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