We Deserve to Be Heard

I deserve to be heard. We deserve to be heard. As a person who stutters, speaking is often physically and mentally draining. I have to put 110% effort into speaking as fluently as possible and it still often feels like I am not heard or taken seriously, even after thinking about and focusing on every syllable of every word. When making a necessary phone call I will often practice what I plan to say over and over before making the call. Even then, I usually don’t make it through the conversation completely stutter - free. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me.

As a child I learned that I would not be listened to or taken seriously in any social situation. Even today, as a 20 year old woman, this is still ingrained in me and I have to fight it every day. When I would speak out loud in class as a child, the other students, themselves uneducated on stutters and other invisible disabilities, would snicker or look at one another judgmentally. As early as kindergarten I learned that speaking aloud only hurt me. For years I barely spoke, I only talked to a few close friends, and struggled to make new friends. I would never speak in class, and if I was ever called on to answer a question my anxiety would skyrocket, making my stutter even worse.

In many ways it is the same as an adult. Almost every time I block on a word and struggle to finish my sentence in front of a stranger there is a very awkward, judgmental interaction. The difference now is that I have the presence of mind to continue my day without letting these interactions ruin it. For a moment after it happens, however, I feel small, like I did when I would struggle to speak in elementary school and receive judgement from my peers. This is the problem. People are unaware of how stuttering works, uneducated on what it means, and don’t know what to do when they encounter it in real life. Most peoples’ only experience with stuttering is from derogatory cartoons and side characters who stutter, designed to be “funny”. If you’re a person who doesn’t stutter and want to educate yourself on the feelings of someone who does stutter, thank you. I will be as helpful as I can in my blog posts.

Normalizing stuttering is the only way to make the world better for those of us who deal with it on a daily basis. We are often made to feel ashamed, like there's something wrong with us that needs to be changed, like we can't live a normal and successful life because we have something about us that isn't the norm. All my life this is what society has taught me, directly and indirectly. I want to be a part of changing that before another child enthusiastically answers a question in class, only to get stuck on a word and be made fun of, deciding never to raise their hand in class again.

Stutters are hard to deal with because of how the world reacts. If society, as a whole, was more patient and more educated on invisible disabilities, speech impediments and otherwise, stuttering would not be nearly as hard to deal with. I deserve to say what I have to say, even if it takes me a little longer. I deserve to be heard just as I am, stutter or no stutter. Listen to people who stutter. Learn patience and acceptance. The world will be a better place for everyone.