Page 365 out of 365

Hi lovies, 

Can you believe it's already the last day of 2015? Gosh I can't believe how fast time flies by.
2015 was a great year for me. On so many levels. It was also a very difficult year. Let's take a quick look at my 2015 and let's see what I wish all of you in the new year. 

The first couple of months of 2015 have been very though. As I wrote down in my post called 'the letter that changed everything' I was struggling a lot with who I was and the place that stuttering had in my life. I didn't feel like I belong at my workplace or in this world. I felt like I was stuck in a negative circle and I wouldn't be able to get out of it. I had to fight. Fight against negative voices in my head but also against comments that others made to me. 

In may of 2015 I decided to take action and fight against my fears at my workplace. Still one of the best decisions I made this year (other than starting this blog ofcourse haha). 

In may I also went on my first vacation in 5 years. Yay for travelling by plane. Can I just say that I love flying? I love planes. Is it weird that I find them cute? ... Oke that's not the point of all this. Marmaris was beautiful and I'm so thankfull that I got the chance to go there. Finally, after 5 months of stressing about everything, I got the chance to relax. For once those voices in my head saying I wasn't good enough were completely silent. Marmaris was the perfect opportunity to think about what I wanted to achieve with my stuttering; Did I just want to undergo it? Or did I want to do more with it? Did I want to keep this to myself or share it with others who might be able to get help from it? The idea of starting a blog had been in my head for a long time, but on vacation I really had the chance to think about it more. Would people really read something like that?

In June everything at work got better. I felt like I was getting back to my old self. I was able to sleep better, eat better and let go of my worries (well not all of them ofcourse). 

Months went by and around the time of July I wrote my first post called 'Let's go back to the beginning'. I remember being really excited but scared at the same time. I was throwing something very personal on to the world wide web. Would this really be something that could make a difference for someone?

In august I was able to visit Munich. My boyfriend is there a lot for his job and finally, it was time for me to see the city with him. 6 days I enjoyed the sun, Munich, the German food (wow is all I can say) and the culture.I loved it. 

From July untill now I got nothing but postive reactions on my blog. Words can not discribe how much that means to me. I love writing. But I love it even more now because I know that I help others. Other stutterers have told me that they feel understood, they finally don't feel alone anymore. That is why I do this. 

So in conclusion, 2015 was a great year. It thought me a lot of lessons. I said goodbye to some people in my life who clearly didn't want to be in it. I had to say goodbye to my dog Max, who passed away at 16. I really got to know myself this year. Thanks to my parents, boyfriend, family in law and Leen (my speech therapist) I feel much stronger now than at the beginning of the year. I'm proud of what I did in 2015 and I want to keep this positive vibe up in 2016. 

But to be honest, I wouldn't be feeling like this if it wasn't for all of you. This might be cheesy but this comes from my heart. You guys are the reason that I feel like I can make a difference for others stutterers. Thank you for sticking by me in these 6 months. I really hope that we can carry this on into the new year.

What I wish for you in 2016? I hope you find everything that you are looking for. I wish you guys all of the love and friendship you are able to carry. I wish you guys a lot of luck with everything you do. I wish that you would love yourself a little more and not let your stuttering get you down. But most of all, I wish that you find yourself in this crazy world. And I hope that you know that I'm always here for you. 

Let's end 2015 with a bang and start 2016 with postive vibes. 

Have a great new years everyone. I hope you can spend it with the people you love. 

Love,
Natasja 
<3

1 year of therapy !!!

This week it has been 1 year since I started therapy again. I have to say, I'm so glad I made the decision to go back. 

Some people believe that therapy is a waste of money, or they say that it doesn't help. 
For me it has been a big help. Without it, I wouldn't be where I am today. 
During this year we worked on a lot of things and in this post I want to go over it a couple with you. 

My first big problem was my self esteem. Well, the lack of it. My stuttering made sure that I was always doubting myself. I always felt like I wasn't good enough. I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin. Things like ordering something in a restaurant or even going to a store were really stressfull for me. I just knew that I would make a fool out of myself. Stuttering really gets into your mind and produces negative thoughts. You sometimes don't realise that all of the things you are so afraid of, might not be so scary. You get stuck int his negative circle and it's really hard to get out of.

Thanks to therapy I'm feeling much better. My thoughts are more positive and I just feel a lot better. Bad days don't have so much influence on me anymore. I'm not saying that I never have negative thoughts (I'm only human) but overall they are less frequent and less bad. I try to be as positive as I can and I try to get myself to do scary things like ordering by myself in a store or picking up the phone and calling clients/company's without making excuses. 

I was also very scared to let people notice that I stutter. I always pictured their reactions, them looking at me funny, rolling their eyes, telling me to talk faster ... 
I was ashamed. My goal was to be able to make stutters without feeling that shame. I wanted to make stutters without have stress about what people would think. 

In therapy we watched a lot of video's of other people stuttering. It made me realise that my stuttering wasn't bad and I shouldn't feel ashamed. Nobody should. People react more positive to it than you would actually think. Now I feel like I can make a stutter and I can say 'whatever, I made a stutter, it's a part of me'. I think this is also a result of my self esteem growing. I don't want to hide it anymore. And I can not tell you how good that feels.

Another big thing to work on was  the tension I had when I made stutters. Because of the fact that I was scared to make stutters, I would build up a lot of stress. See, there are different kind of stutters. You have stutters with a lot of tension where you can feel it in your neck/shoulders/cheeck/face, you have stutters that have a small amound of tension where you can feel it but you don't feel like you have to push your words out and there are stutters with almost no tension where you feel like you can go in the stutter with a certain amound of relaxation in your voice and body. My stutters where the kind where after a day of work I would come home with so much tention in my body, I could sometimes barely even move my neck because of the stress I had build up on my muscles. 
Have I told you that stuttering is more than just not being able to talk fluently? 

Thanks to Leen I found some methods where I'm able to talk with a relaxing feeling. I said it before but making extentions like 'NNNatasja' or making repetitions like 'Na-Na-Natasja' really releaves my stress. 
I can go into my stutters without any type of stress. I can not tell you how could it feels. 
It was never my goal to get rid of my stutters, it was my goal to be able to talk fluently even with stutters. Thanks to these 2 small methods I'm able to do that. 

Last but not least, my reading. God that was just so bad. I couldn't even read one sentence without having 4 or 5 blockages that lasted about 20 seconds, sometimes even more. I had so much trouble with reading, it took me 4 minutes to read 4 sentences. You think I'm kidding? I can actually show you the evidence because Leen filmed it during my first session. I hated reading out loud. I hated it so bad and every time I had to do it I could just picture myself blocking on every word.

Tuesday I read the same text again that I read during my first session. It took me 4 minutes to read 4 sentences then, now it took me a little above a minute to read 4 alinea's of 4 to 6 sentences. I can not tell you how could it felt to accomplish that. By using extentions and repetitions I am able to read a text more fluently. The hardest part is always the first sentence. Once I'm past that I read fluently, like a normal person. I'm so happy that I accomplished that. I practise my reading a lot and now I actually enjoy it. 

Ofcourse we worked on a lot more but these are the 4 biggest things that, in my opinion, needed work. Leen has really helped me this year. I'm so greatfull for that. 
Nobody should tell you what to do or what not to do but in my opinion, therapy is worth giving a try. It can really help you deal with your stutter. 

I know this was a long post but I just wanted to share this with you because a part of my is a little bit proud of what I accomplished this year and the progress I made so far. And I think I have a right to be. I still have a lot of work to do (trust me) but accepting my stutter is something that I've never been able to do. It feels pretty amazing.

Last but not least.
HO HO HO merry Christmas everyone.
I hope all of you have a great Christmaseve and great Christmasday tomorrow.
Spend it with the people you love and make it a great one. 
I love you guys, thank you for all the support after my previous post. It really is appreciated. You guys are amazing. 

Much Love,
Natasja xxx

What a week ...

The last couple of days have been pretty rough. Me and my parents lost our dog, Max, who was with us for 12 years. 
Because of that I haven't been sleeping well and I've been feeling bad. I know that most people might say 'it's just a dog' but to me he was my best friend. He was my parents their best friend. He was the last part of my grandparents that we still had with us. It's like losing a part of yourself.

I've told you before that when I'm sick, when something is bothering me or when I'm not sleeping well my stutter is worse than normal. 
The funny part is that during this all, my stutter hasn't been as bad as normal.  

I have actually been doing a lot more phonecalls this week than normally in a month ... And they haven't been bad at all. Most of them were actually pretty fluent. 

Why were my phonecalls better this week? I think it's because I couldn't really care about them. Why would I care about a stupid call when my dog just passed away? I wasn't thinking about the other person on the line. I wasn't worrying about how they would react when I would make a stutter. It didn't matter to me as much as normal. For once, when I picked up that phone, I wasn't filled with stress. I wasn't overthinking it. 

It was actually relieving to not have a mind full of negative thoughts for once. 

I hope that this helps me in the future. That it helps me to let things go. 
This helped me realise that I'm able to make phonecalls. Phonecalls where I can actually explain everything to the person on the other line. 

I know that it's not going to go smoothly every time. And that's normal. But for now, not having to pick up the phone with shaking hands and a heart pounding like crazy is good enough for me. 


R.I.P. max. You will never be forgotten. 





Love,
Natasja 

Happy birthday

Monday I turned 24. My mom turned 57. Yes we have the same birthday :-). I'm very lucky to share a birthday with my mom.

For me turning 24 also means 19 years of dealing with my stuttering. So I used the day to reflect on my life so far. 

For 19 years I've had a lot of self doubt, a lot of fear of people knowing that I have a stutter. I was scared to be vulnerable. I didn't like it when people saw who I really was, someone struggling every step of the way to feel good. 
Every time I had a stutter I would feel so ashamed. And for what? For being who I am? 

I've had those thoughts for most of my life. Turning 24 made me realise that I've spend most of my life thinking about what others would think of me. I've wasted hours, days, months. 
The last few months I have started to change that. 

It's a hard thing. Changing thoughts you've had for 19 years. 
When I was little I always told myself that my stutter would be gone by the time I turned 20 or 25. I told myself I would work so hard and it would be gone by the time I had a job. I would be able to make phonecalls, talk to people and do all of it without stuttering. I would even pretend to work as a secretary and make fake phonecalls when I was little. I loved it. And now I absolutely hate it ... 

When I was younger I would pretend to be a grown up, I would pretend that my life would be so much better than it was at that point. I would actually dream about not having a stutter. All I wanted was to be normal. 

Now I've realised that I'm probably never going to be completely stutter-free. And that's not what I want either. I want to be able to have conversations, phonecalls and do it all with stutters. But with comfortable short stutters instead of blockages. My goal has changed from being stutter-free to being comfortable with it. Right now, that's all I want.

I can not count all of the negative experiences I've had so far. All of the bad phonecalls where I couldn't even say a word. Or the conversations where I felt like my blockage was actually cutting all of the air off. 
But I can not forget about all of the good moments. The happiness I have felt when I had a succesfull phonecall or conversation. Or the happiness that comes from a good session at therapy. And let's not forget the speaking assignments at school that made me feel on top of the world. 

In 24 years I've overcome a lot of hurdles. I look back at some moments and think 'Why was I even stressing about that?' 'Why was I scared to make a stutter?' ... The negative moments are nothing compared to the good ones. I know that there are a lot of negatives ones to come, I'm still struggling with a lot of things but I have so many people in my life supporting me and helping me ... I know that I'm going to be all right. I'm only 24 years old. 


To all of the people who have a stutter I just want to say that you are not alone. You can do whatever you set your mind to. You are more then just someone that stutters. You are a fighter because you've never known anything else. All you've had to do is fight. And that is exactly what makes you different. It's not the stuttering, it's the fact that you are not someone that gives up. You're going to reach your goal, one way or another. 




Love,
Natasja 

Dear mum and dad

Dear mum and dad,

I've always tried to be a good daughter. I've always tried to be someone you could be proud of. Why? Because you have sacreficed a lot for me over the years.

Thank you for always taking time for me and never judging me. You accepted me and my stutter and did whatever you could to help me deal with it.

For 6 years you took me to speech therapy every single week for multiple times.
In the beginning I had to go 3 times a week for 1,5 hours. I've never heard you complain. 
You always took me there, waited for me and helped me. 

I can imagine this wasn't easy. Both of you worked every day and still had to run the household. Mum, you even changed your job when you heard that I needed to go to therapy that often. And dad, you left your job earlier to drive me on fridays just to make sure I wouldn't miss a session. 

I'm not going to lie. You were strict on me. I remember being so scared when I had to come home with a bad test. I always felt so bad because I knew I had let you down. 
Luckily those bad grades didn't happen a lot and if it happened, I always found a way to make it up. 
Thanks to you I never had any big troubles at school. You made sure I balanced homework with therapy sessions without too many problems. Even after my sessions you helped me with my homework. 

I think it's important to realise that having a child that has a stutter is not easy on the parents either. They need to arrange therapy, take their child to therapy, do the household and maybe balence other children as well.
You guys have always balanced it out perfectly. 

Thank you for giving me everything I needed. 
Thank you for teaching me to work hard and not give up.
Thank you for loving me the way I am and putting me first.
Thank you for making yourselves the best parents I could ever wish for. 
I am a very lucky person. 
I hope I have done nothing but make you proud. 


Love,
Natasja 

Little recap of the past 2 weeks

Due to a lot of work at my job and at home I haven't really got the chance to post in these 2 weeks, which I apologize about. I'm not the kind of person that can post something real quick and not think about it anymore. When I post something it's related to me and my situation. I always try to think of something where others can get some support or help from.

For this post I'm going to do a recap of the past 2 weeks. How has my stuttering been? Has it been worse, better or has it stayed the same as before?

I can say one thing, in these past 2 weeks I have answered more phonecalls than normally in 1 month. It's been very busy at my job due to the fact that a lot of things are changing for our clients, in a good way ofcourse, and the fact that I'm just 8 new contracts away from hitting my yearly goal. So the pressure is on. 

With all of this comes a lot of stress and pressure. Something that, eventho I had a lot of work during college, is a little bit new to me. It's a different kind of stress or pressure. As I have said before, stress influences my stuttering a lot.

I have so say that I'm pretty happy with how I have been handling incoming phone calls lately. I'm still having small stutters or small blockages but I'm controling them more and I'm not thinking about them so much anymore. Ofcourse this can change from day to day and I know that I will have days where it will be more difficult. 

Overall, incoming calls are going good. Can they be better? Ofcourse, but Rome wasn't build in a day and neither is handling your stuttering. 

When it comes to phonecalls that I have to make myself, it's a little bit harder. 
First of all, when you make a phone call it's common to say your name and the company, now that is already something that is very hard for me. Then there is the part where your message has to come across loud and clearly to the person on the other line. Now imagine already stressing out about saying your name ... how in the world will you get your message across? The stress is already build up so high in the beginning that it's hard to lower it during the rest of the call. 

For me, those calls are definitely a work in progress. So far, they are still a disaster. I can't get myself to actually make a phone call where I don't have any problems with just introducing myself. It's frustrating because I want to be able to do my job like everyone else would.
All I can do is keep practicing. 

Talking in general is going pretty good. Not without stutters or blockages but with more relaxed stutters or blockages. There isn't so much pressure on my troath anymore which makes it easier to talk a little bit more fluently. 
This also fluctuates day to day. 
I sometimes try to make voluntarily stutters during my speaking. This isn't easy for me because it sometimes feels a bit unnatural. 
A voluntarily stutter is when I can feel a stutter coming up and to avoid a blockage or a real stutter I will actually make a stutter myself. For example, instead of having a blockage on my name, I would say 'Na-Na-Natasja'. I'm still making a stutter but it's more relaxed, shorter and it won't end up in a blockage.

To get rid of the unnatural feeling, me and Leen have speaking assignments where I have to tell a short story or just talk about something random. While I'm doing this I would have to make voluntarily stutters. That helps to make it feel more natural and more common to me. 
Outside of the therapy it's very hard for me to do this but I do try to slip a voluntarily stutter into my speaking sometimes. 

Last but not least is my reading. Yes, I also have trouble with reading. When I just began my therapy again, I couldn't even read one sentence out loud without stuttering or having blockages on pretty much every word.
I have been practising a lot on my reading and it's been going better.
It's also something that me and Leen work on a lot. 
By also making stutters on a voluntarily basis I can take the pressure off certain letters or words just like with my speaking.
Now I can actually read a short story fluently without to many blockages or stutters. Trust me when I say, that took a lot of effort and a lot of work. 
Just like with my speaking, there are good and bad days. Some days I can read a whole story without even having to make a voluntarily stutter and other days it's very hard to even start the sentence. 

Overall, I'm pleased with how I'm doing so far. Seeing as I'm under a lot of stress it could have been a lot worse. I try to take a lot of energy out of the good days so that the bad ones can be forgotten quickly. 

The key words are patience, work and having faith in yourself.



Love, 
Natasja 

Quote of the month

For someone who stutters it is sometimes very difficult to say what they want. Because the more we speak, the more of a chance there is that we would stutter. Ofcourse you have stutterers that don't give a crap about how hard it is. They just say whatever they want, stutters or no stutters. Blockages or no blockages. God how I admire them. But for this post I am going to talk about my own experience with it. 

Sometimes you want to say something so bad, but you hold back because it's not worth risking stuttering for. I'm guilty of doing that. Just not speaking because it's easier. 
This can happen with important things like work or with little things like going to stores, ordering something or just talking in general.

With every word that floats around in your head, there is so much doubt and fear. Your mind is constantly at work.  
Speaking as a stutterer I can truely say that it's emotionally very draining sometimes.
We should just be able to say 'Fuck it' and just say what we want, whenever we want and how fast or slow that we want. 

I overthink so many things. My mind is always working and always thinking about things for work, things at home ... 
Same with my stuttering. For example, when I have to order something at a restaurant I will already have practised in my head. I will make sure it's something that I can actually say fluently. 
Same with going to the bakery or any other store. 

I wish I didn't think about it that much. I do have days where I just go in and order and I don't think about my stuttering. Those days are becoming to be more and more frequently. Which I am happy about. But It's very normal that it's not like that every time. 

People will often say 'just say what you want to say, it doesn't matter how long it takes'. That very easily said. People should really be able to look into the mind of a stutterer sometimes. I don't think a lot of them would last even 5 minutes. 
For us, it will always matter. Even if we stutter less, it will still matter because we will always wish we could get rid of it. 

I'm coming to terms with it more and more. I've been working hard trying to accept my stutter. Something that I have been never able to do so far. 
I'm trying to care less when I stutter. I'm also trying to just say what I want to say. It's not easy and it's a lot of work. I'm also trying to use the things that I'm learning at therapy so that I will dare to make stutters. 

It's not easy but I know that for me, accepting this and being able to dare to stutter is very important. I still have a long way to go but I'm already happy with the progress I made so far. 

Every stutterer is different but when it comes down to it, I think we all have the same kind of doubts and fears. And it doesn't matter how you work on your stutter or what kind of therapy you do, as long as you are working on it! We should be able to say whatever we want to say. 




Happy november everyone.


Love,

xxx Natasja 

Hello, my name is ...

The first thing people ask you when you meet them is 'what is your name?'.
For a lot us, even saying your name is something very stressfull. 

When I was younger it was easier to answer that question. I don't remember that I ever stuttered on it. Maybe it was because when you are a kid, you don't think about it that much. You don't think about anything. You don't have the kind of stress that comes your way growing up. 

When I met new people, it was mostly in school. 
From middle school to high school, they would always start a new schoolyear the same. 'Let's go around the class and introduce ourselves'. As soon as I heard that sentence I would burst out in sweat. I would count how many people were in front of me, when would it be my turn? How could I start my sentence without stuttering? How would I start saying my name? 

'I am .... Nnnnnatasja' ... that alone would take me about 20 seconds. And then I would still have to talk about where I lived, what I do for hobbies or what I had already studied in the past. It was dreadfull. I just felt everyone looking at me. Everyone looking at eachother trying to figure out if I forgot my name or if I was just stupid. I think that is the worst part. Nobody even thinks about the fact that you could be stutterer. They immediately go for 'omg she forgot her own name'. 

It's like that for a lot of stutterers. On tumblr, I sometimes talk to people who go trough the same thing. 
When I talk to Leen about it, she says it's because of the emotional factor to our own name. We are emotionally connected to it and it causes more stress. 

I remember that I had to go to the doctor for a check up during my summer job. I worked in a kitchen for 6 years and every year we had a check up to make sure we were capable to do the job. Every year we got a letter with all the information. You just needed to hand in the letter at the front desk and it would be alright. One year, I forget the letter and I had to say my name. 
The guy who sat at the desk gave me about 5 seconds before asking me if I forgot my name. I laughed it off and tried to say my name again. He looked at me like I was a freak. He didn't even gave me time to let me finish and just told me to come in. He told me he would look at the dayplanner and figure my name out that way. I felt so bad. I felt like a failure. It feels like you are not proud of yourself, like you are ashamed of yourself because even saying your name causes you to have a fear. 

Until this day, I can not say my own name to a stranger.
If there is one thing that I really want to be able to do, it's to say my own name. 
It's something that has never been easy, it has always caused a lot of stress and I want to work on it. 
Sometimes I even practise in the mirror. That's when I don't have any problems with it, but once I actually talk to a stranger it starts all over again. The stress, the fear. 

It's not easy to put into words how it feels but I hope that by writing this post I gave a good picture of it. 
We don't forget our own name, we just take a little bit longer to pronounce it.


Love,
Natasja 

Ups and downs

When it comes to stuttering, one of the hardest things for me is dealing with the fluctuations in my days. Some days will be very good and others will be bad (atleast in my opinion).
The last two weeks have been with a lot of ups and downs for me. It left me very frustrated due to the fact that sometimes you just don't know how to feel anymore.

I'm a very strict person when it comes to myself and I always want want to do a good job. When I have a bad phonecall or a bad conversation with someone, that will actually keep on playing in my mind over and over again. It doesn't even matter if I did well on other days, that one bad conversation is the only one I will remember. Ofcourse when that happends, you are being sucked in that negative spiral again. And that is something that I absolutely don't want for myself.

To help myself, I sometimes write a couple of situations down on paper. I write what kind of conversation I had, what I was feeling, how my stutters or blockages were (long, short, uncomfortable etc ...). Afterwards I will discuss them with Leen. It helps me get an overall look on my week and how I was feeling that day. 

The last couple of weeks I've been experiencing more ups and downs on a day to day base. I can have great phonecalls, but conversations face to face will be more difficult. And vice versa. I feel like it shifted a lot, all in one day, and it made me feel a little bit more stressed and upset. 

Why where there more ups and downs? Well sometimes there just isn't an explanation for it. Other days it's because you feel more tired, had a stressfull morning or maybe it's because you are sick. Even the slightest bit of stress can cause a down. Or maybe you had an amazing morning and you feel like you can conquer the world. Well hello there fluency, I have missed you.

My changes in blockages and stutters also bring changes in my mood along with them. 
One minute I can be so happy that I had a good conversation with a client, and the other moment I can be down because I had a difficult phonecall. 
I will be very happy at work or at home one minute, and the next I can be quiet and overthinking everything. It's like playing ping pong with your emotions. And after a while it leaves you exhausted. 

I know that this is just a fase that I have to go trough. Every single one of us goes trough something this. Some days are just better than others and some conversations go smoother. 
This is how it is and by dealing with this we keep on evolving.
My talks with Leen always make me realise that. And that is why I am glad I have someone to talk to about this. Someone who knows a lot about stuttering and deals with all kind of stutterers. 

Sometimes I look back and I remember how I was before I started therapy again. There were days where I was scared to even open my mouth. I was scared to talk, scared to order in a restaurant, I was even scared to read out loud. Atleast now I'm trying and working on it. 

These ups and downs will keep on coming and there is nothing I can really do about it. Except handle them.


Love,
Natasja 

Stop telephoning me ...

The phone. Or should I say, one of the biggest causes of my stresslevels.

Until I started my job, I never choose to call someone instead of text someone. Texting was my safetynet. Now, I don't have a choice anymore. I either pick up that phone, or problems don't get solved and clients will find another insurance agent. 

When I first started my job, I just avoided the phone. The picking up part was already too difficult for me to do. Just hearing it ring made my heart go insane. 
And when I had the strenght to actually pick it up, I couldn't bring out a single word. 

Slowly it started to get a little easier to pick the phone and actually get a word out. 
After a couple of months (Yes I know that's a long time but Rome wasn't build in a day either haha) I could actually say 'Zakenkantoor Johan Droogmans, how may I help you?' without any blockage or stutter. That itself was already a big win for me. I guess it's true what they say, the more you practise and actually do it ... the better it gets. 

Ofcourse I don't only have to pick up the phone, I have to make phonecalls as well.
If you think that picking up the phone is already difficult for me, then you have seen nothing yet. 

Making a phonecall to a company we work with (AG insurace, AXA, P&V insurances, DKV healthinsurance ...) or to a costumor is very stressfull for me. Because now I'm the one that has to do explain everything and ask the questions. 

The worst phonecall until now was where I just couldn't explain anything anymore. I just completely shut down. I could only hear 'Hello Hello?' coming from the other end of the line. I just wanted to scream out 'I'm sorry but I having a blockage, i'm so sorry'. There were so many thoughts going around in my head that I couldn't even try to stay calm. Out of frustration I just put the phone down. I didn't want to try anymore. I guess we all have those days sometimes. At one point you just get sick of trying. The thing I do when I get very upset? Cry. I will actually go to the toilet, cry a bit, calm myself down and get back at it and try it again. And it might sound very silly that I cry but for me that is a sign that I care and that I want to do my job well. If I didn't care, I wouldn't put time into worrying about it.

You know what's funny? Every time that I need to call a customer, I hope that I get voicemail. Because when I get a voicemail, I can fluently say what I need to say. No stutters, no blockages and most of all, no worries. Isn't that weird? I find it weird sometimes. 
How come that I can talk fluently when I'm alone (yes I talk to myself sometimes) or when I talk to the voicemail, but from the moment I know that someone is listening I just shut down.
I don't know why I get so worked up about it. Having stress is not helping me. Sometimes I find myself so silly for stressing out so much. I know can explain the problem or the situation, the only thing that is holding me back is the stress. 
But it's exactly that part that I can't fix that easily. 
There have been so many failures that I keep close in my thoughts, it's hard to shut that off. 

But I am determined to be able to make good phone calls. 
I know that I can do it and I want to prove it. To my boss, to the people on the line but mostly to myself. 

When I finally find some tips that help me, I will share them :-)


Love,
Natasja xxx

Society these days

Today I read an article in the paper that talked about the pressure that the youth has the deal with these days. 
So with that article in mind, I'm doing a post on the pressure of society these days.
I really wanted to write about this because the subject itself makes my blood boil.

In the article there was a boy with dyslexia who said that he doesn't even feel like he belongs in his own house. He gets teased by his family for being 'slower'  and more stupid then his classmates.
Or let's not forget the boy who was highly gifted but was described as being stuck up and showing of with his grades? For that he was bullied every single day.
Or another boy with ADHD who turned to drugs because instead of helping him, his teachers told him that he wouldn't amount to anything. 

Having a disorder, no matter what type it is, is hard in this society. 
For me, it has always been a battle. 
I didn't want to be an outcast because of my stutter, but I didn't want to fit in either. Because I knew that I wasn't like everyone else. 
In stores I have gotten strange looks when I wasn't able to say what I wanted to order, I could feel the judgement actually hanging in the room. People were actually laughing about it to my face.
It made me feel so bad, so alone. 
I've come to the conclusion that this is who I am. And I don't want to be like anyone else.
I don't fit in and that's fine with me.

I can't imagine what it's like having a disorder like ADHD. But I do know people who have it. And I have a great amount of respect for them. Same for people with Dyslexia. 
No matter what the disorder is, it's something that changes you forever. It's also something that makes you feel like an outcast forever. 

How about the boys and girls who are gay?  
Or the people who are transgender? 
Having the fear that people, even your own family, aren't going to except you for who you are?
A lot of people have come to terms with the thought of someone being gay or transgender, but not everyone has.
People get bullied for it, even become the target of fights.
Why shouldn't we be allowed to chose who we love? Why shouldn't we go trough life as the person we choose to be? 
Why do so many people feel ashamed for being who they are? 

I've talked about a couple of things society sees as a 'problem'. But there is one still to come. Depression. Something that a lot of us battle with. And a lot of that are younger kids and teenagers. How is it that teenageers of 16 or 17 are already fighting this? 
This is a clear sign that something is wrong. 
When you are 16 or 17 you should be having the time of you life, not going trough something like that. 
How is it that we only see the signs when it's too late? 
'Oh yes, she told me she was bullied but I didn't do anything about it' ... This is actually something a principal said about one of her own students committing suicide.

Sometimes I feel disgusted being human.

One last thing to close down my post.
Go and look on tumblr. There are so many posts about not fitting in, feeling like an outcast, having depressions and even committing suicide. 
If that's not a sign than I don't know what it.

I think society can go screw itself. 
I'd rather be an outcast that accepts people for who they are, then to fit in in a world where you can't be yourself. A world where it's okay to make others feel like they don't belong. 

I always say, live and let live. 
I'm not here to judge anyone. 



Love,
Natasja 

September Quote

Happy Saturday! (I admit, I love weekends)

Can you believe the biggest part of september is already over? Time goes so fast.

For this post I'm doing another Quote of the month. 

This quote is for everyone who compares himself or herself to others. 
Be honest, who has never done this? 
People always seem to do so. Even to people that they don't know personally. 
Even in middleschool you can see students striving to be the best and number one in the class. And parents are encouraging that.
We live in a world that is very competitive. It's not healthy.

When I was younger, I always wanted to the best in everything I did. Wether it was school or sports. For me it was like I was trying to make sure everybody knew that I was more then just the girl that couldn't talk fluently. I wanted to be perfect in everything so that my stutter wouldn't be important anymore. It was my way of hiding my flaw. 

Trying to always be the best is a heavy burden to carry. And most importantly, an unnecessary burden. 
As long as you do the best you can, you are already a winner (that's cheesy but true).
Comparing ourselves to others just leaves us stressed and maybe disappointed when the results we get aren't what we wanted.

Who cares about other people? Don't spend your life thinking about others. It's a waste of time and energy. 
Be the best that you can be.
When you don't care about what others think, do or say, that's when you can focus on yourself and improve yourself. 
You are your biggest competitor. 


I hope this quote can help all of you realise that you don't need to compare yourself to anyone. Keep on doing what you are doing! You can achieve anything you want! 



Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Love,
Natasja 

My Q to your A

Happy Saturday!

I hope you all had a good week at work/school.

For today's post I'm going to answer some of the questions I've got.

Thanks to you I can do this post, so a big thanks to everyone who send in a question.

1. When does your stutter bother you the most?

It bothers me the most when I'm in a very stressed position or when I don't feel 100% comfortable. Other people start sweating or become red when they are nervous, I begin to stutter (have blockages) more. When I have to talk to someone who has a higher position than me it will also occur more.

2. How do you think you would be if you didn't have a stutter? Would you be a totally different person?

I don't want to let my stutter hold me back but I think that I would be different without it. Hopefully a little bit more sure of myself. Because of my stutter I doubt myself constantly.

I also think I would a little bit more outgoing. I would probably talk non stop if I didn't had this. But that wouldn't be good either haha :)

3. Can you give us a negative and a positive side about your stuttering?

Well the negative one is that having a stutter (or any other 'problem') holds you back in a lot of ways. Socially it's sometimes very difficult to convince yourself to go to an event or whatever because there is a fear of meeting new people. You always have that voice in your head asking 'what will people think if they notice it?'.

For me the biggest negative one is the feeling that it gives me sometimes. When I have a bad days I feel so hopeless. After 23 years this is still here, influencing my life.
It feels like you are having a constant war inside your head. Constantly being frustrated with yourself. The stuttering itself isn't the worst, it's getting mentally tired every single day that really influences you in a negative way.

The positive one is that I think it made me a 'better' person in a way. I'm more patient with people and I try not to judge anyone. We are all fighting or own battle. Stuttering is mine.

I also try to be a more positive person because of it. I do have my bad periods but overall it's makes me realise that I have a good life. It could be a lot worse.

4. Why did you decide to study finances if you knew you would have a lot of social contact? What made you decide to do it anyway?

I knew that it was going to be hard and that I would have my work cut out for me. But this was something I could actually see myself doing. Stutter or no stutter.

It's a lot of work and mentally It's very hard sometimes but this is what I love to do.

5. Why did you decide to go back to therapy after such a long time? Were you forced or was it out of yourself?

It was my choice so go back to therapy. I was feeling more and more unsure of myself. I wasn't feeling good in my own skin. I felt like there had to be a change. My sutttering had reached a peak and I didn't know how to handle that myself.

6. Do people sometimes have prejudices?
It's known that people sometimes think that stutterers aren't as smart as others. They think that is why we can't speak fluently.
Ofcourse that is not true at all. Stutterers often have a better connection to language then anyone else.

7. What advice would you give someone who has a stutter?
Don't give up. Don't let your stutter get the best of you. You are so much more then that.
It's not easy to deal with this every single day. It's there and it's very frustrating. It's frustrating not being able to say your own name, order something in a restaurant or pick up the phone and call someone.
But I know that people who stutter are also very strong people. Don't write us of just because of this. This is just a little bump in the road.

8. Is there anything you are scared off doing because of your stuttering?
This is going to sound very stupid but I am scared that if I ever get married, I won't be able say my own vows.
I always said I didn't want to get married but since I'm in a stable relationship for almost 4 years it has come to mind. We sometimes talk about it and I have told my boyfriend that I'm scared I won't be able to say my vows. His reaction was 'We will find a way to make that work. We can always make a video where we say or vows. You shouldn't let anything hold you back' ...

I was very scared of picking up the phone. Before I started my internship I never picked up the phone at home. I avoided the phone in every way that I could.
Since my work that hasn't been an option anymore. It has a been a very very rough ride but I feel more confident now picking up the phone. It took a lot of sweat and tears but I'm happy to be at this point. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to go.

9. When do you decide to tell people about your stuttering? Do you tell people from the start or not?
When I was younger It took a lot of time to tell someone. It was too personal for me to share. My good friends and family knew but that was it. I didn't want to draw attention to it.

The funny thing is that people sometimes just don't notice it. For example, my boyfriend didn't notice until I told him myself. We had been friends for a year and a half before we started dating and he never noticed something was wrong. Even though I did have blockages while speaking to him. Sometimes your stutters or blockages are just so small and short that people really don't even see any harm in it.

The past months I came to this point in my life where I didn't want to hide it so much anymore. It was getting exhausting to worry about what others would think. I wanted to use this to help others. So that's why I decided to take on this blog. Just throw it out in the world. This is me and I am proud of it. I'm proud of everything I've done so far. I think I've finally learned to accept it.

It took me a long time to come to this moment in my life. A lot of ups and downs. I think that once you've come to this, it's very liberating. Atleast for me it was. Ever since that letter to my boss, a huge weight has been lifted of my shoulders.

Every single one of you is going to come to this point. It might take some time but you will get there.

Thank you for all the questions, you guys are amazing :-)


xxx Natasja

Are we inconvient?

Hi everyone,

I'm back, so it's time for another post.

For this post I'm working together with Joshua St Pierre.

Joshua also owns a blog about stuttering and today I want to talk about one of his articles.

In this article Joshua talks about stutterers being 'inconvient' to others. You can find the link here:

http://www.didistutter.org/blog/on-being-inconvenient1

Time is money. We have all heard that expression before.

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because sometimes I feel like I'm wasting people their time when I'm stuttering. And I can imagine that other stutterers feel the same.

To us, a stutter or a blockage seems like it lasts minutes. We sometimes don't realise that it's only a couple of seconds.

During those seconds we feel ashamed, mad at ourselves and stressed. Those are a lot of emotions to feel in a couple of seconds.

Leen and I have filmed me talking a couple of times. I always thought my blockages were almost a minute long. I clearly didn't have any clue of how long a minute actually is.

Looking at those video's I realised that my blockages were maximum 10 seconds long. It made me change my vision a little bit on my stutter. If people can't take 10 extra seconds out of their lives to listen to me, then there is something really wrong. And the problem isn't with me ... it's with them.

Joshua talks about how he takes pride in being inconvient. For me personally, that is not the case. I'm just not that convident. But I think he is right to take pride in it. Why shouldn't we take the time that we deserve?

Why should we feel like we don't deserve the time to speak? Everybody else gets the time they deserve, so I think it's only fair that we do too. You can correct me if I'm wrong on this.

You're not taking away anybody their time while talking. You are alowed to take the time that you need to get your point across. This goes for everybody. So when people look at you with a boring face, don't even sweat it. That just shows that they are not worth your time. People who actually are interested will keep on listening. No matter how long it takes.

If you have some time, go and check out Joshua his blog on this link:

http://www.didistutter.org/
Also a big thank you to Joshua for letting me use his article for this post.

Have a great weekend, enjoy the rest of your Saturday and Sunday.

xxx

Natasja

Thank you!

Hello Everyone,

Let me start by saying that I'm very overwelmed with the postive comments that I'm getting about this blog. 

I got this feature on a facebookpage about stuttering which resulted in a couple of my facebookfriends finding my blog. At first I was a little bit scared. My close friends know about my stuttering, but so far almost nobody knew about my blog. 
Leen, my therapist, also recommended my blog to a lot of colleagues.
I got some amazing comments that really warmth my heart. So to everyone who took the time to read my last post (and my blog) and leave some comments on facebook, a big thank you. 

The main reason that I decided to do this blog is because I want to help others who stutter. But most of all,  I want this blog to be a safe place for everyone. Wether you stutter or not. 
There are so many stutterers but you can hardly find any personal blogs. 
That made me want to do this even more.
This blog is also for everyone who wants some more insight on the world of stuttering. 
 So please, feel free to share this blog with anyone that might be interested. 

For one of my next posts I would love to receive some questions. Any questions that you might have about stuttering or about my life as a stutterer you can mail to meandmystutter@hotmail.com, or leave as a comment. In one of my next posts I will answer all for them. Don't leave me hanging here guys! 

This post is going to very short, light and random. Why? Because I think it's important to also keep this blog a little bit fun. I have posted some heavy things so far, time to for a happier post.

Normally I write my post with Sepp his laptop because mine broke 5 months ago. The problem with that is that he needs it alot for his work. Today I finally ordered a new one. So in the future I will have more time to plan my posts and write beforehand. Tuesday, after work, I can go and pick it up. Seeing as I leave for Munich on wednesday at 3.30 am there won't be a post up next week because we are not taking our laptops with us. We will be there until monday the 31th. I'm really excited to discover Munich. Sepp is there a lot for his work( he's there for 5 months of the year) but he never actually sees the city, time to change that! I'm also going to meet some of his friends and his boss ... the pressure is on. Talking is hard enough in Dutch, now I will have to talk English half of the time. It's a real challenge but I can not wait. You will definitely hear how that goes.

The next post will be up around the 5th of september so stay tuned :-)

If you ever have suggestions or ideas for a post, please let me know. I would love to have input seeing as you guys are the ones reading this blog. You can always comment or e-mail me. Ideas are always welcome. 

Auf Wiedersehen!

The letter that changed everything

It all started at the beginning of this year. Something changed. I changed.
I didn't feel good in my own skin anymore. 

There were things happening at work that made me feel like I didn't belong there. It seemed like I wasn't doing a good job and I should just quit while I was ahead. 
There were comments made every single day that always seemed aimed at me.
Because someone at the office had the same problem as me, I felt like I was being compared. And not in the good way.
All I wanted to do was scream out 'I am not the same!'.

A big part of the problem were the phone calls. I tried every single day but it felt like I was getting nowhere. It felt like I was moving backwards instead of forewards. I was doing therapy, why in the world was I moving backwards? Shoudn't this all be getting better? 

I felt like I was fighting a battle I couldn't win. The stuttering was getting too much and I got overwelmed. Since I had been working I came in confrontation with this every single day. I work at an insurance firm and this means coming in contact with clients a lot. In person but also on the phone. I do a lot of administration but I also have to call the company's we work with when I need more information about a payment or a certain dossier. When there are problems, I have to find a way to solve them and that means picking up the phone and calling around. I am also the one that answers the phone when people call in. But that phone is the devil to me. And it showed.
People were throwing down the phone because I couldn't get a word out. It felt degrading because they wouldn't even take the time to let me finish.
People were looking at me weird when I couldn't explain something fluently when they were sitting right in from of me..
For me, the worst was that I didn't get a lot of support at my job. I felt like I was alone in this. 

After 2 months of feeling like this I broke down completely. I cried my eyes out leaving work and coming home. I always said I wouldn't work somewhere where I didn't feel accepted. Why work somewhere for 8 hours a day when all you do is feel worthless? I didn't feel like that place was the right place for me anymore. I was mad at everything and at everyone, mostly at myself. I hated myself for being like this. Why couldn't I just get over this? So many people have. I was mentally exhausted because I had try to pull myself out of this funk. 
But I didn't let it show outside of my home. Only my boyfriend and my best friend knew. 
Shout out to them for being the best people I know!

During all of these years of being a stutterer I bottled a lot up. I never wanted to seem ungreatefull for all of the help I got. During school and college the teachers were all amazing, helping me where they could. Especially in college. My french and dutch teacher both helped me so much. I wouldn't have made it without them. During the last oral exams I broke out crying because I couldn't even get out what I wanted to say. I practised to hard, in front of the mirror, in front of my boyfriend ... but nope. During the exams it wouldn't work. 
Both of them told me it was alright and they talked to me about my stuttering.
How can you even complain about that? I was just so happy that they wanted to understand. So complaining was never an option. 

But because all of this felt like a street without an end I knew I had to do something.
So I decided to tell Leen. I told her about the phone calls, about the feelings I had of not being understood ... everything. 
She was great about it and we talked for weeks about this. 

To sum it up, I was in a negative circle.
First I felt nervous because I had to call or talk to people with this stutter. I felt insecure.
Because of this it got harder and harder to do my job. Everytime I had to call someone It just didn't go well because of the negative thoughts I already put in my head. Because of this I got even more nervous to try it again. And this got me nervous when I had to speak. And so on. 
It was a circle that I needed to get out of. 

In may I was leaving for a holiday of 2 weeks, 11 days were going to be spend in Turkey. 
You have no idea how much I was looking forward this. I think people were actually getting tired of me saying 'oh only ... days until I leave for Turkey'. I had the countdown calender and everything. I needed to get out of that office so bad. Since January I had been working every day with these negative thoughts spooking around in my head. I'd been feeling mentally exhausted since the last year of college (I talked about this in my first post), but when this was added to it, I couldn't control my feelings anymore.

We saw the perfect opportunity to tell my boss everything. I had to tell him how I felt because I needed his help. I needed him to help me with these phone calls and I needed him to understand what it has been like. But most of all I didn't want to be compared anymore.
In those 2 weeks both him and I would also have the chance to reflect. 
Because it wouldn't be easy to tell him in person (I'm a cry baby so I wouldn't be able to tell him without shedding tears the size of a river), we decided to tell him trough a letter. 

3 weeks before I left for Turkey I wrote the letter. Terrified of giving it to him, me and Leen went over it a couple of times. Analyzing what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.
I was scared that he was going to thing that I was overreacting. But at the same time I felt like I had a right to say what I feel. 

On may 19th I put the letter in the mailbox when I left the office, hoping that this would change something.

I'm so glad to tell you that it did.
Me and my boss talked about it when I came back. He told me how he felt and how it was hard for him to understand why I felt so bad.  
At first I thought that it wouldn't change anything because of this comment.
But little by little the situation got better because I actually felt like I could speak to him about this. 
The pressure of making these phone calls isn't there anymore. Now I do this on my own time and when it doesn't seem to work, I know that I can always ask for help. He also calms me down or give me tips.
 
My job is really stressfull. Not only because of my stutter. But now I can finally say that I like my job again.
I'm happy that if something is wrong I don't have to feel ashamed anymore to talk about it. 
The subject of stuttering is out in the open and it feels great. 

If you ever go trough the same thing, please stand up for yourself. Don't let yourself feel bad because of other people. You can do anything. Even if it takes up a little bit more time. Never apologize for having a stutter or any other problem. That would be the same as apologizing for being a brunette, a blonde or a redhead. It's a part of you and it makes you who you are.



Have a good weekend!
X
Natasja 

ps. Sorry for the long post ;)