commentr/StutterMarch 17, 2022

Content

Third this, and will add: I've started explicitly telling people that I stutter whenever I can in introductions, and definitely ones in a group situation. My spiel goes a little like: "By the way, \[as you may have noticed\], I have a speech disorder - I stutter. It's usually pretty mild but acts up sometimes. If you ever have trouble understanding me, please let me know - I'll be happy to repeat myself or write it down!" (the "as you may have noticed" gets included if I've stuttered noticeably before then.) The first time I did this I was ***terrified***. I've never been covert and always had a little more confidence than typical for a PWS, but this was still beyond anything I'd ever tried. I went through with it anyway, and you know what? It helps *so much.* On my part, I don't have to worry about whether I'm hiding the stutter, whether people have noticed, what they think if they have - I've already put all the cards on the table. I didn't realise how much those things weighed on me until they were gone. And people react incredibly well to it overall! Pretty much everyone goes "oh, no problem!" or "thank you for letting me know!" or something like that and things go a lot more smoothly after, no weird jokes or people wondering if the connection is bad or whatever. (in case you are wondering, the wording is strategic: "usually pretty mild but acts up sometimes" deliberately downplays it while explaining away any moderate-to-severe stuttering they might observe, while the "repeat myself" offer is safe as nobody's ever taken me up on it XD but it's there to communicate that I'm on top of the problem, I've got a strategy for dealing with it, I *got* this. I've noticed a lot of the time people take their cues from how you react, so this is trying to get people to treat it as something under control.)

Themes

Social & RelationshipsEmotional Experience

Subthemes

Disclosure & Telling OthersAnxiety & Social Judgment