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