By Hanan Hurwitz
Sometime in 2022, a friend of mine posted this quotation from Brené Brown on her social media page:
One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.
With my overall experience of stuttering, I have been through quite a number of challenges in my life. It is difficult for me to explain my deep fear and trauma of stuttering, or, more precisely, the trauma of the struggle with stuttering. While I know that my experience is not unique to me and is shared by most other people who stutter, the possibility of my experience being a survival guide for someone else is a very powerful motivation for me to share the attitudes and philosophies that helped and continue to help me.
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Stuttering has long been subject to public stigma. Public stigma often results in self-stigma, and deep emotions of shame, fear, anxiety, and a belief that we are not good enough.
However, stuttering is simply a different way of talking. Stuttering is not a defect, although it is largely perceived as one. In fact it is an entirely normal way of talking, since that is simply how we – People Who Stutter – talk. Changing the way we think about stuttering, and challenging our automatic beliefs about stuttering, enables us to move away from shame and anxiety about stuttering and the resultant hiding of our true selves, and to move towards acceptance of stuttering and living authentic lives that we choose. This is not about stopping stuttering, but instead it is about choosing to no longer let our stuttering impede us in our lives. We can, in fact, live the life that we want to when we stutter, and we can ignore opinions of others that would challenge that fact.
In early 2010, after a particularly traumatic incident with what I now recognize to be the struggle with stuttering, I somehow found the will to overcome my shame sufficiently in order to look for information on stuttering, and for support for people who stutter. I discovered a wondrous new world, one in which there are support groups and conferences for people who stutter and at which the themes are not pity but rather empowerment, not shame but rather pride, and not hiding nor suppressing our stuttering but rather acceptance. I then began a journey of discovery, learning more about stuttering and about myself, through reading, research, participation in conferences, and writing and lecturing about stuttering.
Through my research I have discovered the freedom of unconditional acceptance of stuttering and unconditional self-acceptance of myself as a person who stutters. This is not resignation, but rather the foundation for growth. My reading covered topics in neuroscience, where research shows that there is a biological basis to stuttering. Reading about topics in empowerment, I learned that living an honest, vulnerable life is a cornerstone to peace of mind. Buddhist philosophy, with Mindfulness at its heart, has taught me how to recognize the ways in which I suffered, and to embrace and work with that suffering instead of running away from it, and thereby resolve the suffering. Stoic philosophy has taught me first and foremost to identify what is in my control and what is not, and to live and work focused on what is in my control. I do not have control over whether I stutter or not, but I have control over how I react or respond to my stuttering. A key aspect to the elimination of suffering – for me - is understanding the difference between stuttering on the one hand and the struggle with stuttering on other hand. Supported by acceptance, knowledge, and the wisdom of philosophy, we can let go of that struggle.
In my book I write about these attitudes and philosophies that completely turned my life around, from a life where I was consumed by shame and defined by hiding whenever I could, to a life where I am proud of who I am and living an authentic life. I am open about and at peace with my stuttering. Well, mostly open and at peace. I am still on my Journey, still learning, and I expect to be doing so and enjoying every minute of it until I reach my expiry date.
Some reviews, the table of contents, a free chapter, and information on where to buy the book are available on the website OnStuttering.com.
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