postr/StutterJuly 3, 2021

I am stuttering openly now, this time last year no one heard me stutter

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Content

I am stuttering openly now, this time last year no one heard me stutter Hello fello stutterers. I want to share the progress I've made over the past few months. This time last year I was finishing college and my stutter was so bad and depressing. I interviewed for this engineering job a few months ago. I was so nervous about it, and did this interview and stuttered practically every word pushing through and made sure I said nearly everything I wanted to say, despite taking 4x longer than a fluent speaker. I ended up getting hired after only the one interview and I am now working abroad in Israel. Since starting work here, I am working with many different people each day and I have to communicate information or else people could get hurt or break things. This means I have had to learn to speak with my stutter and care less about how I sound, and care more about getting the information across despite feeling like I'm making the listener uncomfortable. I have only been working here for 4 months and my confidence speaking with my stutter is so much better than ever. Though I stutter most of my words, each time I stutter infront of people, I get more desensitized to it. My stutter is getting worse if anything, but I'm much happier nowadays because when I stutter I don't let it get me down anymore. Speaking with my stutter is something I thought I could never do, but taking this job forced me to deal with it. A side effect is I'm caring a lot less about what other people think now too. I used to try to please everyone, but my stutter is helping see that you can't please everyone! Feel free to pm me if you want to discuss anything.

Themes

Coping & AdvocacyEmotional ExperienceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Mindset shiftSelf-Advocacy & BoundariesHope & MotivationAuthenticity vs. MaskingAcceptance & Pride

Codes (3)

repeating_oneselfsocializing_group_sizesocializing_one_on_one