Before I do anything else, I should clear up some misconceptions about stuttering. The biological causes of stutters are still quite mysterious and over time, as you would expect, people have made their own theories. These range from being possessed by demon to not learning to speak correctly. Naturally everything I write here is my take on these things and there will be exceptions (we all know the shit demons can do from the exorcist 🙂 ). Some of these are quite entertaining.
- People who stutter are stupid/slow. I think I’ve heard this one for just about every single disability. People have a tendency to look at someone who is in some way disadvantaged and exaggerate their problem by claiming that they are stupid. This then leads to a lot of disrespect towards the given individual and at this point you’re just a small step away from hate crime. It is not true. I think a lot of people assume this about some stuttering individuals as one method we are taught for controlling the stutter is speaking slowly. We might then seem to struggle to process simple questions, while in reality we are avoiding the high chance of making someone uncomfortable by wildly stuttering in front of them. In fact to contradict this idea, one quite well accepted theory for stuttering is that the stutterer is thinking too fast and so unable to synchronize their speech with trail of thought. Reading can help synchronize it and apparently that is why some claim it can cure stutters.
- Dealing with stuttering is easy, just do … It is easy to think that stutter is caused by one single thing and there is a single remedy for it. In reality, everyone stutters differently and for a different reason. It can be a traumatic event, it can be poor coordination of your vocal chords and diaphragm. It can be one of the things that you’re born with. It can even be a certain type of powerful medication prescribed to people with epilepsy (mentioned on this blog). In most cases, the cause of the stutter is unknown.
- People who stutter lie a lot more. This one drives me nuts. In fact I tried to hit a kid for saying it in nursery. Unfortunately, i didn’t do to well at that and he then hit me. I started crying and he got in trouble (mission success.. I guess). This one I think comes from the fact that everyone has certain disfluencies in their speech. When we lie, this number of disfluencies increases as we are trying to make something up on the spot, or we are just nervous. Therefore is someone who has only just met me, will notice that I have a lot more disfluencies when I answer his questions. They will then assume “He is just lying to me through his teeth”.. and that’s how it starts.
- You can test if people stutter by making them write something down and seeing if they repeat themselves. This is another childhood one. It was early school, learning all the letters and writing down simple words and sentences. After the next 15 minutes, I became the greatest con in the eyes of my class mates. I was the guy who pretended to stutter, but didn’t actually. The sentences I wrote down were clear evidence. I never thought much of this until I heard someone say it in public a few months back. Can you imagine the type of person? You probably got it right, he was a big meaty rig drenched in cheap deodorant, hair glistening with gel. He wore an “I LOVE BAD BITCHES” t-shirt and was studying physical education (based on his bag). I think what some people expect from a stutterer writing is th-thi___s ssssort-rt-rt-rt of-f th-th-thing. As interesting as this would be, a stutter is a speech impediment and as it says on the tin, it only affects speech. Thank god for that, the name of this blog would not make sense 🙂
- If you stutter, you always stutter. “Hey dude, how come you managed to make that phone call to your gran without a single stutter?” I get this one a lot. In many cases, especially if the stutter is psychologically caused, you will only stutter in certain situations. I for example stutter a lot more when I’m stressed, nervous or tired. But it gets more interesting, I don’t stutter at all when I’m drunk (it’s tempting, I know), I don’t stutter when I’m driving a car, riding a bike or a horse or flying a plane. I stutter a lot near my parents and any other mature adults, not so much around my friends and a lot more when talking with someone at a till.. It’s weird, but all it shows you is that there is a chance that if you have a stuttering friend, you might not find out about it until a very particular situation. My high school English class found out I stutter after 2 years of everyday interaction. What blew it was me having to read out a few pages from a book. You get used to these situations, when everyone looks and wonders what the f*** you were trying to do with your mouth just there.
I’ll cut it at 5, it’s a nice round number. Keep in mind that these are the extremes, most people I come across are actually accepting and tolerant. It’s only now and then that you find someone completely misinformed. Now that I got this out there, I can start talking about the more fun stuff like my many stories where the stutter decides to be a douche.
See You
Should I Write It Down? 