Why Me?

The following is Chapter 1 from the book Do You Stutter: A Guide for Teens.

 

 

If you stutter, you have probably asked yourself thousands of times, why me?

 

All kinds of people stutter, prominent authors, actors, TV personalities, professional athletes, scholars, businessmen, even kings. Most, however, are just ordinary folks who are trying to get through school, or earn a living, or raise a family, or just be happy. Folks like you and me. At one time or another everyone in the world feels stupid, weak, worthless, ashamed, resentful, angry, fearful, or a little weird. If you stutter, however, it’s tempting to believe that you feel this way because of stuttering. How about you? How do you feel about stuttering? How do you feel about yourself?

 

There is always some pain, some unhappiness in everyone’s life. Some have more, some less. It’s just a matter of degree. What does make a difference is what we do about what we don’t like. What about you? Do you avoid calling people on the phone? Do you substitute “easy” words for “hard” ones? Do you wind up feeling angry or frustrated trying to talk about something that’s important? Do you keep quiet around strangers? Do you stay on the fringes at parties? Do you sometimes feel hopeless about improving your speech? You are not alone in these feelings, and this advice is written for you. You may not find all of the answers you are looking for, but you can gain a much better understanding of your stuttering and how to go about improving yourself by the time you finish.

  

 

Most people try to hide things about themselves that they don’t like. That’s why millions of dollars worth of hair coloring, hair pieces, elevator shoes, make up, padded bras and the like are sold each year in this country. Sometimes, though, trying to hide makes things worse. It can even create worse problems than those you were trying to hide. If you find yourself avoiding speaking, or even avoiding participating in some activities, your world is revolving around stuttering. You are also acquiring some very costly lessons about stuttering and about hiding.

 

Fear almost always increases as a dreaded event gets closer and closer. Now, no one likes to feel scared, and all of us try to get rid of such feelings as quickly as possible. That’s not always good, though. Because once we decide to avoid something because we might stutter, the relief that we feel “teaches” us to avoid similar situations in the future. In time, we usually find ourselves feeling increasingly scared about more and more situations. Do you spend a lot of time and energy worrying, plotting and planning how to keep from stuttering but little attention to changing when and how you speak? Does your world seem to be shrinking?

 

Avoiding speaking and avoiding stuttering are simply ways to hide. There are many others. Some try to camouflage anticipated difficulties by substituting words. Others say “uh” or “you know” to help get started or to postpone an anticipated block. Still others hold their breath, tense their jaw or blink their eyes to “help get the word out.” Are any of these “tricks” familiar to you? Does stuttering seem like some sort of enemy, hiding inside, that you struggle and fight with on a daily basis? Is any of this really helping your speech? Are you feeling discouraged because previous efforts to improve your speech have failed? Are you afraid to give it another shot—afraid you will wind up feeling like a failure again? Read on.

 

Most of us try to avoid things that we dislike, and for those who stutter, that frequently means avoiding those situations or circumstances in which we are afraid that we will be embarrassed by stuttering. For example, do you often let others answer the phone even if you are closer? Do you sometimes order what you think you can say on a restaurant menu rather than what you want? Do you ever let teachers assume that you don’t know an answer instead of responding in class? Do you wander around stores looking for what you want rather than asking where to find it? Do you find yourself agreeing with others because it might be difficult to express your disagreement? Is it your stuttering or the way people react that you hate most? Are you afraid just to be yourself? What, exactly, are you hiding from?

 

 

What you think affects what you do and how you feel. If you are like most folks who stutter, your stuttering comes and goes. You have good days and bad days. Sometimes you speak with scarcely any difficulty. At other times you could just die from the frustration and humiliation of stuttering. It’s not unusual to hear guys who stutter say such things as:

 

• If I felt more secure, I wouldn’t stutter.

• I just panic when that happens and my speech goes to pot.

• I stutter because I lack self-confidence.

 

All of this suggests that the way we feel dictates the way we speak. What do you tell yourself when you stutter? Have you ever thought that you must be stupid, or weak, or nervous, or whatever, because you stutter? Do such thoughts have anything to do with how you feel…with how you talk?

 

Listeners can be blamed for stuttering, too. For example, have you ever thought:

 

• I just can’t keep from stuttering in front of strangers.

• Teachers blow my speech away.

• He seemed so busy and impatient that I just blocked.

 

These kinds of thoughts probably reflect, at least at first, feelings of helplessness that occur when we fail to achieve some goal we have. They are common to all of us, and in time, come to be believed. If you believe that you will fail if you try to walk a log across a creek, how does that affect the likelihood of your getting your feet wet if you try it? If you believe that you are going to stutter, how does that affect the way you speak? Does believing that your name is hard to say make it easier or harder to say? Harder, of course! Does believing that you are just having a bad day make it easier or harder to work on your speech? Do you have any self-defeating beliefs that you can not change your speech?  Are you ready to get down to the nitty-gritty, the dirty work of changing? If so, you’ve come to the right book!

  

 

Many people who stutter spend a lot of time trying to find out why they stutter. They believe that if they can get an answer to this question, they will be cured. Such beliefs, unfortunately, are not true and encourage people to focus on the past. Are you still spending a lot of time trying to find out why you stutter? Maybe it’s time for you to start working on what you can change.

 

You already know the bad news—there’s no known cure for stuttering. The good news is—you can change what you do. Feelings change when what we do changes. Our beliefs about ourselves change when our actions change. Sure, some changes are easy and some are not so easy. In fact, some changes may seem impossible at first.

 

Perhaps this is how you feel now about your stuttering. Maybe you are down on your speech because previous efforts to improve were ineffective or short-lived. Maybe you even seemed to be “cured” for awhile until your speech relapsed. You would be crazy not to have doubts! It’s one thing to talk, to hope for changes, but making those changes is not easy.

 

Talking is something you do. If you stutter when you talk, stuttering is something you do, too. With lots of work and effort on your part, and perhaps someone to help, you can stop avoiding those situations in which you fear you will stutter. You can stop trying to camouflage your stuttering. You can change how you talk. You can actually begin to free yourself from stuttering.

 

But let’s be clear on what that means. Almost always, recovery is a long, gradual process. There is no short cut, no easy way. You have to accept small steps in improvement. Substantial, lasting changes occur only over a long period of time.

 

Unhappily, periodic relapses can occur, too. But even they can be overcome depending on how you respond. In the long run, however, you can stutter less, speak more comfortably and be less unhappy if you take charge of improving yourself. 

 

Is this an acceptable goal for you? Are you ready to assume responsibility for what you do? Is this the right time for you to take charge of how you talk?

 

Learning how to take charge of your life is part of growing up, an important part. But there is more to growing up than getting older, and there is more to taking charge than deciding what to do. You have to do what you decide.

 

Now, there is every reason for you to doubt that it is possible to change something that seems so unchangeable at times. You may not even want to try to work on your stuttering right now. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. There can be many things in your life that are much more important than how fluently or disfluently you speak. If your stuttering is not bothering you now, there is no reason for you to go through the motions of changing it.

 

Half-hearted efforts are doomed to fail, and trying to change just to please others has little chance of success. When you decide to work on your stuttering, it should be because you have made a commitment to yourself to change. It is something you have to do for yourself.

 

If you decide to read further, you will find out a lot more about stuttering and how you can go about getting help. This is the kind of book that has sections that you will probably want to reread several times. It may also raise some questions in your mind that you will want to think about for awhile. Perhaps you may even want to discuss some of them with a close friend or someone you trust, someone whose opinions you value.

 

Regardless of what you decide to do now, you should remember that many other folks out there are facing or have faced similar problems. Many probably had similar doubts and fears—and some of the hopes and dreams that you have, too. Not only are you not alone, there is understanding and assistance available to you. Well, that’s it. No more questions. No more sermonizing. What you do next is up to you.