[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Pamela Mertz
Date: 07 Oct 2008
Time: 10:44:05 -0500
Remote Name: 163.153.6.145
Hi Judy, I am not one of the expert professors, but felt I could add a piece here, in response to this great insight. I have had a somewhat similiar experience, not with my increased fluency, but with my increased openess talking about my stuttering. For years, I was covert, in many senses. I hardly talked, never initiated conversations, rarely interacted socially, etc. My partner knew all that and became used to how I was, and had a certain amount of "control" in our relationship. After coming out of the closet, and having remarkable change occur in my life - like attending self-meetings, joining Toastmasters, doing radio and tv interviews - he doesn't know what to make of all this. He can hardly keep up with me, and is somewhat shell-shocked. I am very cognizant of the dynamics in our relationship changing, and am careful to include/invite him to participate fully with me. He doesn't - and its hard for him to adjust to the "new me" if you will. // So, I can definitley relate. He is maybe mourning the loss of the me that he was used to for almost 20 years, and is trying to get to know this different side of me. And as a side note, my fluency has not really improved - if anything, I am allowing myself to stutter more openly and more comfortably, which helps me tremendously. Pam