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From: Pamela Mertz
Date: 18 Oct 2012
Time: 07:24:53 -0500
Remote Name: 67.248.49.228
Dale - great paper. Courageous of you to share your deep personal memories. My own memories of stuttering are hazy - I can't recall my first moment of stuttering, but I can recall reactions. My father screaming at me to "shut up," "we don't talk like that," "can it, girl," and the like. I can remember how red his face got when he yelled at me, and a vein in his forehead that always looked on the verge of popping. But I don't remember what the stuttering actually felt like. I can remember being yelled at by a kindergarten teacher as well - similar comments, "stop that," "we don't talk like that here is school." These early messages of criticism and negative reactions by influential people in my life drove me to try and hide my stuttering. As a child, the only way I could figure to do that was to not talk. I was told I didn't start stuttering until 5, after about 3 years of normal fluency. I was talking and reading aloud early, before 3. My stuttering today as an adult is more overt, as I don't hide it (as much) any more. I have always wondered if early trauma may have been a factor in my stuttering onset, even though trauma is not a research based "cause." Both of my parents were alcoholics, they had 5 of us a year apart, and both were abusive, my mother physically and emotionally, my father same as well as sexually. Have you any thoughts of trauma being linked to stuttering onset? ~Pam