be a leaper, not a creeper
For the past two weeks, I've spent most evenings working with a clinician associated with the SSMP [Successful Stuttering Management Program]. This is a 3 week intensive program (therapy work all day, every day, for 3 weeks) that attracts clients from all over the US, if not world. I do not have time to take 3 full weeks out of my life to actually attend this program, but in an attempt to glean as much as I can from the amazing men and women involved in it, I have been giving my evenings to making my best attempts at keeping up.
It's utterly liberating to be in a room full of, for lack of a more PC term, freaks like me. Everyone -- clients and clinicians -- stutters; everyone blocks, everyone manages their disfluency, everyone looks in your eyes and watches with compassion as you get to what you're saying. And everyone, everyone challenges you ... but it's the best kind of challenge, because it's one rooted in common understanding of just how fucking hard it is.
I've been working mainly with one clinician, who has the most equilibrium of any man I've ever met. He's somehow an immense oasis of calm. He has the ability to push me, emotionally and tolerance-wise, further than I ever thought possible, and I think it's because he has a stutter, too. A stutter that sounds remarkably like mine. Through all the exercises, he guides me and makes sure I'm focused on them, but he does them, too. And having someone stuttering their face off in the mirror next to you, even though you look hideous and feel worse, is one of the best moment of support anyone could ask for.
It's a novel feeling to actually have someone speak about stuttering seriously, as well: to refer to it as a disability, to share stories of all the ways it has impacted (usually for the worse) his life, to rail eloquently about how much it just bloody well sucks to have to deal with this, 24x7, for the entirety of your life. I think that's what's really gotten to me, really changed my mentality. There is no out and no magic pill. It will not just "get better". You can't run away from it and you can't, no matter how much you try, hide it. And so you have to accept it, manage it, and face it as an an integral part of who. you. are. There's no out, but there are ins.
And you know what? I'm improving. Slowly, but aggressively, I am improving. I am learning to manage. I need a lifetime, literally, of work... but for the first time in forever I feel like I have the opportunity to gain some kind of real control over this stupid beast that rules my life.
Yes, this is just a had-a-good-session high. But I'm serious. This is good.
It's utterly liberating to be in a room full of, for lack of a more PC term, freaks like me. Everyone -- clients and clinicians -- stutters; everyone blocks, everyone manages their disfluency, everyone looks in your eyes and watches with compassion as you get to what you're saying. And everyone, everyone challenges you ... but it's the best kind of challenge, because it's one rooted in common understanding of just how fucking hard it is.
I've been working mainly with one clinician, who has the most equilibrium of any man I've ever met. He's somehow an immense oasis of calm. He has the ability to push me, emotionally and tolerance-wise, further than I ever thought possible, and I think it's because he has a stutter, too. A stutter that sounds remarkably like mine. Through all the exercises, he guides me and makes sure I'm focused on them, but he does them, too. And having someone stuttering their face off in the mirror next to you, even though you look hideous and feel worse, is one of the best moment of support anyone could ask for.
It's a novel feeling to actually have someone speak about stuttering seriously, as well: to refer to it as a disability, to share stories of all the ways it has impacted (usually for the worse) his life, to rail eloquently about how much it just bloody well sucks to have to deal with this, 24x7, for the entirety of your life. I think that's what's really gotten to me, really changed my mentality. There is no out and no magic pill. It will not just "get better". You can't run away from it and you can't, no matter how much you try, hide it. And so you have to accept it, manage it, and face it as an an integral part of who. you. are. There's no out, but there are ins.
And you know what? I'm improving. Slowly, but aggressively, I am improving. I am learning to manage. I need a lifetime, literally, of work... but for the first time in forever I feel like I have the opportunity to gain some kind of real control over this stupid beast that rules my life.
Yes, this is just a had-a-good-session high. But I'm serious. This is good.