Philosophy; Stuttering; Social Anxiety

Philosophy; Stuttering; Social Anxiety It is a western ideal to be the hero of your story - you could think of this as people who do exposure therapy to the things they are terrified of to become stronger and braver. I think this is the real meaning to life to be truthful - to understand a current particular idiosyncratic problem, by yours and maybe society’s definition and rationalize through science an approach to overcoming the problem. There is one problem though with this … what if there is no cure to your problem? That is the ultimate hammer of suffering that life can hit you on the head with repeatedly for decades. If I just stated that for me the meaning of life is overcoming yourself (as Nietzsche and Sartre point out) then what happens when you can’t overcome a problem? Then what? Take stuttering for example. We only have methods to reduce stuttering that at best sounds funny at times but ultimately there is no cure to produce fluent speech. As a result, there is a statistic that 60% of stutterers will develop social anxiety. Developing social anxiety from a stutter may be one of the cruelest and ruthless experiences for the human being: from the moment they wake up they are hyper fixated on their speech and become very good at avoiding instances they will stutter - this is because it is socially humiliating to the socially anxious stutterer to stutter in front of people not to mention that when you do stutter or block that it comes with an element of randomness and thus, the stutterer has very little control over his speech almost ONLY in social situations - so for example many stutterers in general seem to be able to talk to their pets or to themselves fluently. Also, there is the existential dread of being a socially anxious stutterer that arises as a consequence of the act of stuttering itself - so when you stutter you will notice that you often will feel most notably confused and shocked like after you block for 8 full seconds on just saying your name (As an existential socially anxious stutterer I found it blackly comical when my doctor naively said “Don’t let stuttering affect your life!” Which I looked straight into her eyes and laughed for about 5 straight minutes. I really threw my head back on that one). Here is a perfect example in how stuttering affects a socially anxious stutterer’s life. It affects all sorts of decision making related to how you are going to socialize, participate in group settings, experience or even participate in pursuit of a romantic partner and fearing the inevitable lifetime of family/friend gatherings, choosing a career path that fits our social anxious proclivities and speech anxiety, so pretty much it affects all aspects of what people commonly pursue in life or I would say it affects all aspects of life that people have said to be meaningful like family, career, educational pathways, socializing adequately etc. As a result I have read in multiple papers regarding the stuttering literature that stutterers in general have a lower quality of life (and I would say it is obvious that since all those aspects of your life for a meaningful life are negatively impacted by stuttering that it would inevitably lead you to more feelings of existential dread, the feeling of being totally responsible for your being but also the fundamental idea that the buddhists pointed out in that life is at base suffering. So if life is suffering, the reason overcoming yourself is the meaning of life is because you should probably try to reduce suffering where possible. The ultimate relief to a socially anxious stutterer is being fluent and I can provide an example of this: I was a part of a strange phenomena where about 3 years ago I moved to a new city for post-secondary education and didn’t know a single person. I started just introducing myself to people, sometimes stuttering sometimes not but, they never noticed. Anyways I ended up making friends quickly and then I just … was fluent? For about 2 years. In that two years I was fluent I had: partied like an animal because I could hold long conversations and as a result was not afraid to introduce myself to other people. My social circle included a swath of very attractive women who even pursued me a little bit (which never happened before and I was extremely grateful). I did all presentations, some I did so well that students came up to me after and said they were shocked at how well I could present (mostly because I dressed like a stereotypical person who went out every single night, not that they were surprised because I had a stutter). Aspects that are supposed to be meaningful such as educational success and romantic partner interest were really lifting my spirits to want to be the best version of me. I can truly say it was one of the most psychologically freeing experiences in my life in that I was completely fluent for 2 straight years and I was living a life that was so exciting and fulfilling because now I could speak clearly and not be afraid. What a time that I will cherish forever. If stuttering could be cured, imagine how my life would be so much different as I just showed it was. I was able to pursue romantic partners, I was able to give great presentations, I was overly social if there was such a thing, and I did all this with CONFIDENCE and not just the normal life of “well I will comply with the norms of society but I will suffer psychologically due to my speech but people say that is ok” or whatever. People even say it is virtuous to bear large loads of suffering, that it’s the noble thing to do or even that it’s a fundamental axiom of life. I will give one more example: when I came home from that place eventually my stutter came back and it came back worse than before. As a result, I couldn’t say my name usually. I took an unconventional speech program who taught me a way to say my name that sounds completely natural and it works every time for me. That has been an immense, if not the greatest, achievement in my whole life. I now can introduce myself to people, I can say my name when prompted at meetings or orientations, all sorts of things. That has been one of the most freeing things I have ever had happen to me. It too makes me lift my spirits to be a better version of myself. Therefore, I think I have made a good case that suffering experienced by the socially anxious stutterer can be greatly relieved by being fluent (this is the number one reason I don’t believe in cliche’s like “don’t let stuttering affect your life” or “you should accept your stuttering”). This brings me back to the main question at hand which was “the meaning of life is to self overcome”. If we can’t be fluent because there is no cure and methods are not full proof we suffer. It extremely pains me to say this but, it makes sense that accepting defeat in your speech theoretically frees you meaning for example exposure therapy for a socially anxious stutterer would be suggested that they stutter and block at will and don’t hide it at ever increasing incremental social situations to ultimately desensitize yourself to stuttering and ultimately make you a more courageous person. I am a firm believer that mental illness is essentially an individual’s problem with life - so depression for example often occurs when in someone’s life they experience multiple blows that seriously compromise the individuals well being such as losing a job, losing a partner, being diagnosed with cancer, you name it… but for the socially anxious stutterer as I have laid out previously, it would seem that his lower quality of life is directly related to stuttering and speech anxiety and how these negatively impact the meaningful parts of our lives. I will leave you with this. I read in a stuttering paper from 2015 that they proposed the only way to help socially anxious stutterers would seemingly be to create a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy specifically for stutterers. They found that CBT had a positive effect on their mental health even without reducing their stutter (this is something I was excited to see in the paper however, the reason I don’t believe in the cliche “you should accept your stutter” is just that people will say it all the time as if you can just say to yourself “ah you know what you’re right, I’ll just stop suffering and I’ll stutter ad infinitum). I also just in general think that things are usually way too complicated to just use a simple cliche like that. I have tried all sorts of medications but to no noticeable relief. I am now in CBT for social anxiety and waiting on Ecopipam trials :)