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From: Tom M.
Date: 12 Oct 2009
Time: 17:40:47 -0500
Remote Name: 98.210.176.194
This article dovetails into something I've been thinking a lot about recently. As a stutterer, I find that my nervous system simply doesn't do well under great amounts of stress of any kind. If I'm tired, rushed, or in almost any way pushing myself hard, I tend to have more instances of freezing up in my speech and in life in general. All my life my first response to stress has been to pull away, to metaphorically and sometimes literally go to sleep. In this way I seem to be different from many men, who thrive on stress and pressure; it awakens them and brings them into peak functioning. But for me I get overwhelmed and shut down. In thinking about why I'm different from other men in this way, I keep coming back to my stutter: I've learned that if I push through stress I stutter and freeze up, but if I take a pause I can often let the stress fade away and get back going again. For me by far the most useful tool in my fluency technique arsenal is the pause; I usually pause until I have a sensation that my vocal airway has opened up after having closed. I can pause for less than a second or 10 or more seconds depending on my level of stress. I'm very curious to hear if you or anyone know of any research about whether other stutterers are like myself in terms of closing down under stress rather than being motivated and opened by it. On your stuttertalk program (great stuff BTW) I learned that Jack Welch, CEO of GE is a stutterer, which surprised me as I would think being CEO of GE would almost require being the kind of person who gets enlivened and motivated by stress.