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From: Ken
Date: 03 Oct 2011
Time: 14:53:51 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.31
Dear Michael, You ask a number of tough (but important) questions about living with a stutter. Yes, it probably would not matter much in the the daily life of an adult like you (I assume) who stutters if a hot shot researcher had just identified 75 different genetic defects that could lead to stuttering. Your quality of life would not likely change very much. What would affect your quality of life would be the amount and kind of stuttering you do and what you and those around you think, say, and do about it. I'm just guessing here, but I have a sense that you have reached a point in your life where you are not searching quite so much for fluency as you may have in the past. But it still would be nice to not be burdened so much by the stuttering you do have. Maybe you have grown used to the burden, but you still regard it as a burden. And, maybe, if your comment about not wanting to have a child who stutters is from the gut, I'm guessing that you still are a ways from completely accepting stuttering. Or maybe the memories are painful, and you don't want your child to go through what you have been through. I would completely agree with Ken Logan's answer about the effect of stuttering on dating and marriage. The same rules don't apply equally to everyone. I might add that, especially since, therapy has helped you in the past, it might be good to continue or take another shot at GOOD THERAPY. Finishing the job might be just what you need. Whether or not you reach 0% syllables stuttered or nothing checked on a self-appraisal questionnaire, I'm again guessing that you could get to the point where you don't think or concern yourself much about stuttering. It could reach the point that you might decide that disclosing that you stutter, say at a reception of VIPs, would be a useful thing to do for yourself. But at another similar event, you might decide to just go ahead and speak fluently or stutter, whichever one happens, with no explanation at all. Maybe your stuttering could become as important as dandelions in my lawn are to me...I don't care. Sure, I admire a lawn that is as finished as a golf green, but it's not worth it to me to strive for that in my own lawn. For what it's worth, there is a lot of research going on that deals with quality of life of people who stutter. It is also probably true that females who do not recover from stuttering on their own have more genetic influence for stuttering than males. Stutter on... Ken