John Stossel, a longtime friend of the Stuttering Foundation, interviews Emily Blunt, with both acknowledging that when it comes to stuttering treatment,
one size
doe fit all s not
On the phone, she fears trying to say her name. "If I'm calling someone and they go, 'What's your name?' It's tough."
Our stuttering was worse when we were kids. Blunt tried not to speak. She just shut up. "I didn't want to be in any of the school plays. I did not want to read out my poem in class." She wanted to keep her problem secret. "You did not talk about it at all."
Before anyone was "canceled" for saying a "wrong" thing, actress Emily Blunt and I feared speaking.
"It was terrifying…. You're just gripped with terror," says Blunt in my new video.
I also used to wake up scared, fearing I might have to do a few seconds of live TV. Emily and I feared speaking because we are both stutterers.
"Are you cured?" I ask Blunt. "Are you?" she shoots back.
No, is the answer. Neither of us is cured. Stutterers rarely lose our fear of some words. But we've found ways to cope.
Blunt avoids situations that trigger her stutter. "I want to pitch a scene," she says, "I can't do it…. I would rather say, 'Give me the scene and I'll write it and then I'll send it to you.'"
2
Her family rarely talked about it even though her grandfather, uncle, and cousin stuttered too. "We have to destigmatize this thing," she tells me. "Nobody talks about it."
That's why she was talking to me.
Both Blunt and I work with a charity called the American Institute for Stuttering (AIS). AIS tells stutterers: Go ahead and speak, even if that means stuttering in front of people. This "go ahead and stutter" treatment is probably one of the better options. The happiest stutterers are those who speak freely, even if they stutter. But Neither Blunt nor I want to stutter in front of people.
It really misrepresents you," says Blunt. "You know what you want to say…but you can't convey it. It's just imprisoning."
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 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
