Realising how much reactions to my stammer have shaped me

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Mark

Mark Dickson tells us how a negative reaction from a shop assistant made him think about the different ways that life with a stammer has shaped him.

"What? Stop mumbling!" the shop assistant shouted. The man behind me in the queue let out a big belly laugh.

I hadn't got more than four words out before she'd interrupted me. The parcel drop-off service outside hadn't recognised my barcode, so I was coming in to ask if she could do it for me.

No doubt flushed red with embarrassment, I angrily over-enunciated: "The. Machine. Outside. Didn't. Work. Can. You. Help. Me?"

The shop assistant took the parcel from me and began to scan it. "That's much better," the man in the queue interjected, chuckling.

As I accepted the receipt indicating the proof of postage and walked back out into the frigid winter, I barely felt the cold because of how enraged I was. Why did that rude shop assistant interrupt me before I'd even finished a sentence? When did it become acceptable for strangers to pile insults on each other?

The question that kept looping around my head was: 'Why was I being punished when I hadn't even stammered?'

Feelings of shame

I've made a lot of progress in how I feel about my stammer. I've had it since I was a child and at various points in my life it's been more and less prevalent. However, there is still an insidious part of my brain that rates conversations, particularly with strangers, as 'successful' based on whether or not they realise I stammer. And for this particular interaction, I hadn't even stammered and yet was still feeling shame.

It took me the rest of my angry stomp-walk home to pinpoint what I think was causing the indignation that had been incorrectly diverted inwards as shameful feelings: a lifetime with my stammer has affected my speech in more ways than I think.

...there is still an insidious part of my brain that rates conversations, particularly with strangers, as 'successful' based on whether or not they realise I stammer.

I can speak too quickly, eager to get the sentence over with before it can trip me up. I talk over people because otherwise I'm afraid I'll lose the confidence to start talking. And, apparently, I sometimes mumble.

My understanding of the way that my stammer has affected me continues to evolve. I know that it has increased my social anxiety and sense of self, particularly in work environments where I've later heard that feedback from a job interview was: "He has a stammer, but I don't think it'll be a problem". Prior to this, I hadn't registered that my stammer had affected my speech in ways other than dysfluency.

There are so many ways in which someone's speech can make others perceive it, and by extension them, as 'inadequate'. Some ways might just be an affectation of personality. Some ways might be because of a disability. I don't think any of them are a justifiable reason for interrupting and openly mocking someone in public.

No matter what difference or peculiarity someone might have in their speech, whether that's tripping over a particular sound, mashing two words together, or even perhaps mumbling their way through an introduction in a shop, patience and understanding will always leave everyone in a much better place.

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