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From: Grant Meredith
Date: 10 Oct 2010
Time: 23:21:38 -0500
Remote Name: 141.132.193.37
Hello Jessa. Yes identifying and self-labelling is certainly a personal choice of how we perceive ourselves and think that others perceive us. It is really hard to many people, including those who stutter to envisage themselves as being disabled. Society and media have shaped certain norms about how disabled people should be and in many cases these norms are not positive. Again the impact of applying “disability” to oneself would be a very personal story. I often struggle with it myself but looking at it by pure definition I know that I can apply to it at some points in my life. I also know that I am not alone with the rest of society fitting under it also in some stage(s) of their lives. Some of us spend a lot of our lives hiding in some form and not wanting to be seen or heard as being different yet we are further differentiating ourselves by rejecting the label. I doubt that stuttering can be taken seriously unless we start to take it seriously ourselves.