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From: Valentina Radic (Croatia)
Date: 10/16/03
Time: 3:14:38 AM
Remote Name: 195.29.51.154
I wrote this two weeks ago as a comment on the story 'Passing as Fluent' by Terry Dartnall. In the meantime I started the speech therapy and working on my speech. John asked me to put this on Professors panel to hear what you have to say. Thank you. Valentina
' My experience with covert stuttering is much like yours in some aspects. I am 23 years old and the main part of my live I lived with hiding from stuttering. I was seeing psychiatrists and was taught how to cope with stress but as you wrote my stress was mainly because of my stutter, will my avoidance mechanisms work or not, will I be unmasked etc. Of course, I don't have to mention here that my attitude about stuttering was very negative. I was stuttering in school, with unknown people and on the phone but my parents and nearest friends haven't ever heard me stutter (although they all knew why I wanted to attend speech therapies). I made a big step few months ago deciding to stutter on purpose with my parents just to see their reaction which I was so afraid of.They reacted normally...no one killed me! After that, I felt as I released myself completely and felt full of energy as I can do what ever I want in my life.And I don't have to hide my stutter! Also I gain more confidence and some kind of control of my stutter. I'm the one who can control my speech and choose if I want to stutter or not. However this is not the end of my story. During last few months I lost my avoidance mechanism and somehow my stutter progressed. Now I really block on almost every world for almost 15 minutes or more and just can't help myself to say a word. In a way I can't get back to my avoidance mechanism cause it made my brain feeling tired but this kind of stuttering make my whole body tired. Funny but it seems as I got stronger my 'enemy' got stronger too. Now everyone can hear me stutter and I'm not ashamed of it (or I don't want to admit myself that I am) but somehow my confidence fall down and now I feel a rejection in myself for almost every situation where I need to speak. I don't want to avoid the stutter but I don't want to stutter in this severe way either. I feel as life is passing quickly and I'm still circling around with the same fears and limits I've put to myself. At the moment I don't know what next step to make.
However, this is just a short story of mine and I've just concentrate on the stuttering subject.I totally agree that we should focus on what we have achieved and on what we can still achieve. Thank you for your story.'