3rd meeting of Jammu SHG……!!!

On 19th sep(saturday), we had our 3rd meeting of jammu SHG. The main objective of this meeting was to face our fears and the feeling of embarassment that we PWS go through.It is often seen that the attitude of a PWS and fluency in his/her speech, often depends upon the listener reaction to his/her stammer and what kind of facial looks(mostly weird) one gets when he/she stammers.We know that we are suppose to think in a positive way and dont let our emotions to control us.But it is really hard to keep on that positivity everytime we stammer and get a weird look.
This time also, it was only me and Aditya(the other pws in the SHG).At first we sat down and shared our experiences of the last week.we talked for about an hour. Then we started doing our tasks.

As there were only 2 members in the group and we wanted to have a photograph together.So we were in need of a third person who could take our photograph.So our first task was to request someone to take a photograph of both of us.This task was given to Aditya but the condition was that while speaking one has to use the Bouncing technique.We saw three gentleman standing at some distance and smoking. Aditya was ready to do some voluntary stammering by doing some Bouncing while requesting them.He prepared himself and we went to them.But at the last moment I dont know what happened to him and he forgot all of the bouncing technique. He just spoke normally to them. I think this was his first time , so he might be having that feeling of shame and embarassment in him.

Then we saw few boys coming towards us . Once again Aditya was made to go to them and request them to take a photograph of both of us. He again prepared himself and once again he forgot his voluntary stammering and spoke normally. But I jumped in and carried on with my Bouncing technique and did voluntary stammering while asking them a few more things in front of Aditya so that he gets familiar to it.And yes , one of the boy in that group started laughing and mocking on my way of speaking. But nothing bad happened . We also started laughing and we told them about our stammering. But still he was laughing at us and was hiding his face from us . Once again we said that “We people also laugh sometimes on the way we speak and you are also free to laugh my frnd”.At last that fellow said sorry to us but then I started laughing and told him to keep on laughing and there is no need to say sorry.After this we felt that there was no feeling of shame and embarassment in us. And that was the objective of this meeting.

After this we saw a french couple with their 2 very sweet kids. I didn’t paid much attention towards them and went passed them . But when I turned back, Aditya was shaking hands with them.So atlast he was having that courage in him to talk to strangers, thatz good. I also went to them. The Guys name was David and they came back from srinagar just 2 days ago.They were here on a tour. That french guy was not knowing english and called his wife to interact with us. We told them about our stuttering and our purpose of coming here. We also solved some of their problems bcoz they were not able to find someone who can speak English. Although the french accent of that lady was very difficult to understand but some how we managed to interpret what she was saying and solved their problems.

At last we came out of that place. I gave one more task to Aditya. He was made to go to a shop and buy something but he had to use that Bouncing technique . Finally ,this time he used the Bouncing technique and stammered voluntarily.

We had a lot of fun in this meeting and we also learned how to tackle with different reactions of listeners towards our stammering.