As a small boy; around the age of seven, I developed the stutter. I say "developed" because I never used to have it, or so I'm told. I had a cousin of mine a bit older than I was who had it mildly. I used to tease her every time she stammered in what I took to be a good humoured way. I would imitate her despite warning I could call the scourge upon myself. I took all this as superstitious of course; or perhaps I had spoken too soon.
I started to stammer around this time. The stammering wasn't as bad as one of my friends. The same had to bang his chair and or table in frustrated effort to force the words out. It gets really annoying when all of a sudden you cannot say and speak the way you want to. Its like being misrepresented by your own body. I had to learn to avoid some words as they caused me to trip a lot. I had to find new words in their stead. A read lots of books and quickly developed a large vocabulary that allowed me to bypass the stutter. I grew to realise that the stutter became almost completely diminished when I spoke with an accent. It felt all very artificial at first but soon got the gist of it; over articulating now and then to ride over those rough and terrifying words.
On top of all this juggling I began to speak really really fast. I spoke so fast I had to consciously slow down to allow people to hear me. I take it that my body developed this habit as a mechanism for overcoming my stutter. Though this was a sure way of making it worse; I spoke so fast such that I sledge-hammered my way through words. I spoke almost fluently in English but stammered like mad in my own language of Setswana. It was so bad that sometimes words couldn't come out no matter how hard I tried. Because of this, I stammered so much around my grandparents and extended members of family who I was expected to communicate in my native language.
Stammering can be very painful. Not physically, but emotionally. It was especially more painful for a boy like me with this huge vocabulary and great quotes in mind not to be able to express them. I could always tell a mile away if a word or phrase was going to trip me up. Many a times I've kept quite when I really wanted to contribute to a conversation or share a really funny joke. I just knew, and still do, that I could not be able to let out the perfect sentence I have formulated in my mind.
However; you will be shocked, dear readers, to know that there is a situation in which I do not stammer AT ALL; I mean completely zero stammering and zero fear of stuttering whatsoever. This is when I speak in front of an audience. In fact, the bigger the audience the better. I quickly grew to extrapolate that the reason this was because of the voice elevation I had to assume when speaking to a crowd of people. Lets liken speaking to opening a springed door just for a moment. Force is needed to open this door, after which it springs closed. A force smaller than the minimum force will not open this door; if anything much it will cause the door to flutter and close quickly. My chances of stammering, I've noticed, are much higher when i have a one on one conversation with someone. This is because; I deduced, I have to lower my voice to an extent that air rushing through my vocal cords it too weak to overcome the "tendency" of the stuttering muscular reflex. On the contrary, speaking to an audience gives me the excuse to elevate and project my voice so high and so powerfully that my vocal cords couldn't surely fail me. In these situations, I've always felt invincible and unable to stammer.
I am really good at public speaking and have been commended at that. I have, on multiple occasions been awarded best speaker in my Junior schools debate competitions and speak incredibly fluent in front of school assemblies. It came as a surprise then when I discovered a pattern when I looked up famous people who stammered. Most of them where into politics(public speaking) and the arts(acting and performing on stage) All these activities required higher voice elevation and pitch variations. Most of them also believed in the importance of having a large vocabulary for substitution of words.
Bruce Willis overcame his stutter by performing on stage and memorising words
James Earl Jones overcame by reading poems whilst looking himself in the mirror.
There are many others who overcame their stutter in similar ways. I mention here Joe Biden, who like me overcame he's stutter by reading out poems. This is all part of re-training our minds and vocal cords what proper speaking is all about. Godspeed to all in this exciting journey of self discovery. Good luck my friends!
