Chapter 8. I HAD TO KEEP HOPE

I was going to stutter and stay there, or I was going to stutter and try to get better

So the choice I made, my friend, was that the decision was that I was gonna stutter for a while. I did not know how long. So my thought was, I might as well try really hard to work on this thing, because the choice was I was going to stutter and stay there, or I was going to stutter and try to get better. So I made my own choice. It was a personal decision.

In my mind it was not a hard choice. The decision was that it was harder to live a life of stuttering with no real hope for me. So I gave myself hope by believing that it was possible. I knew there was no shortcut, in the sense of a quick fix, because I had lived the path. I wasn't looking for a quick fix. I was looking for something very sustainable.

I knew that I had a stutter, of course, but it was that I accepted that I was going to work on it. In my head I believed that I was going to stutter for a while, for a long while, and I figured that I might as well work on this thing for me while I was doing it. Because if I was going to stutter for 5 years or 3 years or whoever knows how long, then I figured I might as well just work on this thing, and that's what I did.

I had to have hope in my life

For me, the hardest thought was that nothing could change. I wanted to keep working on my speech, even when the progress was small. That was the hope I chose to act on.

I use the word acceptance strongly in this book, so I want to be clear about what I mean. The idea that felt poisonous to me was resignation: deciding that improvement was out of reach. I also knew that I stuttered and that I would keep struggling while I worked. Both were part of my



life. I wanted to face what was happening and still have hope. Someone else may use acceptance to mean being honest about their speech, treating themselves kindly, or taking part in life while they stutter. Those choices leave room to work on speech too.

"So then how did you gain that fluency without accepting your stutter? Because every time I talk to someone here, or you go to a speech therapist, they'll always say like you have to accept, you know, the way you stutter, you have to accept who you are." I heard that as being asked to believe my speech could never change. That was the idea I resisted. I needed hope, and I wanted to keep practicing.

I needed that hope. This had nothing to do with money, women, or fame. I wanted to be able to look ahead to my life and believe there was work worth doing. That was deeply personal to me. Someone else can accept the speech they have today and still want a different future.

I can be tough about the advice I received. I also want you to have room to choose help and goals that make sense for your life. Your choice of the word acceptance does not tell me what you are capable of.

I believed that giving up on improvement would keep me from doing the work I wanted to do. That belief kept me moving. I cannot make it a rule that everyone must think or describe themselves the same way to improve.

What if that 14-year-old version of me had given up on improvement?

Remember when I was crying in the driveway at 14 and promised myself I would find a way to beat my stutter? I kept coming back to that



promise. I cannot know exactly how my life would have gone otherwise. I know the hope in that promise mattered to the work I kept doing.

I was close to believing that the speech I hated would always dominate my life. I still remember how frightening that felt.

I wanted to start with choices I could make

I wanted other people to treat stuttering with more understanding. I also wanted something I could work on myself. Practicing my speech gave me a place to begin while the rest of life carried on around me.

The less you talk, the more you fear it

Taking a first step gave me a reason to keep going. I wanted encouragement because practicing after years of painful speaking moments was hard. I had to learn to treat myself differently while I tried. That is the work I can describe from my life; it does not prove why somebody else's stutter continues.

I learned to take responsibility for my fluency

Keep people around you who respect what you want to work on and who can encourage you without making every hard moment a failure. I wanted to keep taking action, even when it was a small step.

I took responsibility for the practice I chose and for how I responded afterward. That gave me something useful to work on. I could influence parts of a speaking situation without controlling every outcome. A difficult day did not mean I had failed as a person. The work



continued, and some days were much harder than others. I wanted room for effort, recovery, and the rest of my life.

I was tired of not having a voice

There's a guy who is just sick and tired of this. Tired of feeling humiliated. Tired of being embarrassed. Tired of not having the confidence that I wanted. Tired of pretending I forgot what I was gonna say. Tired of being talked over. I was tired of not having a voice. I was tired of not being heard. I was tired of not saying what was on my mind. I was tired of really living in my head way too much for way too long. Do you know the feeling?

I would have dreamed to get 50% better.

I think it's awesome for people to attain fluency, but maybe that's not the goal, but maybe the goal is like a little more fluency, like 10% more or 25% more or maybe 50% more. I mean, back in the day I would have dreamed to get 50% better. I would have loved that.

So do you want to work on improving your speech? Or do you not? You and I can be friends no matter which way you choose. It won't affect me, and I'm gonna have good speech if you work on yours or if you don't. But it will affect you. It has the power of changing how you feel about your whole life.

Do you want my help, or do you just want to talk? As tough as stuttering is, it's easier than living a limited life. One that you know you deserve better. That is a pain that never goes away.