Hello all! Happy New Year - 2014!
I have been doing some reflection these past few days - since the beginning of this new year and have come upon some troubling, but transformational new thoughts.
I was involved in a public list-serv for people who stutter across the world when I was age 16-18, in the early days of my stuttering - exactly when I realized I was a person who stutters. On this forum, I met some of the most amazing, honest, insightful, supportive people. They truly got me started on my path to recovery from stuttering. Many people wrote e-articles and testimonials often using the metaphor "stuttering is a monster" or "stuttering is a beast/dragon" and other similar metaphors to define what stuttering meant to them. I agreed with this mindset and still do. I also learned from the forum and articles that, or at least I began to form this belief from the readings, that - STUTTERING does not and should not ever control me. Stuttering does not control me. I can control the stuttering. Stuttering does not hold me back if I do not let it. I can have power over the stuttering. I also learned that stuttering does not define me and it is just a small part of who I am. Well, today, I now believe that STUTTERING does control me, not the other way around. More accurately stated, stuttering controls my speech, my speech patterns, my speech flow, the flow of my speech, and also a part of me called my emotions.
Let's get this right...
Old Belief - Stuttering does not control me.
New Belief - Stuttering does indeed control me and my speech.
Wow...this is scary. I do not want this to be true and I do not want to accept it. I have believed for the last nine years that stuttering cannot and will not control me. But, through a series of bad speech days over the last several months resulting in self-hate, confusion, frustration, anger, denial, and self-criticism, and many tears, I realized I cannot fight anymore. I realized that these emotions are the result of the Old Belief and that now, stuttering DOES in fact control me and my speech.
How and Why might you ask?
Because it is generally accepted among the literature and stuttering experts that stuttering is a multifaceted disorder dependent upon a constitutional mix of physiologic, neurologic and genetic components/factors. So, because my stuttering is largely a result of and based on physiological, neurological and genetic (yes, it runs in my family) factors, I have no control of stuttering. I cannot physically go into my brain and rewire the neurocircuitry. I cannot undo the crossed neurons. I cannot correct the deeply engrained, faulty neuropathways. Neuropathways that were imbedded through years of maladaptive learned habits due to years of dysfluent speech and the negative emotions and thoughts that followed. I cannot reset the timing of my cerebellum, basal ganglia and other motor-speech mechanisms in my brain that control the flow of my speech. I cannot make new the mutated stuttering chromosomes found in my DNA strands - the most recent scientific discovery (see story on cnn.com, 2010). If I cannot physically fix, correct or change these neurological structures or genetic chromosomes, how can I have control?
Stuttering is unpredictable. Tomorrow is unpredictable. The next story I tell is unpredictable. The flow of my speech is unpredictable. I have absolutely no telling or foresight or clue into whether I will be fluent or dysfluent on the next sentence, story or speech I tell. Stuttering controls me, it controls my speech.
What can I control then? Surely I can control something, right? - yes, indeed
But first, I need to tell you that I cannot control my emotional responses or feelings that come from a positive or negative stuttering moment. Emotions come and go quickly. They are transient, impermanent, and unpredictable. Thus, while I CAN control my actions in response to that emotion, I cannot control the emotion that comes washing over me immediately following a positive or negative stuttering moment. Thus, it should follow that if stuttering controls my speech, and the speech controls my emotions, and my emotions are a part of ME, then, it logically follows that stuttering controls ME (the me that are those emotions attached to the stuttering that make up me - a part of me).
But, I CAN control how I respond to the reactions from others. I can control my decision to use or not use a technique. I can control how I will execute that technique. But, I cannot control the outcome of the technique. I can also control the conscious beliefs I form and hold to be true about my communication style, about other people and their reactions, and about what stuttering means to me. I can also, of course, control the thoughts I want to have about my stuttering - which are the basis for the following emotions and beliefs I will then have based on that thought.
Stuttering will always control my speech and it will always control a part of me. What is ME, then? What part of ME does stuttering control? ..... The emotional response to stuttering. Because I am made up of a mix of emotions, and stuttering causes a quick change in my emotion (positive or negative), then, again, logically, it follows that stuttering controls the part of ME called my emotions.
The New Belief is hard to accept. I do not want to accept it. I am starting on a very new journey of what stuttering means to me. I feel my whole paradigm/belief system around what stuttering means to me has flipped. The Old Belief I held onto so ferociously to for nine years. And in those nine years of self-discovery, acceptance, self-awareness, and feelings of confidence and accomplishment which came from advertisting and educating others on what stuttering means to me and what it should mean to others, ... well, it's a hard pill to swallow if now I am changing my belief. Did I mislead people? I feel I have misled myself. I did mislead myself.
However, even in those nine years, I was also speaking passionately on commonly-accepted notions that many people who stutter hold to be true. I have believed that stuttering does not define you; it does not categorize you into a little box of just a stutterer; it is only a small part of who you are; it is something you DO and not something you ARE. So, there's much more to be said of stuttering that I can say the majority of the stuttering community believes to be true for themselves and which has led them to a new level of self-acceptance, self-love and recovery. I have seen the changes and heard their inspiring testimonials.
But, change is still hard. It's scary. It hurts. It makes me feel uncertain and frankly, kinda stupid, that I believed this all along. But, no one is perfect, we are always learning, growing, and changing. I take this is a time of change ... in regards to what stuttering means to me. A transition. A new phase. A rebirth. And, what's even a little more scary is that... maybe I'm wrong even now... maybe I don't have it right. But, who does? Does anyone hold that perfect, flawless, correct meaning of stuttering? Maybe what stuttering means to one person is just what stuttering means to them; and that belief is just as valid as the next person's belief. And, just maybe I will learn something new and flip this paradigm back to the Old Belief in a few months, next year, or five years down the road. But, that's what living and growing is about, right? You need to be wrong sometimes in order to grow.
Stuttering does control my speech and a part of me ... what a ridiculous, but true thing. So, what does stuttering mean to you? What or who holds the control? Do you use the word control? If you do, how do you use it?
-Christine
