Every Waking Moment: My book for the stammering community

8th November 2022

Christopher Anderson tells us about the background behind his new book 'Every Waking Moment', a memoir about living with a stammer, and how meeting others helped him come to terms with it.

At thirteen years old, I attended a sleep away month-long fluency shaping clinic that I hoped would fix my stammer. It was the first time I met other people who stammered. If I succeeded, the clinic could change my life. 

I failed. 

The moment to moment, day to day experience of stammering kept me trapped in an inescapable uncertainty of how and when I could live a life of my choosing if I continued to stammer so severely. 

What if I didn't stammer? 

Please, let me be fluent just this once.

What could life be like and who could I become?

This haunted my every thought, decision and action because each had to pass through my stammering lens. 

For twelve years, this hopelessness and helplessness shaped who I became, as my stammering lens turned me into a shell of who I knew I was on the inside. At twenty-five years old, life fell apart. Within a few months, I laughed at the inevitable end of my marriage, cried when I couldn't make a phone call to get help for my ailing dog, and finally broke when I failed a once-in-a-lifetime interview to get my dream job. 

For twelve years, this hopelessness and helplessness shaped who I became, as my stammering lens turned me into a shell of who I knew I was on the inside.

The lens had sealed my fate — until I decided to take back my life from my stammer. 

While growing up, I learned about stammering from a book, Marty Jezer's Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words. And, aside from the month at the fluency clinic, I didn't interact with anyone else who stammered. As far as I knew, I was the only one facing the unknown, alone.

So, when I emerged from rock bottom at twenty-five, I had this desire to start doing the things that stammering had previously prevented me from doing, which was how I perceived it then. I wanted to date, take risks in my career, get healthy and, really, become the outgoing person that had been trapped inside.

Finding a home

One of the first steps I took was to the local National Stuttering Association of America (NSA) meeting just after I heard that I blew the dream job interview, which I felt was because of my stammer. This decision changed my life. I found a home. 

At the meeting, the chapter leader handed me a business card for Vivian Sisskin, who I now know as a renowned speech and language therapist. I stashed it away for several months until I was ready to begin therapy again. 

When I did, I was immediately immersed in group therapy with many amazing people who were openly stammering and taking risks in their lives. Six months into therapy, I attended my first NSA conference. Being around hundreds of people who stammered and those who care about stammering changed my perspective on what I needed to do to fully accept myself — cultivate a community of people who know what it's like to live with stammering and who would be there for me as I pursued change.

I wondered, what if I had been exposed to the power of the stammering community sooner? I wanted to find a way to give back.

Writing my story

So, I started writing as I was meeting all these new people who stammered. I'd hear one of their stories and remember one of mine, attend another event and note down a few more stories. 

I wrote furiously until I had what looked like a book. But, it was missing something. I had written my story, but really what I had done was write about the journeys of others who had experienced stammering before me. It's true, we all experience stammering in our own unique ways. However, we who stammer all pass through the same stages — childhood, adolescence and adulthood — and have similar experiences such as school, dating, job interviews, marriage and parenthood. 

...spoiler alert, being around others who stammered often, sharing stories, and seeing them live fulfilling lives was the single greatest propeller to self-acceptance in my journey, without a doubt.

What was it like to stammer through these stages and experiences while pursuing a collaborative relationship with my stammering? This was the book I would've liked to had read as I came of age.

In my book, Every Waking Moment: The Journey to Take Back My Life from the Trauma and Stigma of Stuttering, I explore my life from first stammer to fatherhood, and then share a step-by-step analysis of the phases of change that I passed through to transform my relationship with stammering. It is a progressive memoir that provides a deeply honest and vulnerable walk-in-my-shoes perspective. And, spoiler alert, being around others who stammered often, sharing stories, and seeing them live fulfilling lives was the single greatest propeller to self-acceptance in my journey, without a doubt.

I hope that those who stammer will find my story relatable with their own, and feel that there is always someone walking alongside them as they confront life with stammering.  

As the dedication reads, 'For those who stammer, may the journey seem less uncertain'.

Christopher's self-published book Every Waking Moment: The Journey to Take Back My Life from the Trauma and Stigma of Stuttering is available on Amazon in paperback, hardback, eBook and audiobook (read by Christopher himself).

We asked one of our volunteer reviewers to tell us what they thought of the book. Read John's review.