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From: Pablo Ibanez (Spain)
Date: 10/11/03
Time: 4:12:21 AM
Remote Name: 62.36.20.199
Hi Alan.
I am Pablo, from Spain. I have read your great article "Expanding Comfort Zones" on the ISAD 2003 Online Conference. I liked it very much. You say something that I belive in: gaining fluency as a BY-PRODUCT of a social/personal process of growth.
I have one question for you. In another great article by W. Starkweather on the same ISAD (STUTTERING AS A VARIANT OF POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER WHAT WE CAN LEARN) it is said: "...the stutterer begins to be free of the burden of fear, avoidance becomes less likely, struggle diminishes, and the stuttering itself diminishes, first in duration and then in frequency." Was it your experience? Your stuttering blocks diminished first in duration and then in frequency?
The reason why I ask you this is because I am now enrrolled in some kind of process of expanding comfort zones. I am now phoning everywhere, talking like a mad man to everyone, making public presentations about stuttering, working hard in the Spanish Stuttering Foundation, in a self-help group... Things I never thought I could even imaging two years ago. Sometimes I feel fearfull, specially in public presentations and phone callings (not yet comfort zones), but now I have the motivation to do them anyway.
So... my stuttering blocks are more or less the same as before in frecuency but they are lessen in duration. I used to have blocks of 5 secs or even more, and now this is rare. This is very encouraging for me.
Was it your experience? Could it be a law in stuttering recovery? If so, is there any explanation?
Pablo.