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From: Pam
Date: 17 Oct 2009
Time: 23:53:06 -0500
Remote Name: 67.248.58.128
Mia, my first experience with VS was at my first NSA conference in Long Beach, CA in 2006. I had just got fired from my job, was feeling very vulnerable and in need of confronting my stuttering and getting support. Living in NY, going to this conference, across country was so scary. One of the workshops was on advertising. We were taken out in small groups and told to voluntary stutter to strangers ont he street and ask them questions. It was the scariest thing I had EVER done, but liberating too, becasue I knew I would never see these people again. I did not do VS again until well over a year later, when a SLP (and now very good friend) encouraged me to try it again. It sounded so crazy, stutering purposely, who would want to, but it gives me control. So it was at a self-helpworkshop that I got my first taste of VS, and then a year later, with a SLP friend, who never was my clinician but just a friend helping me to explore hard stuff and take risks. The student clinicians have had various reactions - but have always been willing to try it and "feel" what it feels like. My next "goal" is to try and do some voluntary blocking, so I can try to desensitize myself a little further with this. The blocks are the mist uncomortable part of my stutter.