutter on my own terms. I have decided to start my own YouTube channel, which should be up and running very soon. This channel is going to be somewhat similar to this blog (which I plan to now keep up with), with some of my goals being to not only help myself but to also help others who stutter as well as educate those who do not stutter. Everyone in this world, whether they stutter or do not, has been given a voice and every single person in this world definitely has a right to use that voice. 

For anyone who is reading this, if you’re going through that “All I want to do is hide so I dont have to stutter in front of people” phase, get up from your computer, walk to your nearest mirror, and look at yourself for a minute. Realize that you are a person. You are a whole person, and not only that, you are a smart capable person. You are loved, you are not broken, regardless of how your words may sound, there is nothing wrong with you. You are loved. Realize that you are perfectly capable of doing whatever it is you want to do in your life, and realize that you are so much stronger than your stutter. If you want to hide away in your bedroom and let your stutter have all of the power, fine. But I can’t promise you that will very enjoyable. Now, if you want to get out there, live your life to the fullest, and show the world that you are awesome, then get up, dust yourself off, and tell your stutter that you’ve had enough of it controlling you. Tell your stutter that you actually can make some sort of compromise to make this whole talking-and-living thing work out. This compromise that I’m referring to is acceptance. Now I’m not saying accept that you have a disability (which, by the way, I do not believe stuttering is a disability because people who stutter are definitely able to speak in many contexts just fine). I’m saying accept that sometimes, you might stutter. Sometimes you may have trouble saying your name or answering the phone. But the world wont end. Anybody who judges you is just simple minded. And if you have the courage and strength to move on past any negative judgements you receive from other people, keep talking, and keep smiling, well then I’d say you are pretty awesome in my book. 

Thank you all for reading and never give up. 

Until next time,

Jen

I had an epiphany today regarding my speech. I realized that any action that should be unconscious, like breathing for example, gets screwed up and falters to some degree when we think of it…when we become conscious of it. 

I think most people would argue that speaking is somewhat of an unconscious act. Sure, we need to think about what we are going to say, but the physical act of opening our mouth, taking a breath, and letting words flow out should be an unconscious act for the most part. 

It seems to me that my stuttering is really only there because I make it a completely conscious act. I think about it. I think about every little breath, tongue movement, mouth movement, tounge placement on my words and sounds; I think about the entire process and it overtakes my brain to some extent. I make the mostly unconscious act of talking, completely and utterly conscious. It occured to me this is almost like an obsession. 

Then, I noticed, not only do I obsess over how the words and sounds are going to come out; I obsess over what others will think when and IF my words do come out a little disfluent. Then, to make matters worse, when these words do come out anything less than perfectly fluent, I internally freak out. I think to myself, “you sound really stupid!” or I think “they’re probably thinking youre mentally challenged right about now”. 

Today I realized that kind of thinking is completely and utterly worthless! I need to stop. And I am sure many of you who stutter need to stop it as well because its only feeding the monster and continuing the cycle of negative thoughts, obessing over our speech, and speaking with disfluencies. 

I also noticed something else over the past two days. Nobody thinks I am mentally challenged. Nobody bursts out laughing the minute I am disfluent. Nobody walks away while I am in mid-sentence because I stuttered. What is the worst that could happen?! I have built it up in my head that each time I stutter, the world is going to come crashing down around me…and that simply is not the case. 

Here is the decision I have come to: The worst thing that could happen is I have a moment of disflunecy, I may face a little shame or embarassment for it (which is something I am working to overcome), and then I will move on with what I am saying. The world will not end. People will not walk away. Nobody will start calling you names right then and there (unless theyre a middle school child or something of an extremely low emotional maturity). Nobody cares that I stutter. If anything, they are interested. They want to know more about it and they want to be helpful. 

Today, I had a complete change of thought process on the whole ordeal, and one that was extremely positive. I am very excited now about what is to come because I can only imagine how much this change in thinking will positively effect my speaking :) 

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for not keeping up with this blog. When I began it I was really excited about it and I sincerely believed I would be able to write on it regularly. It seems to be a talent of mine to take on more than I have enough time for in one day, and for that I apologize. But now I am graduating from college (finally, after taking time off) and I am diving head first into my speech work and to say that I am excited about it is an understatement. 

I do not want this blog to be all about me though. That isnt my focus here. Well, in a sense it is, because I am trying to document my stuttering. But not just for the sake of documenting myself. I am doing it because maybe, at some point, whether its in 6 months or 5 years from now, I can help someone. Even if its just one person, then I have achieved the goal I set out to achieve by starting this blog. 

Well, I still stutter. But I also have not been working on it at all. One thing I learned about myself- I have a lot of pride. Sometimes I wonder if I almost have too much pride and am too stubborn to work on it. Working on it, makes me feel like I have a problem, like theres something wrong with me. Feeling like theres something wrong with me, interferes with my pride and stubbornness, and upsets me, so I walk away. This is probably just me being me, and may not be the same with any other stutterer in the world…although Im sure many people can be stubborn and let their pride get the best of them :) 

I think I have learned over the past year and a half since I last posted on here, is that stuttering, at least for me, has SO much to do with my mindset. Even the smallest slip up on a sound, I start beating myself up. I would argue that I am not the only stutterer who does this. Its not like we particularly like being noticed for talking somewhat disfluently; nobody likes to be noticed for something that may not be socially acceptable. But that is why it is up to us to accept ourselves for whoever and whatever we are. Whether its stuttering or not, we need to learn to accept it, to some degree or another. I realize this is much easier said than done; nobody can accept something overnight that they most likely have been feeling negatively about for years. 

If anybody is even reading this anymore, I’d be interested to get people to comment on the bottom about how long they have stuttered, and in that time frame, how many of those years they’ve spent “beating themselves up” or viewing themselves negatively, whether its viewing themselves that way as a whole, or just their speech. I’d be interested to hear this because I would bet that many of us have spent more of our time stuttering thinking negatively about it rather than positively.

As they say for people who have problems with drugs or alcohol, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. Well, I do not think this applies to us. Let me explain. I think that stuttering is in part due to the fact that at some point, we started labeling ourselves. We started thinking, “I am not okay. There is something wrong with me”. And we mentally put ourselves in this tiny box, apart from the rest of the world, and on the outside of the box we wrote in big red permanent marker “I am different” and let the world see it. I am not saying we completely created this for ourselves, but we gave in to the label. And it is that label that I personally believe contributes to the “stuttering mindset”. 

Try to accept your stutter and see if it improves at all. Sometimes, I will literally tell myself, in my head of course, not outloud :), to just “stop it!”. I essentially yell at myself in my head to “stop it”- to stop beating myself up. To stop seeing myself as different. To stop all of the negative thoughts. Because they are so extremely counterproductive! And after I do that, I smile, first of all because nobody knows I just essentially yelled at myself in my head and I find that semi-amusing. But second of all, because it works. Once I do that, I am able to take a deep breath, calm down, lower my racing heartbeat, and continue speaking, but this time, fluently.

Maybe if we all can just “stop it”, we would be a little bit more fluent. Just a thought :)

Does anyone else do something similar to this? 

I will be posting on this regularly from now on. I am very excited about it. And I hope that someone, somewhere, even if its just one person, is reading this. And I hope I can someday, when ever that day may be, help somebody :)

Jen

Good Morning,

I don’t know how many people are even reading this blog since I only began it 2 days ago, but I’m wondering-

How many of you who stutter notice that your stutter is minimal (or your speech is more fluent) when you’re very busy in life? I know with me, when I have a ton going on between school, work, and just simply life, my stutter is almost non existant. When I get bored with things however, and I don’t have much to do during my day etc, my stutter gets a lot worse.

I’m sort of thinking this may be due to having more time to worry about how you sound since there is less on your mind. So maybe a big part of it is to only think about what you’re trying to say and not even give your mind the chance to bring in those “What if’s” and those fears related to how you may sound when you open your mouth.

I’d love to hear some feedback on this thought.

I’d also like to recommend a book written by Linda Rounds. You can purchase it online as an E-Book. It has been very helpful to me in overcoming my stuttering. http://www.desperatestutterer.com/

That’s all for now folks (haha who do I sound like?? Hint: He stutters too!)

Have an amazing day,

Jen

Hey Everyone,

Sorry if you’ve noticed my page has changed colors and formats about 70 times in the past day. I’ve been playing around with it in my spare time. This IS the format that will stay- I’ll just be changing around fonts/colors/etc. So please bare with me!

Have a nice night!

Jen

Why is it that we know that something like Shy Bladder Syndrome is essentially psychological??

The person with the disorder associates urinating in public with anxiety/fear.

They can probably urinate at home just fine. They can most likely urinate in an empty public restroom alone (I do not know this for fact- so if I am wrong please correct me). Although when people are around their bladder muslces contract and simply do not let any urine through.

Doesn’t stuttering sound like just about the same thing? We can usually talk just fine to people we are comfortable with. Reading aloud completely by ourselves feels great (because we’re fluent). There are many situations in fact where many of us DO NOT stutter. However, bring in someone that might judge you and watch out. Or if you are viewing yourself in a negitive light, you may even be judging yourself so to speak and adding to the fear that your stutter needs to survive.

My other thought is this- Humans are creatures of habit. I started thinking today that I probably sometimes stutter around people I am very comfortable around because it’s habit on those certain words or sound. I have almost trained my body to do it. I think the first step is taking care of the way we view the communication situation and the fear/anxiety we attribute to it and then the habit part will probably fade away on its own.

Okay, now I really am going to bed! Goodnight everyone and thank you so much for reading! :)

I decided to create a Facebook Group for the Neuro Semantics of Stuttering. I am already a part of a Yahoo group on it- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/

(thats how this whole idea to spread the word etc got started) and its really helped me. I figured, so many people use facebook that there should be a group on there as well.

I was already a part of a few stuttering groups so I posted a little message on the wall of each group saying, Hey check out this new facebook group and check out www.masteringstuttering.com, since its much more scientific and can explain the theory a lot better than I can.

Shortly after I recieved an email from a girl stating, “About that group, are you serious? That stuff isn’t true. Theres tons of research to prove your theory is false”. She even added a little smiley face at the end…and I’m sure you can guess just as well as I can, that smiley face was not meant to be a nice one. Some people!

I’m not too surprised; I know there are people who beliefs firmly rooted in SLP (Speech and Language Pathology). I have a few friends going to graduate school to become Speech and Language Pathologists. I guess the thing is, no one can really take it personal that one form of therapy seems to be working better than another. Thats like being upset that we walk forwards instead of backwards- theres no reason to mad over it and it’s a little senseless to get upset! 

I’m sorry that I don’t believe in SLP, but I have good reason not to- because it didn’t work for me. I have heard of people going to SLP for years and years (like 20 years or even more) and it doesnt work. When something doesn’t work over and over, isn’t that sort of like banging your head against a wall? Isn’t it time to try something new?

I’m not mad at the email I got. As I said, this theory is certainly NOT mainstream. I wish it was! But if it was mainstream, then I wouldn’t have such ambition to try and do what I want to do- yes, Get the word out :) I want to write self esteem based childrens books to stop the cycle of thinking “Im different theres something wrong with me” before it even starts. I want to do public speaking events to help spread the world. I plan to write a book about this stuff. I will also be getting my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. And I am pretty excited to start it all! :) If this stuff was mainstream, I would have nothing to start. So I guess it’s both a blessing and a curse.

I realize that there isnt much research supporting this but to me, its the only theory that makes sense and the only thing that has worked for me thus far. If it’s working and it makes sense, thats good enough for me. And that should be good enough for you too. If you stutter, you have the option to try anything and everything to get rid of it…or.. you have the option to keep on living a life that is harder than it should be. Sorry, but according to me, the choice there is a no brainer. I choose life. :)

Have you ever watched a movie and one of the characters stutters? Everyone laughs, maybe says a few names (Ever heard of stuttering stanley?), and soon, they forget about it.

Have you ever actually thought that these specific movie characters could portray the lives of real people? Its true. I am one of the millions of people who stutter. It is sort of funny to me how many misconceptions there are about stuttering. No, I am not mentally retarded. No, I do not have a hearing problem. No, I am not nervous. Yes, I DO know what I want to say. Imagine knowing exactly what you want to say and it wont come out. Your heart begins to pound, you may get all sweaty and even feel a little sick. The air feels like it has been sucked out of your lungs. While all these symptoms sound a LOT like a panic attack (and they very well might be), this is what happens when someone stutters on a word.

Just to clarify, this is what happens when many people block on a word (as in the word simply gets stuck so to speak). This may not happen with ALL people who stutter; but again, this is my blog, and I am writing things from my perspective.

I began stuttering at age 7- the summer between 1st and 2nd grade I noticed I was beginning to randomly have days where I wasnt talking exactly the way I was supposed to. I would have a day here and a day there of “dis-fluency” or stuttering. Of course, this made me think there was something wrong with me. This made me feel different.. I became afraid of what ever was happening to me.

In first grade, I was a VERY outgoing energetic 6 year old. I would raise my hand randomly and announce to the class things like, “just to let everyone know, dont drink orange juice after brushing your teeth; its gross!”, or announcements such as, “we got a new goldfish! I named him Goldy”. To say I was outgoing is almost an understatement. I made friends with the entire class (and anyone in the hallway I most likely ambushed to say hello) and made sure everyone in the room knew I was there. I guess you could say I had spunk and loved to talk.

When second grade rolled around the school saw a shy, quiet, scared little girl. I simply refused to talk. I was terrified at whatever had begun happening during the summer. This weird stuttering thing had decided to stick around. The more afraid of it I was, the worse it got. The worse it got, the more mute I became. It got to the point where if I was called on, I pretended I didn’t hear. I pretended I wasn’t there. All I wanted to do was disappear.

Fast forward 11 years. I was 19 and in my sophomore year of college. I had been thinking for years and years why I stutter. I had noticed I only stutter in certain situations. I could read aloud to myself without stuttering once. I could talk to animals and small children without stuttering at all. When I was really angry, I could yell just fine until the sun came up without stuttering. I began to notice whenever I was emotionally invested in whatever I was saying, my speech was perfectly normal. (just a side note- I hate using the word normal. I believe there is no such thing as normal. “normal” is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll use average from now on). I had started to notice that if I was intimidated by someone, I stuttered more. I noticed if I was speaking to someone who had judged me in the past, I stuttered more. I noticed I had a huge fear of being judged and many times when I would open my mouth to talk, my brain was racing with thoughts like, “what if they judge me” “will they think I’m mentally retarded?” “what if I cant say my name right”..all of these “what if’s” consumed me.

This is when I began to realize: Stuttering has absolutly NOTHING to do with my speech. If it did, I would stutter in all situations and I would probably stutter on the same sounds/words/etc. I started to focus on my intense fears that would pop up out of no where when I knew I had to talk. These fears werent always there; it depended on who I was talking to; it depended on how comfortable I was in the given situation.

I tried to tell an on campus speech pathologist that stuttering was a fear of judgement. That it was psychological. Of course, they reassured me the problem involved the muscles in my throat and in fact did revolve around my speech mechanisms. They decided sitting me in a room and reading outloud slowly would help me “learn to control” my stutter. After many times of doing this (and each time, me getting more and more comfortable with the girl I was reading to) I was not stuttering. I had gotten comfortable. The fear of judgement was gone.

I realized they were never going to listen to me. It’s been 3 years since that incident and I have found a lot of research that supports Neuro Semantics of Stuttering. This is the belief I had all along- Stuttering is psychological.

I am starting this blog to help Get the word out (like my title) about stuttering. To help other people who stutter realize they ARE normal. They COULD talk just fine if they really work at changing the way they see themselves and the world. I want people to realize that stuttering does NOT involve our speech mechanisms inside of us, that stuttering does NOT mean you are mentally disabled, that stuttering is NOT a nervous habit, and that just because someone may stutter it does NOT mean they dont know what they want to say. They probably do and they are probably really really frusterated that those words won’t seem to just come out of their mouth.

I hope you will learn something from this blog. Maybe you’ll even go out there and Get the word out too :)