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
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
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
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
