…gives general cause for general excitement. Padded with pride, each proclaimed “ win” in life takes its place within the index of our euphoria, and fuck, can it feel great.
As a stutterer, I’ve still been able to experience the forefront of that hype. Felt the pride within myself, swelling as I bask in a slew of my achievements both big and small. But more often than not, as somebody in the midst of finding self-acceptance, my personal victories are really not in line with neither genuine pride nor excitement.
When I come out on the other side of each victory, looking down at myself from a very tall, albeit slightly itchy throne, I’m left mostly with this strong sense of relief.
Which has led me to conclude that this version of victory, my self-learned version of victory…
Is More Like a Downfall
I’ve fooled myself into believing that the less I stutter, the more I deserve a shiny gold medal with my anxiously smiling mug forged into it. So? What about that is surprising? It’s not hard to understand why I’ve fostered my mind in this way. Stuttering, stripped down to its most basic impression on society, is generalized as a negative thing. For a lot of blissfully ignorant people, a stutter only exists for one of two reasons. To be fixed, or to stay unsaid (or, I guess, un-stuttered). Not that there’s any real difference between the two when you’re being made to feel lesser.
These outside opinions are not ones I wish to empower, but, over time have saturated my insides, weakening me with how one-note the stigma against stuttering has become. How much time passes, and how little progress is made in normalizing voices like mine. Which, to be fair is how it’s always been. But to be even more fair makes it even harder to ignore.
It’s a funny thing, being so self-aware of my own need to stutter freely, yet, as myself, feeling a programmed duty to hide it at all times. Not at all like a rising governor’s “I have to win another term” civic duty. Not your grandma’s duty ala “I have to get you to try this homemade soup”. I’m talking about your totally mundane, “I have to stutter to avoid my own impending doom” type duty.
And that’s not even the tricky part. That comes during the moments where I do, in fact, manage not to stutter.
Anymore, it’s like I have a dual reaction, which jolts me into two streams of consciousness at once. There’s the aforementioned relief, due to me not feeding the stigmas forced upon stutterers. But there’s also the never before so palpable shame. The shame guided inward, for slacking off in the honoring of my true voice. For making each exchange I have with somebody about my stutter (and what I envision the other person may think of it). Focusing so much on reactions to my speech that I ignore every other discernable component of the conversations I’m having.
The point of all this? Maybe I’m trying to remind myself that it’s simply more important just to live.
Maybe that’s even the hardest part of life.
The most impressive victory to strive for, when all is said and done.