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From: Chris Roach
Date: 10/21/01
Time: 10:09:06 PM
Remote Name: 64.12.102.181
Jeanne, you've met one -- me!!! You've made an outstanding observation of covert stuttering -- the challenge to be the best you can at hiding it! For years, I struggled with the fears, the sweats, the sleepless nights, the churning stomach, etc., BUT I took so much pride in hiding it in so many innovative and creative ways, knowing that nobody knew the agony I was experiencing. That was my way of justifying the fact that although I had this shameful, secret problem, "boy, was I a success in dealing with it." So I thought...
Frankly, your excellent question probably tends to be better explained NOT that an individual is more proud of the fluency and accepts it okay, but rather, they've evolved into finding a strength in their weakness through the challenge of surviving it.
One of our favorite covert stutterers is a wonderful, young lady in the North, as we say here in the South, whose primary focus for many years has been to "find better tricks" to hide her covert stuttering. Humorously, as she's met other coverts and begun to enter the self-support world <with incredible public and personal acceptance> in the last few years, I know she's tried to find out "good tricks" from others still!!
The bottom line is that no covert stutterer prefers the world of secret tricks and shame, but rather a covert stutterer WOULD prefer to feel that he or she was at least battling it every day, not giving up, and SOMETIMES actually beating it at its own game (though through tricks, hiding, substitutions, etc.). It's all they feel they can do, sometimes. Sadly, the interiorized issues of fear and chaos never leave them, even when their tricks have worked and they've "faked the world out another day," for we immediately feel diminished and cheated. Disappointing ourselves is FAR more damaging and destructive than disappointing others....
Thanks again for one of the better questions that you've identified. Excellent, excellent point to raise.
Chris