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Well, I think one of the biggest tricks of stuttering is that it is so inconsistent. Unlike other...afflictions (since I know you don't like the word "disabilities"), it doesn't always stay, it's often not immediately noticeable, etc. Thus, it's not only confusing for the listener but the stutterer itself. If I'm starting to order a drink at starbucks and I'm talking fine but all of a sudden they ask my name and I block like there's no tomorrow, they wonder if that's a joke...I mean, I've been speaking fine all this time, why would I suddenly begin to block? To tell the truth, sometimes I think it's a joke. Sometimes I just muse ridiculously on how maybe this is a big practical joke played on me by God or whoever else is up there and that he'll jump out from behind the couch one day and say "Gotcha! I was just messing with ya, you don't have a stutter after all! Now go live your life the way you want it and be fabulous and gorgeous." That was of course sarcasm, especially the last part.
And you know, it's true what you said about our personalities keeping us from doing the things we really want, not our stutters. But the unfortunate fact is, stuttering IS our personality, for some people. It has molded our personalities so much that it might as well just replace it altogether. And this isn't something we have CHOSEN for it to happen...it started happening way before, when I was 6 or 7, and I obviously did not even understand what stuttering was, but that I just couldn't talk. I couldn't fight it, so it slowly but surely devoured me over the years. My mom says that I used to let kids cut in front of me at the water fountain all the time, and I would never say anything. I don't know exactly what my thought processes were...maybe I really was just shy, or maybe I was fuming with anger but couldn't talk. Anyway, I watched home videos of myself around that age and I just look lost...sort of like how I feel now. I look at that little girl and I feel so bad for her, knowing what her life would turn out to be. I mean, I think I'm relatively successful for my age...I'm in college, getting a degree, hoping to get into a PhD program, etc., but there is so much more of my personality that people just don't see. And it's not like I can suddenly remove stuttering and see my "true personality" shine through. Every inch of this entity of "stuttering" is woven into the fabric of my personality. There is no separating it.
I feel like Spiderman being taken over by that black thing, but I don't know what lesson I'm supposed to learn here..."you can always choose"? Maybe so...like, I chose to go on the McGuire Program and confront this affliction, but it just came back. I chose to raise my hand in class a couple of times and did okay, but then the next day I did the same and it came back. I just hate how inconsistent it is...that way, progress isn't really progress; it just seems like luck or random chance.
Another thing that Lee mentioned is wishing to be mentally retarded. I, myself, had often thought about how much happier I would be if this were the case. I have a cousin who's semi-retarded...not all the way, but enough that she doesn't know to regularly shower or to respect the social norms of our age. She loves anime and basically draws and writes fanfiction all day. She's 22. And she's HAPPY. One would think...why would an overweight, dirty-haired girl who gets regularly shunned by our other cousins with no college education and no job be happy? Well, she's got her mother, who takes very good care of her (more than I can say about my mom), she's got a really good friend who is also a little bit off (again, better than my situation since I feel I have no good friends), and she's got this blissful sense of ignorance...even when people point at her, whisper about her, downright laugh in her face...she'll scream at them at the top of her lungs, feel hurt for the day, but somehow forget it by the next. That's lovely...I would LOVE to scream at the top of lungs at some of the assholes I come across during the day, but I can't, because I am cursed with having the social norms ingrained in me.
People with autism, for instance, do not fully understand what is different about them...they know, vaguely (especially as they get older), that they are not behaving the same as everyone else, but nevertheless, it is recognized by the rest of the world as a true disability. People who stutter, I feel, are still expected to fit into the fluent and "normal" world. Even fluent people seem to expect me to just get over it by speaking slower or calming down. In fact, I hear people tell me "Oh, I know this guy who had a stutter but he conquered it, so I know you can too." They don't know that just makes me feel worse...like they're trivializing it, making it seem like it's a simple thing to conquer, as long as I put in the effort. I try to be polite and say "oh, how nice for them" but really, it's like...I've not put more effort into ANYTHING in my entire life...I didn't date in high school because I was just too exhausted and ravaged by simple things like calling someone on the telephone. I don't go out to parties much because I know I'll have to introduce myself to everybody. I quit my job (well it was a sucky, minimum-wage job) because the act of dealing with customers all day with my stutter was driving me nuts. Stuttering is like...my boyfriend, job, social life all rolled into one. It has taken all those things from me.
And yet...I can say, honestly, that I don't care that people know I stutter. I published an article in my college newspaper last month about my stuttering and the McGuire Program and my campus has about 5,000 students. So...this year, all my friends know I stutter. But I can still see them be a little uncomfortable when I have one of my more serious blocks. I can still see the people at the career center, my professors, other people I talk to TRY to be understanding and patient, but in our world of fast communication, I know it's very difficult for them to wait that long for me to say one sentence. And then prepare themselves for the next. Lately though, I just feel like this world just isn't for me.
As Kierkegaard said, "There is something in me which might have been great, but due to the unfavorable market, I'm only worth a little." I expect any stutterer who reads that to immediately recognize our own situation...due to an "unfavorable market" (the fluent world in which we live), we are only "worth a little." We may ourselves think we are worth a lot, but in this world, that IS the unfortunate truth.
He also said..."in every generation there are two or three who are sacrificed for the others, who discover in frightful suffering what others shall profit by."
And "Thus the last thing either wished was to become exemplary. Kierkegaard looked upon himself as `a sort of trial man.' `In the human sense no one can imitate me匢 am a man as he could become in a crisis, an experimental rabbit, so to speak, for existence.'" That's how I feel...like I'm in a crisis, and someone up there is observing me, seeing what I'll do with myself in this kind of situation.
But...Jaspers says about Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (my two favorite existentialists)..."The astonishing thing with them again is that the precise mode of their failure is itself the condition of their distinctive greatness." -- that, to me, is what I am currently trying to do...use my precise mode of failure (stuttering) to do research or be a writer...because my stuttering has pushed me to love to write and given me a passion for doing neuropsychological research.
Yikes, sorry this is so long...but hopefully the last few quotes will bring some inspiration to others as they have to me. |
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