Speaking about stammering

Naveen is one of the members of the Bangalore SHG from the very first meeting itself. I still remember the first meeting and was really surprised to see a person like him in the meeting as he was speaking fluently. He told he acquired this habit when he was in seventh standard and that he was a good speaker and an actor before that. He spoke a lot about the problems of stammering like running away from situations in which he had to speak and his struggles to hide his stammering. He told none in his company knew he was a stammerer.

Recently he sent a mail to the group telling he faced some personal tragedies and was living in his native place which was around 100 KMs from Bangalore and was travelling daily to Bangalore and back. His stammering had also aggravated due to this. In addition to that he was denied a promotion to the managerial post in his company. His CEO felt he had some attitudinal issues as he always used to reply in monologues to him and always avoided talking to him over the phone. He did this as he didn’t want them to know about his stammering. He asked for suggestions to come out of this situation.

Most of us including Dr. Sachin suggested him to speak to the CEO about his problem and to avoid hiding his problem. Though he was a bit apprehensive, in the end he decided to speak to him about this. After a few days he sent a mail telling he had a discussion with his CEO about stammering. His CEO told him that he knew about his stammering and that he was waiting for him to talk to him about this! He promised all his help to him and asked him to work on his presentation skill and prove to himself that he was a good presenter.

After a few days, he sent one more mail telling he talked to one more director of the company and she also told she knew about his stammering and used to communicate to him only through the mail because of that. He always used to speak in monologues and she thought that was the best way to talk to him! She advised him to practice yoga and meditation and offered all the help.

These incidents show the advantages of not hiding the stammering. We undergo a great amount of tension hiding our stammering and most of the time stammering comes out on its own without our knowledge. Most of the time the listeners are not concerned about the stammering but about our habit of running away from the situations and going into a shell. Sometimes they might even offer help! So, let us not hide the stammering. Let us remove some tension by openly speaking about it.