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.