Hi Everyone,
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The NSA Boston Adult Chapter met this month on Thursday, November 2nd at BU’s Sargent College. There were four people in attendance.
The topic for our meeting was “How do we define stuttering and acceptance?”
At the start of the meeting, we each took a few minutes to write down our own personal definitions of both stuttering and acceptance.
We shared our own definitions and found that we had all written typical dictionary definitions of stuttering, not addressing our feelings, but instead being very scientific. One member mentioned stuttering being, “neurological, predictable but not.” Others talked about stuttering being “a way of speaking.”
We then read over definitions from both Merriam Webster and the National Stuttering Association (see attached). Certain aspects of these definitions really resonated with us.
Here are some bits of the definitions of acceptance that seemed noteworthy to us:
- “the state of being accepted or acceptable” (to be acceptable is different from accepting yourself)
- “receive willingly, accept a gift” (thinking about what stuttering has given us)
- “to endure”
- “to regard as proper, normal”
- “to recognize as true” (to not be in denial)
- “inevitable”
- “believe”
- “agree to undertake”
We talked about acceptance being a journey, and there truly being stages in acceptance – beginning with just acknowledgement. We all had an opportunity to share where we are in our journey, and acknowledged that it is OKAY no matter where you are currently. Everyone is welcome here.
We are looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday, December 7th at BU’s Sargent College in Room 303 at 7 PM!
Sarah
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