What Does Stuttering Actually Look Like?
What do I look like as a person who stutters? How do I look to someone else when in a conversation, and how do I look to myself? People are only aware of my stutter when I talk out loud. If I remained quiet, people would see my body but no one would know I stutter. As a person who stutters, I am always aware of how people react to my stutter in conversations. I notice when friends, family and acquaintances look away, fidget and simply have a vacant expression on their face. But how often am I aware of what I look like when stuttering? When speaking fluently? When I stutter, I tend to look away, I blink, I open and close my mouth and my thoughts race in my head. In figuring out what stuttering looks like physically, I also wonder what stuttering looks like from within. Where is this internal “block” preventing me from speaking and why can't I break it down?
How Do I Write About Stuttering? How can I convey what stuttering is like by writing words on paper or typing a computer without actually speaking out loud? How can I describe the emotions associated with what it's like to feel not in control of my speech? I've always loved writing and I've always loved the idea of thoughts emerging in physical form. I've found that the writer's block is similar to the stuttering block in that I cannot see either block but I have to work internally to push through both in order to communicate. In writing, I'm communicating with closed lips and allow my thoughts emerge in a different way. How can I accurately portray what stuttering is in my writing, not only in personal essays and my experience but in the fictional characters I write? Stuttering isn't only what is spoken out loud and it's not only the repeated letter in text. I've started writing about stuttering publicly in 2013 and in the five years since that point in time I'm still on this journey pursuing the written and unspoken word to describe what stuttering is like for me.
5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40