by Stavros Ladeas | Dec 18, 2013 | Recaps
Our holiday support group was another reminder of how special these support groups can be. During the holidays we sometimes tend to get a bit sentimental, we reflect on the people who are close to us. And for most of us, myself included, the support we get from these meetings can be a very powerful thing. For our December meeting, we had a total of 19 people, 17 PWS and two awesome speech pathologists, 6 first-timers – all of whom were NSA members of other chapters who joined us for the evening.
We introduced ourselves and familiarized each other by sharing with the group what our holiday plans were. We then nibbled on all sorts of goodies that people had brought, and split into two groups to start our discussion of the theme for the night, ‘change’ and its effect on our stuttering.
1) Change within our lives is inevitable – This comes in many forms; getting a new job, moving to a new place, being in/out of a relationship, or just the change of seasons. The consensus seemed to be that with change, many times our stuttering can change as well. Like the stuttering itself, for most of us change is a given, it will continue to happen. And it seems that the more we take steps to accept it, the easier it is to deal with. And we are all here because we want this change…and the amazing opportunities that life may bring with this acceptance.
2) Wanting change, despite family’s negative perception of stuttering – As we know, genetics and stuttering are linked up in some way, and several members of the group have a relative, or many, who stutters, even within their direct family. But not everyone wants to change or even talk about stuttering. For some family members, this can be a taboo issue, but it’s certainly not a taboo issue for people who want to change their lives for the better. Coming to these support groups, despite what someone’s family may think of stuttering, is a courageous move. This also seems to be the right step for those of us who are ready to face our fears and to better our lives – that would include all of us.
3) Talking on the phone, when mood changes and things get heated – The listener may think you are nervous and you may have trouble getting your point across, so what do you do? You could advertise. Telling the listener that you stutter in the beginning can be an appropriate time, but is there really a best time to advertise? Perhaps the right time is when it will help you the most, and it might not always be at the beginning of a conversation/meeting. The key thing is to do whatever you need to do to in order to be in control of the conversation. You can inform the listener that you are a person who stutters and that you are not nervous, but this is just how you speak. You are allowing yourself to stutter. Not only that, but you are okay with stuttering, and not just okay with it, but confident because what you say is important. It should be expressed and it should be heard – and it will be heard.
4) Changing by getting desensitized – One of our members did the ‘subway challenge’ on his way to the support group. He stood up in the train, told everyone that he wants to make an announcement because he is working on his speech and is a person who stutters. He thanked everyone for their time, and asked if anyone had any questions. All in all, a pretty badass thing to do. And we all have our subway challenges depending on our personal goals and where we are with our stuttering journey. For some of us, it’s being more open about our stuttering and talking about it with a friend. It can be advertising when you’re going to a job interview. It can be clarifying someone at a car rental place when they are confused as to why you aren’t talking like ‘the most interesting man in the world’ from the Dos Equis commercials during that particular minute. And so on.
It was so nice to have seen everyone.
Besides our monthly support groups, we’ll have more events coming up for the winter, for the entire NSA community throughout all the boroughs. If you have any suggestions about anything at all, email us at nsamidtown@gmail.com. Also, if you haven’t already signed up for our newsletter, do so at www.nycStutters.org at the bottom of the page. We’ll be sending these recaps and upcoming event notifications by the newsletter. So signup now to stay in the loop!
Arrivederci and Happy Holidays to everyone!
by Stavros Ladeas | Nov 22, 2013 | Recaps
We had a great support group during the third meeting of our NSA Midtown Chapter. There were eleven of us – ten PWS, six first-timers, and one speech pathologist who came to learn more about stuttering so she can be a more effective therapist for her patients. We’re happy people are continuing to find out about our chapter and that our accessible location is attracting people from all over.
We started off by introducing ourselves and telling the group why we came. Several members expressed gratitude for having this support group, and as a co-leader of this group, it feels great to hear this and to be part of a gathering of such amazing people.
A member started the discussion by explaining how her stuttering is affected when speaking English, a non-native language for her. A few of the bilingual members of the group could relate to this, but it seemed that stuttering was idiosyncratic in this respect. A couple factors that were brought up, in how stuttering could be provoked while speaking a non-native language, was the idea of cognitive overload, where you have to concentrate more on choosing the right words, and also how a different sounding language with more consonants and even longer words can cause challenges. Personally speaking, as a longtime professional covert stutterer, allowing myself to stutter much more openly during these last few months, specifically while speaking Greek to my family, has actually allowed me to become a better communicator. No more tricks to hide my stutter means more energy spent on exactly the appropriate words to use. And a bit to my surprise, it turns out that I can be quite eloquent at times with Greek. Who woulda thunk it?
On another issue, one of our first-timers talked about a phone call he recently made at work, and how it started off perfectly; he didn’t stutter at all and he was on point. But then towards the end of the call things seemed to deteriorate. He lost his cool, got a little derailed and began to stutter and block. Fluency seemed to be very important in order for the call to have been a successful one, especially since it was a sales pitch. And we cannot hide the fact that some people out there may associate stuttering to lying, not knowing what you’re talking about, or not being confident. But our member who made this call is clearly very intelligent and there is no doubt he knew exactly what he was talking about. We can all relate to being judged on how we speak. But one has to wonder, for this specific call, and for any call for that matter, how things could have gone differently if he advertised, and said something like, “Just so you know, I stutter. And it’s not because I’m nervous or anything like that. I’m an expert on [whatever product he was pitching].” Bam! Take that person on the other end of the line!
But maybe this openness cannot apply to everyone. In our group, everyone seemed to be on different paths with their stuttering, people had different goals and the way each of one us stuttered was quite different. We are here to support each other and to learn from one another. With that said…
One member asked how comfortable we were with our stuttering, and most of us agreed that this was really situational. This again led the discussion to the idea of advertising. One member talked about the instinct to always want to hide her stuttering, but also knowing that this was not an option for her. She has several public speaking engagements coming up, and for her advertising is a must. She explained that telling people about her stuttering is something that she does for herself, not necessarily for her listeners. And one of our members who gives presentations regularly at work said he was going to give advertising a shot the next day to see how he felt about it. It will be helpful to hear about his experience the next time we meet, regardless to if he did it or not.
Then the idea came up of how do we stay grounded throughout the day, dealing with our stuttering. A member talked about vipassana and mindfulness meditation, which seemed to really work for him in becoming more self-aware and helping him stay calmer and more focused throughout the day. This could really be a benefit for many of us, regardless if we stutter or not. And considering the importance of our mental well-being, some sort of meditation or yoga could really be beneficial.
Towards the end of our meeting the question was asked, what keeps us motivated at the end of the day to keep at it, in staying strong with dealing with our stuttering. I talked about my experience as a covert stutterer and how shame and fear had paralyzed me for far too long; a little bit of a heavy topic perhaps, but the reality. Acceptance has been a long journey for me, but the awkward moments, the weird stares, the nervous gestures your listener may show from time to time, these little things all pale in comparison to living in fear and in shame. Each one of us has gifts and talents that we must use to make this world a little better, in some sort of way. I think this is part of the reason why we all came and continue to come to these support groups. Together we will figure it out, and we’ll continue to empower one another.
by Stavros Ladeas | Oct 22, 2013 | Recaps
Our second meeting was another wonderful gathering of people who stutter, and here is our short and sweet recap of the night.
We had ten people show up and four of them were first-timers. We are happy that people are finding out about our group. Marc kicked things off by asking people to introduce themselves and then say something random about themselves. The spontaneity was a great way to start things in a fun way. And moving forward, there were a couple main topics that were discussed during the night. One was the feeling of fear, and how this can often be unavoidable for people who stutter. But we agreed that usually it can be these situations which we can make into opportunities to push ourselves, to get out of our comfort zone. This idea resonates with a fundamental life lesson of course – ‘challenge yourself and you will grow.’
The second main topic of the night was when co-leader Carl, the one and only fluent speaker in the group, was asked a question about fears that fluent speakers have during speaking situations, specifically during presentations. Carl’s perspective as a fluent speaker is an interesting one because he is a person who understands the mind of a person who stutters probably as much as anyone out there. He explained how fluent speakers many times have the same type of fears during these public situations – making sure you don’t make a fool out of yourself, and not forgetting what to say during a presentation. Perhaps in some ways, we are more similar to fluent speakers than some of us may think.
We had a great support group and a great time getting better acquainted with everyone, especially the first-timers. We hope to see everyone really soon!
by Stavros Ladeas | Sep 22, 2013 | Recaps
This is the recap of our first monthly meeting of the NSA Midtown Manhattan Group. We wanted to be a tad bit thorough for our initial summary, so this recap is a little bit on the long side, but we hope you’ll still read it.
The meeting was at the NSA office, just west of Bryant Park, on 40th St. (between Broadway and 6th Ave). We wanted to have our Chapter meetings somewhere in the Midtown vicinity to be as accessible to as many people as possible, and we are very fortunate to have found this specific location. Thank you Tammy for making this seamless for us. We really really appreciate you setting this up. And just to clarify, we obviously welcome everyone, regardless of what borough or city you live in.
So, all 4 of our chapter leaders were in attendance – Carl Herder, Marc Winski, Michael Taub, and myself, and at least one of us will be in attendance for any given meeting going forward. And we had a turnout of nine attendees – all males who stutter. So statistically speaking, according to some scientifically sound research on stuttering, there should have been 2 females in attendance. Unfortunately they didn’t show up for our first meeting, but it was still a dynamic group.
Marc and Michael kicked things off, and this being our first meeting, we thought it would be appropriate to spend a little bit more time for intros. Michael brought a roll of toilet paper into the room, passed it around and told everyone to grab some, as much or as little as they wanted. After everyone took some, he instructed us to state a fact about ourselves to the group for every square we had ripped off. It turns out, at least from our sampling pool, there may be a strong correlation with people who stutter and 60’s music as a favorite genre.
For the second half of the meeting we had our discussion. For future meetings, probably 90% of the time allotted will be discussion based. And in case you may be wondering, you don’t have to speak at all, but you’ll probably feel really really good about yourself if you open up and say a little something about yourself and where you’re at with your stuttering journey.
Gary A. asked Michael T. about phone interviews, since Michael had shared with the group that he was applying for jobs during our toilet paper fiesta. Michael talked about challenges that come with phone interviews. There is more focus on our ‘voices’ during phone interviews, which can obviously add pressure to the situation, particularly if you’re a person who stutters. And for many of us, whether we like it or not, we’re most likely going to stutter during these situations. Michael explained that he advertised (that he stutters) to all of his interviewers. This helps to get some of the pressure off, just by being more open about the whole thing. And it also helps set the tone in his interviews by having more control of the situation, kind of implying something like, “listen, I stutter, this is how I happen to speak, I’m okay with, just wanted to put it on the table, listen to what I have to say because I’m qualified for this job, and you should hire me because I’m awesome, and I will double your company’s profits in a matter of month!” Maybe not the last part, but you never know.
Larry C. shared some very helpful insight about how an interviewee is judged on pretty much everything during in-person interviews – the way we speak, our body language, our non-verbal language, etc. Some things we have control over, some things we do not. How we react to our stuttering and how we may react to other people’s reactions to our stuttering might actually be an important factor in the hiring decision. This goes back to the idea of authenticity; being (or appearing) confident in our imperfections may be one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal.
One of our attendees mentioned the fact that it helps to know someone in the company you are applying for. This is a fair statement to make, but unfortunately, unless our father is Sir Richard Branson, this is many times out of our control. We can’t do anything about this. But, here’s the good news. There are some important things we do have control over. Whether we are on a phone interview, an in-person interview, or any speaking situation for that matter, and we feel like we need to address our stuttering to our listener, why not do it with a little bit of confidence. This may not come over night, but come back to our monthly meetings. We’ll help each other figure out how to do it!
Overall, the meeting was a very positive one.
Towards the end, Marc W. asked the group if there was anyone who had any type of goal until we met again next month. Dan G. said he would like to practice a skill known as fluency shaping, also known as vocal fold management, for 5 minutes a day, not more, not less. He explained how this helps him throughout the day to have a little more control over his speech when he needs it. There is no one tool, or one skill that works for everyone, but for Dan this works, and that’s cool. Different people like using tools, some people don’t. People have different goals when it comes to their stuttering, and we come to these groups to learn from one another and see what’s best for each of us.
Towards the end of the meeting, we slowly lingered out of the building while we got better acquainted with one another, as some of us exchanged contact information. About half of us went to an Irish pub, Gabby O’Hara’s, a block away where we had a drink. We encourage our members to hangout after our meetings, or at anytime for that matter. Support doesn’t have to have boundaries within the walls of the meetings.
We were really happy for everyone that came out on our first night. Personally speaking, the NSA has really helped out soo much over these last couple years, providing a safe place where I could come talk about my stutter and receive strength from others. I never honestly never knew it would change me the way it has. And I’m so thankful for that. We want to continue sharing these experiences with each and everyone of us, and we’ll make sure this NSA Midtown Manhattan Chapter will be the beginning of something special.
