Seizing What Could Be
In January, the wonderful speech-language pathologist Ana Paula Mumy and I launched the first two iterations of the Every Waking Moment Book Club. We had one three-session club tailored to school-based SLPs, and another for clinical SLPs, with both eligible for continuing education credit. Each of the three two-hour sessions were based on the three parts in
“Hi, I’m looking for D…D…D…David.” “Excuse me, sir. Who did you say?” “D…Da..Da…David, please.” I was at the car dealership yesterday to buy out my lease. I didn’t hesitate when I stepped up to the receptionist to ask for David, the car salesman I was there to meet. I walked through the door and asked,
I take it for granted. I have no shame anymore. I can walk into every situation and disclose that I stutter without regard for the response. I’m not arrogant. I’m honoring the journey that it took to get here. Self-disclosure is not unique to stuttering but an invaluable skill that we must learn to attain social competency.
The ease of stuttering in front of new people is unsettling, as if it was more comfortable to do so with the expectation of someone laughing. It no longer feels like anyone will laugh or negatively react, and I don’t anticipate or expect it either. The unsettling nature comes from bracing for its impact for
Perhaps I have not read enough of the available academic research done on stuttering to date, or that which I have read has not been as accessible as Knowledge Without Action Means Nothing: Stakeholder Insights on the Behaviors that Constitute Positive Change for Adults Who Stutter conducted by Dr. Naomi Rodgers and Dr. Hope Gerlach-Houck. As I
The urgency to live life to its fullest, to do the most that we can with the time that we’re lucky enough to receive, seems more urgent to someone like myself who lives with stuttering. This is the case because as superb writer at The Atlantic John Hendrickson proclaims we who stutter live our lives on delay until we
The Well Each day takes its fillSome moreSome lessOthers, too much. Each cup starts fullThen goes down the bottomless hatchQuenchinglife and progress. When we go back to the WellTime in time againWhat remains lessensAbsorbing without refilling. The Well knowsBut the bucket doesn’t— The bucket receives less and less,The drinker only droplets until nothing. Leave the
“Paper or plastic, sir?” asked the cashier, a middle-aged woman with a friendly face. I stumble a bit, struggling for a few seconds on plastic. It was just enough for me to get a smirk, a thought the woman had about why it took me so long to answer such a simple question. I could’ve
We who stutter need more speech-language pathologists with the courage and blunt honesty like what SpeechIRL demonstrated in their new article, “Just Stop with the Damn Disfluency Counts.” The pseudo-anonymous, united approach of this call-to-arms by SpeechIRL is commendable, and perhaps a foundation for a wider proactive movement—not just a discussion—to confront this aged-out stutter-counting practice. And that is how
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
Every Waking Moment 