[ Contents ]
From: Derek E. Daniels
Date: 10/19/03
Time: 2:55:35 PM
Remote Name: 64.12.96.9
Dr. Dartnall,
Thanks for the wonderful essay! You raise some very important issues and questions for all of us to think about. If I had to describe two major themes in my life, they would be 1) invisibility and 2) passing. I have always felt invisible and I have always had to pass – in various aspects of my life from childhood up to the present. One particular example, related to stuttering, is when I had to give an answer in my seventh grade math class. The answer was “77”. I repeated and prolonged the initial “s” for about 10 seconds. Everyone in the class, included my math teacher, looked at me, puzzled and concerned. Hot and sweaty, I explained that I sometimes stuttered. My math teacher then playfully said, “Well don’t.” That was an extremely uncomfortable moment: I had finally let the cat out of the bag and exposed myself as a stutterer. In this particular class, I had passed for so long that, when my techniques finally failed, I fell down hard with no cushion. I had worn a mask for so long that no one really knew what I looked like – not even me.
I think people who stutter, particularly “covert stutterers”, do not have a clear reference point. Are we comparing ourselves to people who are fluent, or people who stutter? Are we people who are fluent but sometimes stutter, or people who stutter but are many times fluent? In stuttering communities, we are the ones who “never stutter”, yet in settings where everyone speaks fluent, we are sweating to the end to not stutter. This is the double-edged sword to being a “covert stutterer”. We have a foot in both worlds. The problem for us is that uncomfortable intersection, the point where both our stuttering and fluent-speaking identities collide. What then?
You pose a great question: “Should we carry on trying to pass ourselves off as fluent – or should we ‘come out and own up’ to our stammering status?” I’m not sure I have the answer myself. As “covert stutterers”, I think we really re-define, or expand, what stuttering is. Having our stories portrayed changes people’s perceptions of stuttering and what a person who stutters looks like. People need to hear our stories. Often, they may be excluded from research because “covert stutterers” may not identify themselves as such. Thus, society gets a skewed picture.
I think passing gives us a sense of safety and security, and that’s why we do it. I still occasionally have speaking fears. I still fear raising my hand in class, speaking at the drive-thru, or talking on the telephone, and thus will try and pass as best as I can. But letting go and stuttering openly has helped to reduce many of those fears. When I do “fall”, I just allow myself to feel whatever pain may exist, and then take another step. After so many experiences, you begin to become immune to negative experiences. I am now a speech-language pathologists and writer, thanks to my experiences. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Derek E. Daniels Doctoral student Bowling Green State University DDani21113@aol.com