[ Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Pamela Mertz
Date: 12 Oct 2012
Time: 08:55:47 -0500
Remote Name: 67.248.49.228
Hi Justine - wow, your thoughtful and honest reply was just great. Thank you for sharing so much. My stuttering was just one of a few things that made my life miserable as a teen - I was overweight, very self conscious (of everything) and too had really bad acne. I tried to make myself invisible. I didn't want to be seen or heard by anybody. I tried the make-up thing, but it didn't really work. I always made it worse. I went to an all girls high school, Catholic, so we weren't supposed to wear make up, but all the girls did. I never thought I could compete. To this day, I am self conscious of my acne scars, and I still get break outs, which drive me nuts. But I have become a bit more accepting of the total package of me - warts and all. I am still overweight, with bad skin and I stutter. What's different at this stage of my life is that I don't try to HIDE anymore and that is the most liberating thing. The world will accept us for who we are if we courageously show our true self. What I've found is that most people respect that I put myself out there. I think they secretly wish they could too. I only had therapy as a child for 6 months when I was in 3rd grade. It didn't help, or didn't seem significant, because I can't really remember anything except I liked her name (same as mine!) I had therapy again 3 years ago as adult. I wrote a paper for ISAD 2009 about that experience and some of the things I learned that I feel are important for students to know. Here is the link - http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad12/papers/mertz122.html Again, thanks so much for the honesty. That takes guts, and I admire that. I'd be interested in your feedback on the older paper, about what I learned in therapy as an adult. You can also see my previous reply to Kelly, where I alluded to some thoughts I have about what student SLPs might want to focus on. ~Pam