Quote of the month

Every month I am going to share a quote that has had a lot of meaning to me. I hope that these quotes can also help and motivate you :)

This quote above has helped me a lot. 
This year I have had some rough times (In the next post I will explain some more). I doubted myself and I doubted if I could go on. 
I felt exhausted. I felt like I was fighting a constant war in my head. 

These words helped me remind myself of how far I have come in my life. So many years ago, I would have never expected to be where I am now. 
I would have never expected to handle situations like I have. 

Wether you stutter, have dyslexia or any another problem that makes you feel like you are worth less then others, don't forget how strong you are.
Don't forget of the struggles you have been through and how you have overcome all of them. 

Ofcourse I am totally aware that this is easier said then done.
I know that there are times where being positive just isn't an option. You just don't feel like trying to find the good things. 

But it is worth it. Being negative isn't helping you move forward either. 
What is going to help you move forward is all of the strenght that you have because life hasn't been easy on you. You have learned from that and those lessons are going to help you in the future. 

The things that is making your live more difficult is also the thing that is making you stronger every day. 
Sometimes you just need a couple of words to remind yourself of that.  






Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone <3 
  

Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out

I found this drawing on Tumblr and I really wanted to use it for my blog.
I think it's describes what has been said to me over the years just perfectly.
I wanted to thank the amazing and talented intertwinedheartss on tumblr (www.intertwinedheartss.tumblr.com) for letting me use her artwork.

I think all of us who stutter can relate to this drawing so much. All of those words have been said to us, and they hurt. They make you feel so bad about yourself. Even if some of them aren't used to harm you but to help you.

I'm going to talk a bit about some of these comments. 
Have one of those things ever been said to you? How did you feel about it? Please let me know, I would love to get to know you better.

 - Relax
Something that has been said to me too many times. Saying 'relax' has never helped me and it never will. It's not a magic word. It won't get me relaxed. It will make me feel nervous because I feel like I need to be relaxed for you. 

- I don't have all day / Come on already
Luckily, nobody has every said this to me. I think saying something like that to someone who stutters, or to anybody for that matter, is just plain rude. You will listen to what we have to say, even if it takes us a whole day. Everybody has the right to be heard. 
Patience is the key with people who stutter. Don't rush us. Make us feel comfortable, that is the only way to take away the stress of speaking.

- I've seen worse
Oh have you? Well let me talk fluently now because obviously I am not the worst thing you have seen. That makes me feel great about myself and my stutter. Nope.

- Did I stutter?
I HATE people who use the word 'stutter' as something that they just trow in a sentence.
The fact is that everybody sometimes stutters. People on tv, on the radio, they all do it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. There is no need to use it in an argument as a way to make someone feel bad about not understanding you. 
As you can see, the title of my blog is 'Did I stutter?'. I choose this because I'm tired of people using this as a joke. For once, I wanted to see it being used in the right way. Did I stutter? Well yes I did. And there is no reason to hide it. 

- I know how you feel 
Unless you stutter yourself, you don't know how I feel. There is no discussing that. 
It's the same as saying 'I know how you feel' to someone who is very sick when you have never been sick. 
Do you know how it feels to be an outcast? Do you know how it feels to be scared to go somewhere where you have to speak? Do you know how it feels to feel your heart racing like crazy every time the phone rings? Do you know how it feels to be so frustrated with yourself that you never want to speak again? Do you know how it feels to not be able to say your own name? Or the name of the ones you love? 

- Did you forget your name or something?
I think out of all the comments, this is the one that gets to me the most.
I hate not being able to say my name. 
Your name is something really emotional and that is exactly the reason why most people stutter on it.
When people say 'Did you forget your name or something' it makes me feel so bad about myself. I can't even describe the feeling. It just makes me feel helpless.

- Breathe
My boss says this to me a lot. When I'm on the phone to him and I can't say what I need to say, he always tells me to breathe in and out. 
Obviously I know that I need to breathe in and out, I don't need anyone to tell me that. 
I appreciate that he tries to keep me calm and wants to help but to be honest, it never really helps me. I tell myself to breathe in and out every single moment of the day. It just doesn't work. 

- It's not that bad
Well to you it might not seem bad, but for me it feels like it is.
If you have had this for many years and you don't see it going away, it doesn't really help your confidence. 
For me it's bad because I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of having this. 
People might say this to make you feel better but let's face it, it doens't help you much when you already feel like shit on the inside.


To everybody that has ever tried to make me feel comfortable and took the time to listen to me... Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, you have no idea. Thank you for not rushing me. Thank you for letting me be myself.

I really hope that all of you guys who are reading this have friends and family that let them be themselves. If you ever need to talk about your stutter (or anything else), please message me. You can find me on twitter, on tumblr and you can find my e-mail on my blog. I'm always here to help.

Therapy

A big part of learning how to deal with your stutter is going to therapy.

Stuttering isn't just related to speech. It's related to everything that goes on in your mind and in your life. Having a stutter makes you feel like you are worth less than others. It makes you feel like an outcast. It also influences your daily life. Everything becomes a bit harder and it happends that anxiety can occur. Ordering something in a restaurant becomes a stress situation, having to meet new people makes you feel lightheaded or even sick. These are all situations that we have to deal with. And going to therapy can help a lot.

Therapy shouldn't just be about the speech itself. Talking about how it feels to have this is very important as well. Especially for kids. We have all been there, we have all laughed at someone because they are different. And I think for most of us, we have also been laughed at for that same reason.
Kids can be cruel because sometimes they just don't see how words can hurt.
I didn't really liked to talk about it to my parents. So going to the therapist helped me because there I could talk about my day.

You also have to find a therapy that suits you. Do they focus on getting rid of the stutter, or do they want you to feel comfortable with it and teach you how to talk fluently even with a stutter?
There is a big difference.

For me, it's important that I feel comfortable with my stuttering/blockages because I know that it's not going to go away. It's been here for 23 years and it will stay for even more.
So that's why we focus on making voluntary stutters. This means that when I feel a blockage or a stutter coming up, I don't try to fight it. I just try to say the word with a small repeat. Seeing as we are in the beginning of my therapy, it's still very hard for me to do them outside the therapy. During the therapy it feels more comfortable. For example, normally if I would say my name I would just have a blockage before I could start to say the letter N. With this I would say Hi, I'm Na-Na-Natasja. So I would make a small repeat but I would be able to say my name with a blockage that lasts 10 seconds. Another example is a word with the letter T. Instead of saying T-T-T-T-T-Training or just completely blocking on the word, I would say Trai-Trai-Training.
The whole point of this is for me to learn how to talk fluently, even with a stutter.

We also talk alot about how I experience it. How has my week gone? Did I have many stutters or blockages? When did I have them? What caused them? How did I react? How did other react?
I think this is also something that needs to be adressed. Not just the speech.

So why don't I pick a therapy that helps me get rid of my stutter? Well, my stutter is a part of who I am. Thanks to this stutter, I am the worker that I am today. It made me a person that tries to not judge people. And I am proud of that. I don't want that gone. I want to show people that I can handle living with this. It's not the end of the world.
Besides, the therapy's that promise you to have your stutter gone... I don't really believe in them. I think they do help you, but only for a couple of months.  You have therapy for 6 weeks, every day, multiple hours, with a whole group of people in a save environment and then after those weeks you are talking fluently. And that's good. But what if you are outside that environment? What if a stutter slips in and you don't know how to handle it anymore because you thought it would be gone? I'm the kind of person that needs to do things on my own time. But I have much respect for the people in those programs, it's great that they can overcome their stutter. Personally, it's just not really something I would see myself doing.

I think the therapy I'm doing right now suits me as a person. But that doesn't mean it will suit everyone. It's important to find something YOU are comfortable with. Never settle for less.

Let's go back to the beginning ...

As my first post, I wanted to talk a little bit about my journey. Warning, this might be a long post.
 
The first time I remember coming in confrontation with my stuttering was when I was 7.
I was in my first year in middle school and I was a bit 'slower' then everybody else. My teacher, who was a lovely woman and I'm still so greatfull for everything she did for me, recommended to go see a doctor who deals in speakingproblems, dyslexia and that sort of thing. Now, seeing as I was 6 years old, I don't remember a lot of it anymore. The thing I do remember is that I had go sit in a room and I had to pronounce certain sounds/letters/words etc.
I also had to do these tests that would tell if I was 'behind' on the other kids or not.

 After 3 hours of this kind of torture, don't forget I was a kid and I had the concentration of a fish, the doctor came in and told my parents I would never be able to finish middle school because of my disfluency in speaking and reading. He suggested going to this school that was specialized in kids who had a handicap.

My parents took the results to my teacher and she was not having it. She told my parents there was nothing wrong with me and that I would be able to do great if I just had a little bit more help.
It's not because a kid has a stutter, he or she is behind on everyone else. People should really get that into their head.

So I kept on going to the same school until I was 13. I felt good there. I didn't feel like an outcast.The teachers and kids knew that I had a stutter and the accepted me for it. I got help whenever I needed it.
Did I get laughed at? Yes I did. But I knew that I could get trough this. I needed to.

To help me, I did follow speech therapy from ages 6 until 12. In the beginning I had to go 3 times a week for an hours. So I would come home, eat, go to therapy, come home and do my homework. Then It was straight to bed. You could say I didn't really have a lot of free time. Ofcourse, over the years the therapy went from 3 hours a week, till 1 hour a week.

From my 13th till my 18th I went to high school in the same schoolcomplex as middle school.
Ofcourse high school is a whole different kind of deal. New people, new teachers, new classes ... in other words, a new kind of stress.
Overall I can't complain about my high school experience. Again, I had good teachers and nice classmates.

I remember that during the second class of German, I had to repeat a sentence. I got so nervous that I couldn't say anything. The teacher asked me what was wrong and I told her that I had a stuttering problem.
She was so sweet about and she let me and my other classmate who had the same thing, come by during lunch so that we could practice German together.
My English teacher also did the same. I still appreciate this so much.
Presentations or reading assignments were also seperated. I had the chance to do them seperated from the group.
It might seem like a preferential treatment but my grades were depending on this. I wasn't bad at German or English, but being with 13 other people got me too nervous to speak or read. I wasn't going to let this problem take away my good grades.

Because of some problems I did return to speech therapy at the end of the schoolyear. Eventhough I was doing pretty good and my stuttering wasn't a big problem, I didn't feel good in my own skin. Having this was slowly making me more insecure.

So by this time I graduated middle and high school. So, eat this doctor whatever you name was.
I had to work very hard, that's no secret. When others were at a party, I was home. Studying and having no life. So it sure wasn't easy.

After this it was time for college. I did go to speech therapy during this whole first year.
I studied nursing. Long story short, it was not my thing. Eventough I loved to help people, I didn't feel 100% sure of it.
My stuttering felt better, so that was not the main problem. The problem was me.

After failing my internship I decided to do something totally different. I choose a bachelor education in finances and insurances. To this day, I still don't regret it.

So again, new school, new teachers and new classmates. But I felt more comfortable in my own skin. On the first day I already had new friends and I felt more sure of myself, thanks to An and her amazing therapy.

I'm not going to go into detail of my years in college. But I am going to talk a bit about my last year.
Your last year of college is the year with the most of stress. For me the stress became a bit unbareble.
It got to the point where I didn't knew how to handle my stutter anymore. It felt out of control. I felt like I needed help.  I felt exhausted, I felt empty.  I needed someone to talk to so I went to the counselor in school. Once a week we talked about everything. She really helped me to get trough these last months in school.

After 6 months of classes and exams it was time for the last part, the internship. I got an internship at a local insuranceagent. I already knew the boss because he is a friend of my parents. The internship itself went pretty well.  The hardest part for me what getting over my fear of phonecalls. But we will get into that later on.
I graduated in june and I got a full time job at my internship a week after my graduation. So things were going pretty well.

Yes things were going pretty well. But I still had the same feelings as before. Maybe even more now because I had to deal with these phonecalls every single day from now on. I had to deal with people looking at me weird because I can not talk fluently. I had to deal with people getting mad at me on the phone because I couldn't finish my sentence. I couldn't keep hiding this frustration anymore.

In november I decided to go back to a speech therapist. I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep on going like I was fine while I wasn't. This thing was eating me up inside. It was making me even more scared that I was before.
I searched for a therapist and that's where I found Leen. My first meeting with her felt like I was talking to someone I knew for a while. And that is when you know you have found the right therapist. I didn't feel judged.

I have been going to Leen for about 6 months now. During those 6 months there have been a lot of ups and downs. Most of them are psychological. It felt like all I did was cry about this.
The hardest part right now is trying to accept that this stutter is still here. When I was little I always thought that by the time I turned 23, it would have been gone. Sadly enough, there is no quick cure for this. It's a long time process and I still have a long time to go.
For now, I am just learning how to accept this. If I have learned anything, it's the fact that there is no use in fighting this because it won't just go away. 

I hope you guys take this journey with me.


I would really appreciate it if you leave me a note to tell me what you think of my blog so far.
I would just love to know if you think I should keep going with this or not.