Working with crowds.

As anyone who knows me in real life has grasped years ago, I have a hereditary speech hesitation/stutter that comes and goes in spikes. My father had it, and his father had it – there’s little I can do to fix it no matter how much prodding and forcing someone does. Since I am 26 now, I have found ways to circumvent phrases and words that I know I will not be able to say with any consistency so I can avoid embarrassing moments with friends or family. They, however, are not the ones that I really have to worry about. They understand my issue, and they accept it – after all, if they weren't still around then they would have already judged me.

I've been to a few speech therapists since elementary school. A lot of their advice I disregard as pointless because it’s as common sense as “talk slow. Don’t be stressed. One word at a time”. That’s great and all, but I usually don’t even have a problem with talking until I am stressed or around a large crowd of people that I don’t know. This events are when my mind starts to race, I get nervous, and voila – I’m choosing my words carefully.

By choosing my words, I mean I play a little mental game with myself where I prepare what I’m going to say before I say it so I can run through sentences to see if anything will be difficult to say. If I decide that something is, I’ll simply choose a different word. Does this sometimes make what I say a bit confusing? Sure. I can and will choose words that aren't as straightforward, but it buys me some time and diffuses a potential embarrassing moment. I’d rather have to explain what I said instead of being caught up in my speech. I’ll choose that any day of the week.

Why? Well, last Friday I studdered and got extremely embarrassed at myself while I was in a large work meeting. All I did was power through the word as I closed my eyes and hoped for it to end. It was horrible, and I very rarely have this amount of trouble since I've had two decades to practice and perfect my craft… but it was a bad combination of me being tired, already stressed, and slightly annoyed. Voila.

It drained me, I didn't look at anyone for the rest of the meeting, and all I did was prayed that I could go home.

There’s nothing I can do about my problem – as stated, it’s hereditary. It will never be cured. Its spikes will come and go throughout the years, and maybe eventually it will be so minimal that strangers won’t even realize it (some of my friends say they don’t notice it, but I’m sure they are just being nice). It just makes social events more taxing than I want them to be. I like going out with friends and I like meeting new people, but I don’t want a first impression to be bad. I don’t want to feel like I need to go home after 2 hours because I've already had trouble making small talk and I fear it will become worse.

I’m sure I've lost potential girlfriends, friends, and job opportunities because I may have not flowed together a sentence well enough? Is this wrong? Sure it is – but first impressions are sometimes the only chance you get.

Such is life. No one is perfect. I just wish I could explain to people why I can’t say words. It doesn't make sense to the vast majority of the population that speak without even thinking about what they say. To me, I envy them.