Stuttering Tips/Things That Make Me Stutter

I hope these lists help someone like me who stutters but doesn't know anyone else who stutters feel a little less alone. I write this blog for the same reason I've written a script for the first video of my stuttering/anxiety youtube channel that I'm still too scared to film. I want to be a presence in the world with this disability because it is so isolating and so rarely seen.

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When I talk on the phone, I use a pen (Bic Atlantic specifically, because the click is practically noiseless) and with each syllable I say, I click the pen once. This helps keep my speech slow enough that I don't get tangled up in my own words, but it's not too noticeable. Also, if I can I write a script, writing in anything I expect the other person to say and my reply to it. It may seem laborious, but it works.

In person, you can't really click a pen, but if I can I'll tap my fingers on my lap or under my chair, or tap my feet. I'm reading this very helpful (if extremely dated) book and it's been AMAZING teaching me ways to speak to avoid stuttering. A tip that has helped me immensely is to touch your lips/tongue together as lightly as possible. It keeps me from getting tense and clamping my mouth shut. I can't recommend it highly enough, it's wonderful. 

Planning out what I'm going to say ahead of time- that is, predicting what questions people will ask and planning your response- helps as well. This is good especially for planned events like holidays or parties. People are going to ask you what you're up to, how's the job hunt going, etc. Planning and rehearsal are key for me.

Breathing deeply in and out, for instance, while waiting in line at a checkout, works to keep me from getting wound up while waiting for my turn to speak. If I don't do this, by the time it's my turn at the checkout I'll be so tense I won't be able to open my mouth.

After meditating, or mantra meditating, I am a lot less likely to stutter. I think it has to do with being extremely relaxed. this one turns me into jello. Use headphones with these, they're intense!

I like to read aloud to practice my speech, talking as slowly as I can without sounding like I have an intellectual disability. (The book I mentioned above recommends talking extremely slowly, but I figure talking to everyone like that all the time is way worse than stuttering, so I only read like this to practice relaxed talking)

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One of the weirdest things that sends me into a throat-closed red alert stuttering emergency is when people ask me to repeat myself. Even if I said it the first time perfectly fluently, if I'm asked to repeat myself, I just shut down.

If I'm on the phone and someone deviates from my script. PANIC. Also just calling someone I don't know closely can shut my mouth down. A lot of times I'll get stuck on 'Hello' and people will hang up- thus perpetuating the whole 'fear of talking on the phone' thing.

When I'm surprised, for instance someone coming up to me in a shop and asking if I need anything.

I stutter most when I'm angry, nervous, or about to win an argument (because of how important it is that I not stutter), and least when I'm happy or sad. Also when I know I look really good. :)

My trouble letters are all hard consonants. K, B, G, and P are the bane of my existence.

I stutter a lot more around men than I do women, mostly because the majority of the people who have scarred me mentally were men.

When I talk to people I live near, I always stutter a ton, probably because I know I'll see them a lot and it'll be awkward. Similarly, people I only see once or twice a year are triggers for me because I know if I stutter a lot it'll be their last impression of me for a year or more. So, of course, I stutter a lot.

How To Go Outside (And Other Things That Make Your Skin Crawl)

First and most important, don't think. 

Anything that you think about when you think about leaving the house is your brain's way of telling you to crawl back into your comfort pit, because when you go outside, bad things happen. People hurt you, the weather is too cold, things can't get worse if you don't leave. But the truth is things can't get better if you stay inside. They can only get worse.

You don't have to wallow in your own misery. You can leave any time. You can get out, and when you feel the fresh air on your skin, you'll begin to feel a little better, for a little while. And trust me, any amount helps. Even the memory helps- it will make it easier to get out next time. It doesn't feel like it now, but it's possible.

I'll walk you through it. Sometimes I have to do this for myself, and the smaller the steps the easier it is. Stand up. Put on shoes. If that's too much, put on one shoe. If that's too much, just pick up your foot. Small steps will get you out the door when the concept of going outside is as daunting as climbing a mountain. One step. Another step. It gets easier when the fresh air is on your cheeks.

Tell your brain it's no longer in charge and start moving. That's the hardest part.

~

The same tactic can be applied when you're not in a dark place. For instance, the idea of going to a social gathering makes my heart bounce around my chest and my palms go sweaty, whether I'm in a good place or not. The knowledge that this is what's good for me, it will stretch my boundaries and make my world bigger, doesn't do diddly freaking squat when I'm up against an evening of painfully awkward conversation and lots and lots of stutters. The looks on people's faces, the things they've said and done in the past swarm my vision and keep me in my bed. They hold me down, but it isn't in their power. It's in yours. They aren't actually holding you back, you're holding yourself back. So stop thinking. I'm not saying meditate, or whatever, I'm saying act anyway. Even if your brain is pounding every bad thing that ever happened to you into your mind over and over, stand up. Walk over to someone. Try. You don't have to be stronger than your fear to act anyway- that's how you get stronger than your fear. Speaking instead of hiding in the corner. Making the choice to act instead of run.

It's not easy, I'm not suggesting that you'll succeed every time, or that a shitty person won't leave in the middle of talking to you again because you can't get a word out. That might happen. But you have to keep going outside anyway. You have to keep talking to people anyway. I'm not saying you can't binge chips and marathon Netflix for hours afterward, but you will eventually have to stop doing that because a) you'll die of malnutrition and b) that's also not how you want your life to be. I mean, I know you want your life to be easy, chances are if you're reading this it's probably very hard. Nothing happens easily, you have had to work for every inch of ground you've ever walked on. But life isn't going to be simple, it's never going to be easy. Things don't just happen easily for us, we have to work for them. It's the hardest thing in the world, getting up and trying again, heading towards the same things that have and will hurt you. But every time you walk towards your anxiety it'll get a little bit easier, and you'll gain a little more strength. And those Doritos will be there waiting for you when you get back. Only this time they'll be the Doritos of Getting Shit Done.*

*borrowed from the essay Adulthood Is A Scary Horse by Elodie Under Glass. 

It's Never Too Late To Go After What You Really Want

When I got into my late 20s, I panicked. I wasn't where I was supposed to be, I didn't have a wife, or even a girlfriend, I wasn't anywhere near having kids- I didn't even have a job I liked! None of my boxes were ticked, and I was freaking out about it. It sent me into a depression spiral, and the oldest bad thoughts came tumbling out. I'm nothing, I'll never be anything, I'll never succeed, etc. It took me almost a decade to figure out that none of that mattered. As a person, you never stop changing, and holding onto the goals you had when you were fifteen like the last custard-filled donut in the box is not going to lead to happiness (unlike the donut), unbalanced mental health or not.  I had to learn to let go of goals that didn't fit me anymore, and figure out what real me, current me, wanted. Along the way I learned that since I hadn't started working on myself until my late 20s, it would take more time to get there than if I had started working on it in college, or the years that followed. And that's okay.

Because I hadn't lit a fire under my own ass until later in life, it would take a few years longer than most people to get there. That didn't make me lesser, or dumb, or doomed to fail. It just meant that I would have to work a little harder, and be a little behind most people in terms of where I'm at in life, for a while. I read this amazing article and it really helped me understand what was going on with my life. When I finally figured out what I wanted, it wasn't at all what I expected. All this time I'd been beating myself up for not reaching a goal I didn't even want. I don't want to work a 9 to 5 in an office building and go home to my apartment. I mean, I do want that for a while, a year or two maybe, but then once I've saved up, I want to buy a tiny house and travel around the country. Did I mention I can't drive? Working on it. The key is that it doesn't matter whether I'm 29 or 21, I'm going for my goals. One isn't worse than the other. I had a late start. That's not embarassing, it's not something to be ashamed of. Other people might not get it, but (another revelation that came to me later in life) that doesn't matter. People all have their own things to deal with, and anyway you'll show them when you roll up to Saturday dinner in your tiny house. *ahem* I mean, um...

Figure out what you really want, and do your best to go after it. If it takes you a little longer than most people, so what? You'll get there in the end, and a lot of the people who you're afraid of judgments from still probably don't live their goals.

You can't be ashamed of yourself for being a certain age and still working on your goals. You're working on it, do you have any idea how many people settle for whatever they can get? Who give up? You're not one of those people, you're trying, you're going for it. And people will see that. If they don't, it doesn't matter, because you're going to get there, and you'll be the kind of happy you never thought you could be. I have faith in you.

On Living With A Mental Disability

Life is trying and failing and trying and failing and trying again, over and over. You reach a great place, the place where you feel you belong. You stay there for a while, then something goes wrong and you go dark for awhile. Rolling over and over in the darkest parts of you like a pig in mud. And you stay that way until you decide to get up again.  Getting up again and failing and getting up again, is life. The highs and the lows, the failure and the trying again. This is life. To settle for failure is mere existence, to settle for misery and never becoming who you could be. Settling for failure means you give up on your future, and to get up again is to decide, daily, to live.

The fight is hard, it is every day, it is unrelenting. This is what makes us crack. What makes us wallow in sadness and despair. But one day (and no one can tell you when it is time for you to get up, this is something only you can know) you will be inspired, and you will start again. Innumerable times I have thought, this is it, I'm staying here forever. It's easy, and it's painless. Giving up is seductive as fuck. It's a warm bed calling to you, a siren's song of all the terrible things that have happened to you because you got back up. Calling you back to the warm, secure safety of doing nothing. I'm always tempted to say, This Is Who I Am Now. I'm done running after a dream. A mind that wants to do the easiest thing (because the easiest thing cannot hurt you) will tell you anything to get you to listen.

But deciding to try again, and again, and again-facing pain and fear and discomfort, purposefully choosing all the things that make you want to run- choosing this is what makes you a warrior. A phoenix.

Many, many times I have wallowed in my room, painting my nails black and binging Netflix, thinking, "This is it. I'm done. I give up. I GIVE UP. I am so done, I'm not strong enough, it never ends, when will it be over? When can I just be done?"

But the truth is, you can never be done. You will always fall, and you will always get back up. Understand that. You will never be done. Your fight will never be over. But it will get easier. You will get stronger.

I hold this hope close to me every day, slogging through the challenges like concrete in the daily struggle, knowing that as long as I keep going (and I can't help but keep going) it will get easier every time. If I remember the cycle, recognize that with every downswing there will be an upswing, and the journey will get easier, I am able to keep going. I hold the dream of my ideal self in front of me and I fucking run.

Sometimes I fall. Everyone falls. I am writing this while planning my upswing from a deep chasm. But I'm on my way up. I learn from the things that didn't work before, the things that made me fall. Strict routines, repetition, long-term goals. The words 'should' and 'forever'. You will learn from your failures, and use this knowledge later so you won't fall down the same holes. 

Two years ago I fell as deep as I have ever been. But I rose from those ashes just the same as I will rise from these. Though in my darkness I tell myself I'm weak, that I'll never be anything, the truth is I already am something. I'm a phoenix. And if you're alive today with a mental disability, you are too (even if you're reading this from bed).

How To Stay Sane If You Live With Toxic People But Can't Get Out

I've seen people asking this question on various sites, but usually the answer given is 'just get out, there is always a way'. This is incredibly unhelpful, uneducated advice, because for some people, there is no way. Like me, for instance. I'm trying my hardest to get a job and get out on my own, but right now I am completely destitute and my 2 friends live far away. Telling someone like me to 'find a way to get out of there' is really stupid. I'm not just lazy, or 'not trying'. I am trying. And so are many people who ask a sincere question only to recieve a useless quip as a response.
So I thought I'd help others like me who have no alternative but to stay in a toxic environment.

Firstly, get out whenever you can. I have the good fortune to live in Carnegie, a small borough near Pittsburgh where I am 10 minutes away from several shops, and 20 minutes from an independent coffee shop and a library (and an ice cream shop!). I used to spend a lot of time here before the following tip, sitting in the loft of the coffee shop or in the empty concert hall area in the library, where every little thing echoed but I was alone and I could relax and fill my mind with healthy things that counteracted the poison I was recieving at home.

The next most important thing, if it's possible for you, is to make your bedroom like a mini-apartment, or sanctuary. This might seem silly, but it really helps me distance myself from the toxic environment in the rest of the house. I have some (non-refrigerated, obviously) food and bottles of water, and some plates and silverware in a storage drawer, and I used a body pillow on my bed (against the wall) for a couch. If you have a bigger bedroom than me you can really go crazy with it. Mini fridge! Actual couch! My room is already full of things that fuel me and motivate/inspire me, and it really creates a positive environment. I have a microscopic bedroom, and it works very well, so if you've got a little more upstairs real estate, it should be brilliant. I spend most nights here, and a lot of time during the day as well. It's a positive atmosphere and it's wonderful to look around and be in a space that is 100% mine, and portrays me and my tastes and nothing else. Psychologically, it's wonderful.

Fill your time with things that make you feel good, that keep you hopeful and positive. Books, music, (for me it's mostly YouTube), whatever fuels you. My anxiety and depression makes me stay in a lot, and it's important to be around other people who don't poison you sometimes. I joined a social anxiety Meetup group last year, and though its hard to force myself to do it, every time I have it's made me feel amazing. Doing this you may find other people who are like you, who have been through some similar things, and that helps an incredible amount. Also it makes me feel good to do things on my own, to prove to myself that I don't need the abusive person to get along.

My fur baby, Kacey, is a source of endless joy for me and, despite being a...well..less than cuddle-prone creature, she makes me happy no matter what situation I'm in or how I'm feeling. I'm not saying you should get a dog, but...maybe you should get a dog.

I'm just saying.

Dreamer's House 2.0 : Starting Over

Hi, I'm Shannon, but I prefer Shay or Katie.
Welcome to the revamped version of The Dreamer's House. New look, new attitude, new (regular) content. I'll be posting twice a week, either photoblogs or talking about anxiety, depression, or stuttering. More specifics to come as I work out the kinks.

With Dreamer's House 2.0, I want to work on producing more professional content, on a regular basis. More polished work, not so much stream of consciousness, late night tumblr stuff. A little step-up in quality while still remaining a hopefully useful, helpful resource for people with anxiety, depression, and/or a stutter. If that's the kind of thing you're into, please stick around. There's good stuff to come.