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 

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 

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 ;)


 

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 
  

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.