Can we talk about how emotionally triggering speech blocks can be?
Content
Can we talk about how emotionally triggering speech blocks can be? Just had a wonderful conversation with someone i haven’t seen in awhile. After effortless speech, the moment finally came…. She asked for the name of my son. I had a terrible speech block for about 30 seconds until i was able to get his name out. She responded gracefully and talked about how he has such a beautiful name. I then explained that sometimes i have a speech block (probably obvious but i wanted to provide her some context in case she didn’t understand what was happening). She replied warmly and said that her nephew has a speech block and they love him all the same. We then moved on. It was so tough not to cry in the moment. It’s not that i feel shame…. It’s just such an incredibly vulnerable feeling to have someone witness you struggling to communicate something simple, like a name. Usually we get to decide when we want to be vulnerable in front of others… with a speech block it’s like we don’t have a choice but to show that vulnerability and hope that the other person is receptive. I have to remind myself to be grateful for what i have, I’m healthy, i have a loving family…. I just also have this speech block at times… and sometimes it is more often than not. Maybe by struggling with this openly in public I’m normalizing it for someone else, or inadvertently educating others about speech disfluency. Just wanted to process this by writing it out. Thanks for reading.