Refine Search

Understanding the Stutterer’s Challenge

It was the family tradition on very hot days to stop at the local ice-cream parlor. Carl’s favorite was a butter-pecan ice-cream cone. ‘In my clammy fist, I clutched the smooth, thick nickel my father had given me. My heart pounded and I could feel the sweat starting to stream down the sides of my face. I wanted desperately to ask Dad to order my cone, but by now I had learned what he would say. He had said it often enough in the past: “You want the cone so badly, you order it yourself.” How I hated him for that. Didn’t he know how much it hurt me? I stood quietly trembling in front of that high, shiny chrome counter. On the tip of my toes, I was just able to reach the top to pass on my sweaty nickel to the high school boy with the grinning, pockmarked face.

‘“What flavor, kid?”

‘“I want bab . . . give me bbbaa . . . the ba ba ba. . . . ”

‘My lips clamped shut and I continued to struggle in silence. I could see the kid look over my head to my father. It was that look that all people who stutter recognize so well. The look that said, “Can you help? This kid seems to be having a fit and he’s making me nervous.” Of course, this increased my struggle until I was filled with rage, embarrassed, and gasping for oxygen. Finally, “butter-pecan,” spurted out. I ached all over, but the deed was done.’​—The Best of Letting Go, Newsletter, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

IF YOU had been standing there watching as young Carl ordered that cone, how would you have reacted? Dr. Oliver Bloodstein, who has studied the problem of stuttering for the past 37 years, makes the interesting observation that “unless they have a special reason to, nonstutterers rarely understand how frightening and frustrating stuttering is.” Yes, for many stutterers speech is an albatross, defined in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as “something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety.”

On the other hand, are you a fluent speaker? If so, you may find this anxiety a difficult thing to understand. Why? Because speech is not something most of us worry about. When we are hungry, we go into a restaurant and order a meal. If we want to buy a gift, we simply ask a salesclerk for help. When our telephone rings, we don’t hesitate to answer it. But for those individuals who stutter, everyday occurrences like these can become a living nightmare.

‘But is the problem really so serious?’ you may ask. Well, have you ever wondered what life might be like for someone who stutters? To understand his plight better and to gain more fellow feeling, come and share that inner world​—his feelings.

The Inner World

Joe: “I don’t call stuttering a speech impediment; I call it a life impediment. It impedes us from functioning in a normal way. It impedes our educational aspirations, our vocational ambitions, and our social interactions. I know people who haven’t gotten married . . . they have no friends. They stay away, they’re alienated, they’re ostracized.”

Donna: ‘I have been stuttering since I was about nine years old. When I was 27 years old, it was so severe that I never answered the telephone at home. I’m scared to death because you are going to ask me what my name is, and I am going to have to tell you, and saying “Donna” is very hard for me. In two years I’ve used different names 122 times.’

Anonymous: ‘The best way I can tell you how my stuttering covers my life is by writing some of what happened today. I was OK until I had breakfast because I didn’t talk. Then I went down to the corner drugstore because I had overslept, or rather I just lay there in bed, dreading the day. I wanted coffee and rolls, but I ordered milk and oatmeal because I knew I’d stutter hard on those other words, and I didn’t want the woman who waited on me to feel sorry for me. I hate oatmeal.

‘In class the instructor called on me, and although I knew the answer, I played dumb and shook my head no, and then felt like a dog. After class I hurried away up to the library, got a book, and pretended to study hard when anyone I knew passed by.

‘I’m broke and wrote a letter to my dad asking for money. I wanted to put a special-delivery stamp on it, but remembered the last time I tried to buy one at the post office, and the sp-sp-sp-sp-sp-sp just kept going forever, and the clerk got impatient, and the people in line behind me too, and, well, I couldn’t face it, so I got a regular stamp out of the machine and mailed it. Got 30 cents left to eat on.’

W. J.: “I am a stutterer. I am not like other people. I must think differently, act differently, live differently​—because I stutter. Like other stutterers, like other exiles, I have known all my life a great sorrow and a great hope together, and they have made me the kind of person I am. An awkward tongue has molded my life.”

Anonymous: “I was working as a fireman on a locomotive in a switch yard. One day we were using a stretch of the main line to switch some cars. We didn’t know of any train due on that line for another half hour. I looked out to check something and suddenly saw a freight bearing right down on us. My engineer was busy inside the cab. I tried to tell him, but I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t even stutter before it was too late. The freight wasn’t going very fast, but both locomotives were wrecked. Nobody was killed, but my partner lost a leg. I’ve never forgiven myself. If only I could have warned him.”

Five people. Their thoughts and experiences give us a little insight, at least, into the frustration, anxiety, and humiliation that stutterers may face every day of their lives. Now multiply these experiences by an estimated 15 million lives. Do you better appreciate why stuttering can be a genuine albatross?

If you have a friend who stutters, why not ask him how he feels about the matter? It may surprise you to learn what courage and determination are needed even on a day-to-day basis.

Extend Fellow Feeling

Since it is often the nature of this disorder to affect its victims profoundly​—psychologically and emotionally—​how should you deal with such ones? Should you feel sorry for them, handling them with kid gloves, as it were? Should you treat them differently? Awake! asked these very questions of several people who are, or have been, plagued with this disorder. Here are some of their comments.

PLEASE DON’T MAKE FUN OF US. Twenty-nine-year-old Frank has had a stuttering problem since he was ten. “I want people to understand that those who stutter still have feelings and emotions and should be treated as individuals and not be made fun of,” he says. “Stutterers have a problem, that’s all. Everybody has a problem with something, and stuttering just happens to be mine.” A well-known newspaper columnist once made the statement that because stuttering isn’t life threatening, it seems to be the only handicap that is openly ridiculed. Robert admits that, yes, friends will lightheartedly tease him about the way he speaks. “It doesn’t bother me,” he says with a smile, “because I know it’s all in good fun.” Of course, everyone is different, and some who stutter may not mind being teased a little. But would you not agree that the wiser course is to extend fellow feeling, treating those who stutter as you would like to be treated under the same circumstances?

PLEASE DON’T PITY US. While a stutterer certainly will appreciate an understanding soul, he will resent pity. “We don’t want people to feel sorry for us, but we do need their patience,” says Carol, who stuttered for some 25 years. “And I don’t want people to be sorry for me as a stutterer,” adds Kate, who is now in her 60’s. “I want them to look at me as an individual and to realize that there are worse problems around than stuttering. Stuttering is just a minor imperfection.”

PLEASE DON’T THINK THAT WE’RE STUPID OR NEUROTIC. “I wish people wouldn’t try to read, or to look too deeply, into it and psychoanalyze,” says Robert. “And don’t be afraid of us,” says Carol. “We’re not ‘contagious.’ Mothers don’t have to shield their children from us. I wish people would look at stutterers with dignity and respect. We are as intelligent as anyone else. We just can’t say what we want to, that’s all. And all the actions, motions, contortions​—they’re just part of the effort to get the word out.”

‘It’s good to know how stutterers feel,’ you may say, ‘and this should help me in the future. But I wonder: How do they manage to cope?’ This is a good question and one that certainly deserves consideration.

How Some Have Coped

To help answer this question, some among Jehovah’s Witnesses were consulted because theirs is an especially challenging situation. For example, at a weekly meeting, the Theocratic Ministry School, Witnesses are trained to speak before large audiences. Some who stutter are enrolled in this school. Also, each Witness publicly proclaims the good news of God’s Kingdom, doing so most often from house to house. Obviously, a lot of communication under difficult circumstances is required. How do they do it? Two things help: remembering the examples of others and prayer.

Kate always keeps the example of Moses before her. You see, Moses is commonly thought to have had some sort of speech impediment. When commissioned by Jehovah God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses replied: “But I am not a fluent speaker, . . . for I am slow of mouth and slow of tongue.” (Exodus 4:10) So Jehovah lovingly provided him Aaron, his brother, as spokesman. Yet this arrangement was not to last. Later, we find recorded in the book of Deuteronomy the stirring discourses that Moses delivered to the Israelites. Aaron was not needed then! Knowing that Moses eventually gained the victory over his particular speech difficulty has proved to be a great source of encouragement for Kate.

Robert is an elder in his congregation. “I always pray before I get up to give a talk,” he says. Does it help? “Yes. It has a real calming effect.” Mae is in her 50’s and has been stuttering for the past 11 years. She says that she used to go from door to door but only as an observer. One day, she happened to work with a Witness who kindly asked her: “What’s the sense of being out in service if you’re not going to speak to people?” He was right. So she asked what she could do to help herself. His advice? Pray. For several years Mae was able to be a pioneer minister and devoted at least 90 hours each month to telling people about God’s Kingdom. “Even if I should stutter when talking to someone at the door,” she says, “I quickly say a little prayer. I recover and get comfortable again.”

Putting the Albatross to Flight

Are you especially close to someone who stutters? Do you feel as does this young woman, who said of her friend: “He is a beautiful, warm, caring person. He has so much to give, but no way to express himself”? If you feel that way, then you, too, yearn for a cure as much as he does.

If you could say to a stutterer: ‘Just do this or that. It works every time!’ it would be wonderful indeed. But it isn’t true. Stuttering is such a complex disorder, and every stutterer is an individual having individual needs. Therefore, what might help one person bring his stuttering under control will not give another the same result. Does this mean, then, that a stutterer is condemned to a life with very little hope?a

Robert, Mae, and Kate would warmly assure you that there will be a cure​—and soon. They would gladly share with you their hope in God’s promise that the tongue of the speechless one will cry out. They would tell you about the man that Jesus cured of a speech impediment. Or they would explain that the time is soon to come when Jesus Christ, as glorified King of God’s Kingdom, will turn his attention to the earth. And when he does, he will do for many exactly what he did for that man so many years ago. Yes, theirs is the confidence that Jehovah, “the God of all comfort,” together with his Son, Jesus Christ, will delight in putting this albatross to flight forever.​—2 Corinthians 1:3, 4.

There is no doubt, then, that the future will be well cared for. But what about now? Robert, Mae, Kate, and others like them, are trying hard to live with their problem as graciously as possible. Will the burden of responsibility be theirs alone to carry? We hope not. We can help them by giving them our respect. We can always be kind and understanding and patient. We can listen to what they are saying. Yes, the ease with which they accept their problem will often depend upon our willingness to understand the stutterer’s albatross.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 20]

“I wish people would look at stutterers with dignity and respect”

[Blurb on page 22]

“Listeners help stutterers best when they respond to what the stutterer is saying rather than to how the person is saying it.”​—Dr. Oliver Bloodstein, speech pathologist

[Box on page 23]

“Speech Is Silver, Silence Is Golden”

This old proverb is said to be of Oriental origin. The Hebrew equivalent is: “If a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two.”​—Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

A wise man of ancient times expressed it concisely: “For everything its season, and for every activity under heaven its time: . . . a time for silence and a time for speech.”​—Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7, The New English Bible

[Picture on page 21]

Have you ever wondered what life might be like for someone who stutters?