When I pull back the aperture from the grind of my journey towards change, I see clearly the catalysts that propelled me forward. The catalysts were the people who came and went or remain in my life that left an indelible mark. If you have been following along as I’ve deconstructed my journey through stuttering
Category: Stuttering
Stuttering, to me, is a behavior of inaction and avoidance, rather than a stigma-laden disorder of speech. I fought for years against the inner life of stuttering and its side effects without a reprieve. I never won. Until I did. After many years failing to become fluent, I fatefully found a different approach that had been missing
There is a difference between feeling and being alone. Both are equally hard to endure but knowing the difference was life-changing. There are 70 million people worldwide who stutter yet growing up I felt like the only one. Stuttering was socially isolating because it denied my use of verbal communication to foster connection with others. When
Surfacing emotions that we never knew were holding us back is a disruptive experience. It is much easier to numb ourselves to them, and when we do, it becomes impossible to understand their influence on our lives. Fear and shame were mine. I lived in fear of anyone hearing or seeing my stutter, and I
Growing up with a stutter was lonely and isolating. I lost my formative years to an unbearable social anxiety that denied me the opportunity to learn how to interact with others. I had friends. I played teams sports. I passed as socially fluent. I graduated college. And, I got my dream job. Yet, no one
It was sink or swim, and storytelling was how I learned to swim. Dating sat atop my fear hierarchy like it does for many, but more so for me because of my stutter. Success at dating goes no further than first impressions, and in the age of swiping left or right—though before then as well—that means
Habit building is a process and a skill that takes refining, trial and failure, and iteration. Every action that we pursue can be broken down into its smallest parts and made easier to do or become automatic. It is one part awareness of the parts or steps in the process, and another figuring out what
Whenever life is too much to endure, I fall forward into what’s familiar to weather the chaos. I do the things that I enjoy doing until some order returns no matter how long it lasts. What’s familiar allows me to think less about whatever it is that I’m enduring and more about simply making it through. All I
At thirteen-years old, I attended a month long intensive fluency clinic to fix my severe stutter. If I didn’t do well, I would stutter forever. I didn’t do well. Fast forward eighteen years to a moment when I was answering questions as part of a talk I gave at the National Stuttering Association’s (NSA) annual conference. “Why do most people who
Living on guard is exhausting. It consumed all of my energy to be that watchful for so many years, yet I had no other choice. I passed through life avoiding social interactions with the hope that no one would talk in my direction. I missed opportunities, friendships, jobs, and all of the everyday connections in between.
Every Waking Moment 