My Journey from India to Italy.

Hi(Ciao)guys its Kishore.
I am a person who stutter, as like many stutter friends I start stuttering at a very young age. I hardly remember the time when I start stuttering. I know i imitated one of my village guy who was a stutter, during those days no one in my family thought of it seriously. People loved my broken voice and encouraged me.

I had some experiences in school and colleage where many times other students would read roll number for me because of my stammering. It was a relief for me, but at the same time I felt very shameful because I was unable to do what the other students were able to. My Hindi teacher used to tell me – kishore jab bolta hai tho har word pe break laga ke bolta hai.(When kishore speaks, he stuck at every single word).

I attended my first speech therapy lession when I was in third year of Engineering. In three weeks I felt the change in my fluency but it was restricted only to my comfort zones like.. doctor clinic and my home, outside I was same as before. My fluency increased to 80%. After doing the speech therapy for 3 months, I stopped it because it was not possible for me to pay high therapy fee anymore. I got tired of this daily routine, after doing therapy exercises for some more weeks at home, so I discontinued it too. Few weeks later, I felt my stammering is returning but with greater severity. Later I attended two more speech therapies but I got nothing help out of them.

Its because of my stuttering that, I learned some good qualities.
Like.

I always choose the first desk in class ( So that it easier for me to speak my roll no, or at least I could rise my hand..:) )

I always excelled good in studies ( coz..I passed my times with books only…).

I had good reputation with the faculty ( It helped to get good marks during school and college…:) ).

Few months later, I got placed in a power sector company. In office and home I searched a lot on stammering material, I added some stutter friend on orkut and yahoo. I started practicing with them on voice chat, now I had stutter friend from USA, Pakistan and India. In late 2008 one of friend informed me about Delhi self help group and asked me to contact the Co-ordinator Nitin sir, I attended many SHG meetings in delhi, we used to meet once a week. Later I come in contact with TISA Coordinator Dr Sachin Shrivastav. I attended first TISA work shop in dehradun in January 2010 along with Nitin sir and J.P Sir. About 15 People attended the first workshop which include 5 local PWS (This workshop was free of cost). Aim of this workshop was to focus on Acceptance and to practice bouncing, prolongation exercises. Acceptance does not means that you have accepted your stuttering and you sit back in peace and waiting for some miracle to happen. It does not mean that you have to shout out loud in a crowded place that I am a stammerer. Acceptance means Courage to accept that I stammer; courage to reach out and meet other PWS; courage to experiment with new ideas- like walking to a stranger and asking him what does he think of stammering.

My Experience on stuttering in Italy

For the last six months I am in Italy and am searching constantly on stammering. My first challenge is the language difference, Here very less people know and speak in English but I am taking Italian lessons, I know it will take little longer time for me to speak Italian but I can do it. I wrote to many Italian people who stutter to help me find stutter friends in Italy. I got many warm responses from people here but as of now our conversations is limited to sending and receiving mails.

I was under the impression that there must be some self help groups (SHG) near my city in Italy too like in USA, UK and India (TISA) but I did not find any SHG nearby my city. Now I am planning to start one such SHG in Legnano. Let see how much time does it take .My Internet SHG group is already in progress on skype.

I inquired from a fellow stutter about SLPs in Milan and believe me its damn expensive.For just a two week course its 2000 Euros (Above 1 lacks)..(It include travel expenses from my city Legnano to Milano)which TISA is providing without any charge in India. I believe in TISA work, I hope more and more people should follow and contact TISA for any stuttering help. I encourage PWS to join TISA SHG and workshops.TISA is conducting many workshops and SHGs in many cities in India.

I thank you all for your patience and reading my post..:)

With love from Italy.

Ciao Ciao friends..:)