From a veteran to a stammerer..

Dear Friend,

I would advise you to attend one of the workshops organized by TISA so that you understand the value of acceptance in our lives. The next step would be desensitization.

What I could gather from your post is that your stuttering isn’t as severe and you can easily swap words and hide your stutter. In the process you end up carrying a huge load of burden on your shoulders, I wouldn’t want to get into the classifications and details but I know it can be very challenging and traumatic experience at the same time. So why don’t you let go of it. Why do you try to hide your stutter ? Do you feel ashamed and guilty that you stutter ? If yes then you should ask yourself why ?

If you think just because you speak in a special way and if you reveal it, that would subject you to be a laughing stock or other forms of subjugation in your life then you could might as well be making up castles in mid-air coz in reality people haven’t got that much of time to pick on someone just like that. And if somebody does then distance yourself from him, coz he never was and never will be your well-wisher.

If people ask you about your problem then tell them that you have stutter and it is a Neurophysiological disorder. If they try advising you then tell them that there is no known cure for it but it can be managed by using few physiological and mental techniques. You can also use gadgets but I would not recommend that as my experience tells me that it only acts as a placebo and it only works in a controlled environment.

As per looking for a job where stammerers would find a congenial environment to work in, well I would not recommend that either as there are very few at this point in time. I would ask you to go for your dream job with your speech impediment by your side and consider it to be your friend and not your foe coz the more you fight against it, the more tougher it gets for you to live with it coz it will react to your resistance in a similar way.

Yes, I understand what you feel as I’m am a stutterer too but if you really want to enjoy and live your life to the fullest then you’ve got to accept it and move on with it. Please, attend one of the workshops conducted by TISA and you’ll get the gist of what I’m saying.

Thanks for your time to read my mail and sorry if you feel I’ve rambled on a bit J.

Vivek
(Vivek is a Communication workshop alumnus. He wrote this email to a young IPWS. We found it worthy of being shared with the wider public. Personally identifiable information has been suppressed as per our policy.)