commentr/StutterMay 18, 2017

Content

I think there's a big nuance here. Good days and bad days are different than stuttering and being fluent. On good days we are still stutterers but during magical periods of fluency, we are something else. The gap between a good day and fluency is infinite -- I had no idea until I was briefly fluent. On good days we stutterers manage blocks by finding more agreeable words/sounds or practicing a technique to help the words come. On bad days it doesn't matter what we do. But when I was fluent for the 120 days of my 38 years of existence my blocks were nominal -- I'd feel them but they wouldn't fully manifest. I describe stuttering as going through a maze. You complete a sentence/conversation by finishing the maze. When we stutter, we hit a lot dead-ends in our maze. When I was fluent, the maze was the same but the dead-ends were replaced with saloon doors. I would still hit the block but it would instantly swing open and I could easily reach my destination.

Themes

Causes & VariabilityIdentity & DisabilitySpeech & Stuttering

Subthemes

Severity & FluctuationAuthenticity vs. MaskingBlocks & Stoppages