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From: Chris Roach
Date: 10/7/02
Time: 11:07:24 AM
Remote Name: 64.12.96.235
Lynne,
Thanks for a great response to a very perplexing issue. You raised a good point to me about whether or not we're perhaps more relaxed and letting our controls down when we're in the support atmosphere. Sorta like what so many PWS report when they say that their "worst" stuttering is around family members (i.e. parents, siblings) because they're relaxed and not necessarily trying to work at it or "do their best" as they would with strangers or in public.
I think that explains WHY we stutter more in support groups BUT I tend to disagree with you that it should be considered a positive, rather than a negative -- universally. But please let me qualify that further in that I'm viewing this strictly down the scope of a "covert/milder" stutterer perspective. We're on that cusp of being able to push both fluency or disfluency, almost at our whim. In the stuttering support environment, we're often viewed as "not being enough of a stutterer to understand others' struggles" because we may not stutter that much or because we have a substantial level of fluency when others don't. Thus, to gain acceptance in the stuttering environment, we "fake" stuttering more (meaning intentionally don't speak as well as we can) to find acceptance and to make others feel better (as if that would) or should I say, less offended or engaged by us. Therefore, as we stutter more, when we know we have the capability to speak rather fluently more than not, we walk away from a support meeting feeling worse about ourselves than better -- followed by a prevailing feeling that the support environment is actually discouraging our best speaking and communication capabilities rather than encouraging it.
Granted, "coverts/milds" need support like any other PWS and can find it in the support environment to find strength and mentoring to face fears and discover self-acceptance of disfluency, however, I'm afraid that the prevailing "one size fits all" message of support groups that "chasing fluency is bad; accepting overt stuttering is good" is targeted ONLY at more severe/overt stutterers without the choices of fluency improvement and capabilities that other PWS such as coverts/milds maintain.
With all other issues aside, when I walk away from a support meeting speaking less fluently than I know I can and my communication was dishonest to myself and others, I believe that experience lowered the bar for my individual capabilities and expectations. THAT's a negative influence on me. When I walk away from any other influence (professionally, socially, educationally, etc.) in which I'm speaking more fluently and up to my capability, THAT's a positive influence on me. So where do you think a similar stutterer as myself tends to migrate toward?
Bottom line, I believe, and one that I know is complicated and sensitive: to be effective for more individuals, the support environment must be tiered and segregated to accomodate different degrees of disfluency in stuttering. Severity DOES matter. PWS of opposite degrees of severity do share issues in common, however, there are many more issues that they do not. Perhaps the MIA status of the other 2.97 million domestic stutterers, statistically, from the present support environment culture encourages consideration for support services focused more toward the covert/mild consumer?
Lynne, thanks again for your feedback. Just like the darn stuttering, it's a tough and confusing subject with no easy answers!!
Chris