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From: Cathy Olish
Date: 07 Oct 2009
Time: 19:33:30 -0500
Remote Name: 68.61.237.97
Thanks for the great compliments Jodie! To answer your questions, my mother and brother knew I stuttered as a kid but it wasn't discussed much. I did go to speech therapy as a kid but stopped going once I hit junior high because I was too embarassed to be pulled out of class for it. That is when I began to hide my stutter. My speech was not really discussed in my home and to this day, I have never talked to my mom about it. I still hide with her so maybe she thinks it is gone, but as of lately, I have stuttered a bit around her when I am telling her somethign and just don't want to change my words. She did receive a pamphlet from our local group one time and asked about it but I just didn't answer. She has met many of my friends who stutter but I still have not told her how I met them or talked about my stuttering. It is so hard after not talking about it for so long. I know she will accept me but it's like talking about the elephant in the room. Maybe one day. My brother, however, is one who Googled me and found out about my involvement with the stuttering community. I didn't talk to him for weeks and finally sent him a long note about it and like most men :-) he wrote back a brief note. He still teases me once in awhile, which is actually okay because that's what brothers do, but he used to tease me a lot more of which I would ignore or say something back! LOL It is nice, however, that now I can tell him where I am going when I go to NSA events and not have to lie to him. Do I stutter more in front of him? Not really, but if it happens, I don't feel as embarassed anymore. I have had situations where it has backfired on me - telling someone my name was something else and I lived in a different city and when I ran across them again with friends, it was hard to explain that one! There were other small incidents but I think this is a good example of what could happen when changing words! Thanks for the good questions!