It's my order, my voice

Tuesday 29th September 2026

A woman in hiking gear standing on a mountain and smiling

Hannah

Hannah Dean describes living with a covert stammer, and tells us how music made her realise that communication isn’t about speaking fluently.

There's a particular kind of nightmare that most people never think twice about: a menu. For years, choosing what I wanted to eat wasn't really a choice at all. It was quickly figuring out which words my mouth could get through, which dish I could name without feeling embarrassed or stupid, and the silence stretching too long before the waiter's patient smile turned into something else. My covert stammer decided what I ate, long before I did. I reflect on how this part of me took choices away that most people don't even know are choices.

I hid my covert stammering very well. That's the puzzling, exhausting skill of covert stammering: you become fluent in avoidance. You swap words at the last second, reroute sentences mid-thought, laugh instead of speaking. From the outside, it may seem I am shy or quiet. But inside, it's frustration. I was also too anxious to speak up in class. I built my life around not being caught.

Memories: The afternoon that changed everything

Then, as a child, a friend taught me my first piece on the piano, by ear, on an ordinary afternoon that turned out not to be ordinary at all. I don't remember the technical details. I remember the feeling: a kind of gratitude, even at that young age, for being shown that music could speak. Sitting at the piano, I felt a sense of calmness. There was no stammer here, no word to overthink, no sentence to abandon halfway through. Just sound, and the relief of being immersed in it, and my voice, my real, unpressured voice, allowed to rest, playing memories from the musical Cats.

That's the puzzling, exhausting skill of covert stammering: you become fluent in avoidance.

That afternoon became the start of my story with music. I trained as a pianist throughout my teenage years. At lunchtime, friends would ask me to play requests. For the first time, I didn't feel stupid. I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt a strong sense of connection, all the things my covert stammer had quietly convinced me I couldn't feel.

Still hiding behind words

Naturally, music led me into a teaching career. It looked, from the outside, like I'd found my confidence. But the truth was more complicated: I was still hiding, just differently. I had found a way to be heard through music, but I hadn't yet found a way to be heard as myself, in my own words.

That's the next chapter: training as a music therapist. I've just completed my first year, and it has been both empowering and genuinely life-changing. Our professors return again and again to the words of the influential psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott: "I am good enough". Not despite the stammer. Just good enough.

Working with non-verbal individuals and using music as another form of communication has taught me something I wish I'd understood decades ago: fluency isn't the only proof that you have something worth saying. Communication doesn't require speech to be valid. Every person I work with is telling me something, and some of them may not need words to do it.

I had found a way to be heard through music.

No longer hiding

Now, working within Neurodiversity services in the NHS, I'm building my presentation skills. This chapter is about relearning new words; I have years of experience teaching and have built a comfortable vocabulary with music. In my current role within the NHS, I stand up and present with a whole new language to learn; every time I do, something in me repeats what my professors taught us: I am good enough.

A covert stammer isn't a character flaw, a failure of confidence, or something to be endlessly managed in secret. It's a neurological disorder, nothing more, nothing less, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It took me most of my life to say that sentence without flinching.

If you’ve read this and have similar anxieties, feeling scared of the menu, scared of the classroom, scared of your own name in your mouth: your voice is worthy of listening to. You might find it through music, the way I did. You might find it somewhere else entirely, through nature, art, etc. But it's there, and it isn't any less because it doesn't always come easily.

I no longer hide my covert stammer. I'm still learning what that means, every single day. Some days it means standing up in front of a room and speaking without apologising for the pauses. Other days it means something smaller: sitting down at a restaurant table, looking at the menu, and choosing exactly what I want, even if it takes me a few moments to say it. I don't rush past it anymore. I don't order the easier word instead of the one I actually meant. It's my order, my voice, and this covert stammer will no longer take my choices away.

Read more Your Voice articles.

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