Pros and cons of giving someone a heads-up in advance

Pros and cons of giving someone a heads-up in advance Hi, all. This is going to be part self\-introduction \(for context, and because I'm new here\) and part asking for advice. There's something I've been thinking of doing, but I worry it may do more harm than good. I have…a mild stutter, I guess? I never got a formal diagnosis or treatment, but teachers and doctors \(as well as fellow students, to my sometimes detriment\) did notice it when I was a kid. I suspect that it's gotten worse during my time in grad school: I've found myself rearranging my life around my stutter in ways that I don't think I was doing just a few years ago, and I've noticed definite negative impacts on my life within the past couple of years \-\- some that are new, some that I think have been happening for years, but it was only recently that I realized that the stutter might be the cause. Here's the one that causes me the most pain: I'll be having a conversation with some person X, about whatever the task at hand is. Usually not emotionally charged at all. Then, for whatever reason, I start stuttering: not because I'm feeling some negative emotion, but just because my tongue will not obey my brain. Person X interprets my stuttering to mean that I'm upset or mad at them \(maybe because I can kinda sorta pass as fluent most of the time, and they recognize that this is different?\), and responds accordingly. That is, they escalate the emotional level of the conversation. After that, things may get heated. Often when I notice the phenomenon, it's too late to do anything about it. And even when I do realize in time and try to nip it in the bud, it's hard because I'm still stuttering. And the ubiquitous "I wasn't nervous or upset before, but now that I'm stuttering I sure am!" feedback loop happens and it gets worse. Anyway, there have been quite a few people who've been in a normal conversation with me that seemed to get weirdly adversarial because I stuttered and it was misinterpreted. Among them is my private music teacher at my university. She's retiring this year, so when I come back to school in the fall I'll have a new teacher. I'm thinking of sending this person \(whoever it ends up being\) an email shortly before classes start, telling them something along these lines: >Dear Fergus, > >I'm Jane Doe, one of the oboe students at Whatsamatta U. I'm really excited to work with you this year! > >There's one thing I wanted to let you know before lessons start: I sometimes speak with a stutter. I've decided to try something new and tell people who I'm going to work closely with about this up front \-\- so that it doesn't come as a surprise, and to head off any problems it might cause. > >See you soon, > >Jane That's a very rough draft, but…something like that? But ugh, I anticipate problems. First of all, there's the possibility that it might prime the person to see me in a certain light before we properly start working together. Or like that episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil has German guests and keeps warning everyone "don't mention the war!", and then when he's actually talking to the Germans…he keeps mentioning the war. Also, it's a huge step. It was only a year or so ago that I really acknowledged in my own head that I was a stutterer. \(Most of my life, I thought of myself as "nope, not a stutterer at all. Oh, and in completely unrelated news, I tried to watch 'I, Claudius' once but couldn't bear it. But that has nothing to do with any personal characteristics I might have, no sirree!"\) I've never even spoken to my parents about it, and we're pretty close. On some level, it feels weird to be opening up to a new person about this in a way I've never been able to bring myself to with any of the people I already know. And I guess part of the reason I haven't done that is, well…who am I, anyway, to be diagnosing myself? None of those teachers or doctors who pointed out "hey, you're stuttering" when I was a kid followed that up with "and maybe you should see a specialist about that." I \*did\* see specialists for mental health issues \(for which I never got a formal diagnosis either\) \-\- so I had talk therapy as a child, but never speech therapy \(hehe, wordplay\). So my other worry is: what if I'm wrong, and what I have doesn't officially rise to the level of Having a Stutter? Then I've really screwed things up. \(I have very minimal health insurance coverage through my university, so I'm not really in a position to pursue diagnosis and treatment of a chronic condition at the moment.\) Man, this was long. Anyway, if you read until the end, congratulations! And thanks! And I was wondering if anyone else has written a letter like I'm thinking of doing, or has useful scripts for talking about this stuff.