Power of Breath

I have been trying with Diaphragmatic breathing for some time. As i see, it doesn't affect directly my speech but it influences my way of speech in a way around. I was once told by a speech therapist that "excitement is the main cause of stuttering". I found it true to a good extent because when i undergo excitement or similar emotions, its more hard to control the speech.

It takes more time to do a Diaphragmatic Breath when compared to a nose to chest breath. In the process, it calms one down and also asks to speak slowly, inorder to match with the slow rhythm of the breath.

Also, the power to make sounds actually comes from the exhalation of air. The more air you have in your stock, the more time you can produce speech without going for the next inhalation.

An MS Paint Drawing

This is just what i made up in my mind. May not relate to scientific facts.

The word

After going through some TISA literature, i came to know that in hindi the word for stuttering is "haklana". In my native language, that dreaded word is "vikkal".

I must confess how i hated that word in my olden days because that word pointed directly at my disability. Whenever i heard it, i felt pointed directly at me, and in a way which i thought was inferior. And there was always the fear of being classified as a 'vikkan'. Now, i feel those fears related to that word were probably an illusion.

If i do it, then i must embrace the word for it too.

If i recover from it, i must the embrace the word from which i have recovered.

Yes. My stutter isn't gone, friend.

Lately I came across an old friend and after a conversation, he left two things in my mind related with my stuttering. First one, that my problem of stuttering hasn't really improved much as far as he can see and secondly, i should have went to a speech therapist much before.

Even though i can only agree with what he had said, i cant never allow anything negative to pop in my mind. Maybe if i was less excited and more controlled, i might have been able to give him an impression that i have recovered. And about going to a therapist, atleast i didnt push it towards some time in future and its already happening in the present.

The important need for me as a stutterer is not to have negative feelings about my stutter.

Maybe the real task is to bring out the stuttering iceberg into the worlds view and make the world my comfort zone and stutter freely in there.

Thinking from the Deathbed

(Thought from a discourse which i had listened to)

We hold many things close to our heart . We have our passions. We have our yearnings for that passions. Now,think we are moving through our last moments in deathbed. There, would we feel that we should had spend a ten minutes more of our life for our passion and for our yearnings for it?

Back then, my answer to it was a "No". When my life is going to end, i would not think i should have spend a ten minutes more for my passion and its yearning(not disclosing what it was) because they were no way connected with the essence of humanity or life(atleast, from my perspective). Life needed to be something more for me, so i just needed to keep down that passion to a level down.

In relation to my stutter, i believe i will be much more happy to die as a man who has accepted his stutter than as a one who had denied it and fought aganist it with shame. I feel i would be more happy then, if i could openly spend a ten minutes more of life with aspects related to my stutter, my fellow stutterers and fellow humans.

Fire On the world

Its something that i read from a self therapy book , that stutterers tend to think "if their stutter was not there, they would have put the world on fire". This struck me because i had at times daydreamed, including many others, that i would have loved to become a orater, if not for this stutter. Given  the fact that i still have not been able to even conquer my stage fright till date because of the fear of stuttering badly in there. I have tried the best to dodge or hide from every situations(in schools and college) which would have given me a chance to atleast conquer my fright. Only in few rare occasions in my entire lifetime that i have came before a audience and that too it was like me strapped in a chain and forced to be there.

I know how hard it was and it is for me even when the number of listerners grow from one to two(even casual with friends or relatives) and i tried to be the covert one then , gulping sentences which where hard to start for later period or for ever, and trying hard to start sentences when the listener's attention was somewhere else so they don't notice my block. If i wanted to ask something which i felt would be harder, it only came out some time later from me, when someway possibly i blurted it out. It was all like a 'burden' to me. The 'burden of talk'.

To add here, i remember how E. M. S. Namboodiripad(first chief minister of my state) stammered  when i used to see him in Television during my childhood days.

Heres a video i got from a search on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oAOWBe0qS4>

History says that he had indeed put fire into Kerala with his communist ideologies and theories. He stammered his ideas across the stages and media in his times. Wonder. People accepted him and he indeed became the "Chief Minister". Again Wonder.

The hard block

This is what i find it hard to manage - the hard block.

In a situation, i know what i need to say and for that i need to move the tongue or lips in a specific direction, but i just keep on applying pressure on the wrong directions and it gets stuck, or when it comes to 'a' or similar sounds, just not doing the right thing to produce that sound from the larynx, even while its easy to produce that sound independently. How ridiculous!!!

What is hapening to me while i am on that stuck ?

It might be that panic to get over with a sound which i have already presumed will turn out hard for me. I might prepare myself before to move slowly through that sound, but panic just grips in at the moment of action and i feel that control over speech taken away from me. What i frightened would happen, just became real.

Why did i allow the control taken from me? I have no one but myself to blame.

I can allow and accept myself to stutter. But the control being taken from me, i dont want that to happen.

A good option is to pause at the time of panic and regain control with a very slow pace and smooth flow. But this definitely feels hard in situations like while i am in a queue. I will be more prompted to force the block out and finish the business there.

In the case of a queue, i figure out that i must first get my own permission to let it be known to the one at desk and others behind me that i need more time than others by actually taking up that extra time with my pace of speech. I shouldn't just try to hurry up with a fast pace and act like the job was too easy.

The feeling of time-crunch needs to be removed. I am a stutterer. I may need extra time but with full speech control with me itself, not by blocking hard on a sound for an indefinite time, the duration of which god only can foresee.

A take on acceptance

As i accept my stutter, i am perplexed with the question - " is my acceptance an end or a means ? ".

It seems acceptance is fruitful only if it taken as an end and not as a means to a fluent tomorrow. So my acceptance shouldn't be measured with the yardsick of how fluent it enabled my speech to be.

The effect  of acceptance should be known by analysing how it reduced or lightened up the burdens related with stuttering which i used to carry inside.

Did it take away the burden of continous search for fluency and desperations associated with it?

Did it give me 'real' freedom of speech before others?

Even with acceptance, i believe deep inside every stutterer's mind, there exists an innate quest for a fluent tomorrow. There is that innate quest inside me because i really dont like my inability to produce speech according to my wish. I wonder whether there is a stutterer who really loves his/her blocks and never want to get away from it?

My acceptance remains to that limit which helps me to loosen up and free the pressures relating to a life with stuttering, not to a level that i dont want to get away with it, if i had an option..

So, it surely does look like a means and not as an end.

Answers are hard when questions gets vague and abstract. But in practicality, the answer sure becomes a bit easier. As continous fluent speech with no anxiety watsoever remains a hidden jem which i cant obtain as long as i search for it, it should be well and good i dont search for that jem. I will just need to forget that jem so that i dont remember to search it. So accepting 'acceptance' as the 'end' suffices and also it is the only option to get some value out of 'acceptance'.

In a much more comprehensive level, i will just need to forget whether its an end or a means. What that matters is acceptance . Acceptance is all by itself .

That gives a much more firm standing.

Sheehan's Iceberg

As a stutterer, i need to accept that Sheehan's Analogy was indeed true for me to a great extent. The way it seems to me , the problem needs to be tackled from down under.

Denial

Needs be neutralized with acceptance. Accept the stutter. Accept that there is a speech difficulty which can show up. Accept it before the public and world. Feel proud at the fact that i am at least accepting my stutter.

When i accept my stutter , i am accepting my real self.

Isolation

Don't ever allow myself to be felt isolated even mentally by this speech difficulty. There are many other facing this issue. Get my act together and i can be in self help groups and support groups where this difficulty is considered normal for everyone in it. Boost up my morale. Stand united and figure out ways together to fight against this difficulty.

Hopelessness

There are stutterers who made it big in life and those who have achieved. Get inspired and understand life is not just about stuttering. Like everyone, there can be a satisfying and happy life for me with/without stuttering. Have reasonable dreams and work towards it.

Anxiety

One of the hardest one to combat, at least for me.

The anxiety that whether i will be able to start and complete what i want to say without the stutter and the blocks and the thought that i may end up being embarrassed before others and my presumption that i may look disabled before others.. Anxiety builds up i scan forward what i have/need to say and it becomes stronger the more i try to pacify it. There is also the long term anxiety which i think is really a fear about how the stutter will affect my life.

Make up the mind that i will complete what i need/have to say whether i stutter or not. Make up the mind that even if i block, i will take my time and come back from the block. I myself have accepted my stutter. Let it be known to others too. Promise yourself that you will say what you want/feel to say exactly as you want , even if its take time. Promise yourself that Avoidance and Substitution has no place in your talk.

Guilt

Think from a broader perspective. Guilt happens to all persons, not just for me and for many reasons. Others have their own reason for their guilt. Even i have many other reasons for my guilt.

To offset the guilt from stuttering, decide i will give my best to combat the stutter, even if i succeed or not. Think that i will need to rise again and again, during the times of my fall. I am only defeated, when i fail to rise after the fall. Giving my best is what i can do and believe there is no room  for guilt. If i can think of some positive aspects of stuttering like a deeper thought process, it helps more.

Shame

No one is perfect. Also, those who are very talkative throughout, tend to say more nonsense and rubbish things. I'll better be the silent one than the one to say nonsense and rubbish things fluently throughout my life. And no one is 100% fluent. There are only practical rates of fluency which i am trying to obtain. I can at least speak some how, that itself is a great gift.

Fear

A result of anxiety related to stuttering. Seems to a long term villain. In my case, anxiety and fear appears to be related with each other with the first leading to the second.

Take on the fear by preparing for the worst. Being a stutterer is not bad. I am striving for the better and as long as i am striving, i can expect better returns.

My trust in a Supreme Lord should help me here to rise over the fear. My faith that if i have questions, there are answers too, even if i am unable to understand it for now or ever. Sorry Nietzsche.

Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.(From the movie, Alexander)

Fools rush in where angels fear to thread.(Quote by Alexander Pope).

With a grasp on all this problems underneath, the main objective still remains what that is seen above - My attempts to lessen my stuttering to practical levels which i think is acceptable.