commentr/StutterJuly 25, 2024

Content

Allowing yourself to stutter won't get rid of the moments where your speech mechanism "hiccups" resulting in an interruption in the forward flow of your speech, accompanied by a sense of loss of control. Those moments are the neurological part of stuttering. However, it is possible to have those moments without the anticipation/fear responses that cause you to do things to struggle. The struggle behaviors were learned naturally and mostly unconsciously long ago, typically in early childhood, and typically under conditions of heightened emotion or fear. Not the greatest way to learn how to stutter! Because the struggle or avoidance behaviors are instantaneous, they feel like they are one and the same as the stutter itself. They overshadow the core neurological part so much it is hard to tell that there is a response happening. And therefore they are a bear to unlearn! The greater part of any block is a learned reaction to the random interruption of speech and its feeling of loss of control. Beyond the first second or so, the block is a subconscious attempt to avoid that physical and emotional disruption by waiting for the feeling to pass, while also preventing the more obvious repetition or prolongation of sound that might otherwise happen. Over time, if you let yourself stutter, i.e. if you can develop a mindset of approaching the stutter and allowing it, you will gradually lose the parts of the block that are avoidance, leaving a shorter and more relaxed interruption in speech - the neurological part - which although still annoying at times, is much easier on you. Good speech therapy with a well informed specialist helps bring you through this learning, but many people also find their way to it without therapy.

Themes

Speech & StutteringCoping & Advocacy

Subthemes

Blocks & StoppagesPhysical TensionVoluntary Stuttering & Exposure