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From: Anita
Date: 07 Oct 2007
Time: 15:16:07 -0500
Remote Name: 81.233.61.122
You're so right, Cristina. We're not so different from others and our experiences, thoughts and fears are not ours only. Would I take back all those years and become fluent? Hard question. If you would have asked me 10-20-30 years earlier, I would have shouted YES!!! Today, I would say, maybe, depends on what I would get instead. See, not everything is to blame on my stutter. Maybe I wouldn't have friends anyway. Maybe I would have talked people's ears off and became an obnoxious person, knowing everything better. I might have got another job, but would I have been happier? Yes, I had a shitty youth, but I don't know what I would have got instead if I hadn't stuttered. But if I had stuttered, knowing then what I knew now, I wouldn't have hidden my stutter. No way. My parents taught me to stand for my beliefs, to set my goals high and to be proud of what I do. So if they, and I, only understood more about stuttering, if I wasn't forced to hide it, yes, I would replay my youth. In which way that would have changed the outcome, we'll never know... About being a stuttering teacher: I do think that my students have more faith in me as a person. That shows by the way they interact, tell me their problems both concerning learning problems, but they also come to me with personal problems. This increases the more I tell them about my life. But some students, expecially the younger once, don't have the same faith and trust in my abilities as a stuttering teacher and, remember, I don't have a degree. Some of my students tried me, have made me feel inferior the first moments, but also filled me up with new energy to show them that I know more than they do and I have more life experience than they have, and we always wind up with mutual respect and a good laugh when they graduate and we bring up old memories. :-) Thanks for these interesting questions. Keep talking. Anita