Let's rewind!

It has been quiet on my blog for a couple of weeks. The reason behind that is the fact that I was going to be alone at the office for about 12 days. I wanted to see how I would deal with that and how my stuttering would be. So I thought it would be better to post after, when everything got back to normal a bit. This way I would have a couple of days to reflect. 

My boss went on vacation for about a week. That meant that I was alone at the office for a couple of days. I've had days where I'm alone, but those are different. Or atleast they feel different. Because during a normal week I know that when I need help, I can always call or text my boss. It's like I always have a back up. This time I was in it all alone.

So how have these days been? I can say one thing, stressfull. Very stressfull. The first 2 days were calm and I handled them very well. But when the third day came around there were doubts that started to sneak their way into my head. Was i really capable of doing this?

More and more phonecalls came in and I was getting a bit stressed out. The main reason of that were troubles with the computer. Long story short, the server crashed. So it was my job to call the IT guy and get it fixed. No problem right? 
I would say no, but our server is our key to every single point of information we have about a client. Adresses, telephone, mail, number of contracts, letters, scanned documents .... Everything is on there. And for about 4 days I could not access that. 
How to make a stressed out cocktail? Just mix doubts with computerproblems and there you go. Enjoy! 

My stuttering was worse during those days. I found that normal. Stress always makes my stuttering get a little harder to deal with. I tried to prepare myself for it but I guess that's something you can not really do. 
I tried to use the tricks I learned during therapy. Making certain letters longer really helped me. 

The hardest part was trying to keep positive. Telling myself that it was just a harder week and that my stuttering would tone down again. It's easy to tell yourself that. It's a little bit harder to believe it. 

Near the end of the week I was completely exhausted. I worked over time almost every single day, wednesday I worked from 8.30 am untill 9 pm. In total I worked 7 hours over time. 
So by friday I felt tired and I started to feel like maybe I didn't have my stuttering under control at all. Was I getting back to my old ways? Was I getting, dare I say it? Negative again? 
I was worried that I would get scared again. Scared to pick up the phone and call someone. 
I refuse to go back to that. 

My stuttering might have been harder on me but I'm glad that I was able to deal with it. 
Talking to Leen that week in therapy also made me realise that it's completely normal to have some harder days again. It happends and there is no shame or harm in it.

It's more important to realise that those days will pass and that everything will get better again as long as you put the work in it and as long as you are positive. 
How we think about something controls our actions. For me that means that when I think negative, I won't be able to make a phonecall anymore. I start to doubt the progress I've made and it's very easy to get back into that negative circle again. One day of this and it can put me back into months of negative doubts.

I'm happy to say that I didn't go down that road. 
My boss was very happy with all the work I did and how I handled everything. And so am I. I think I needed this to show me that I should believe in myself more. 


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 ;)