Chapter 18. HEAL QUICK

I'll share what I did to start healing the pain: learning to forgive myself.

To survive the battle of stuttering I had to stop caring what people think. It took time, but was worth it. Fluency came before the scars healed. So no one could tell me. It was a lonely battle. It took me 10 years to go from the idea to how to do a bunch of sh*t. I'm laying the path. I'll share what I did to start healing the pain: learning to forgive myself.

Okay, sometimes we all back down, including me.

Just know that I know it's hard, my friend, and I had a lot of bad days. But it's all possible, and it's scary too, all at the same time. So here's the thing. To live this life of battle, I stopped caring what people think of me. It's taken a long time, and I still work on it. I mean, it's mostly gone, but it took a while, but it was a worthwhile thing, to just learn to not care. So this is me being real, right? I'd be like, f*ck that person. Now, they might be nice, they might, but like, I couldn't feel sh*ttier, because they could judge me too, because I already felt real bad. It's one of the things that I did, to learn to help not care when I was going to embarrass myself.

You got to find a way to move on

Because you can't talk to strangers each day and still feel sh*tty all night long because it did not go well. You got to find a way to move on. The stuff I'm sharing is not textbook. It's not taught. It's what I've done, and worked for me. Maybe it'll work for you too. But f*ck that person. Or my favorite line is that I don't care. Or I'd say, like, I don't give a f*ck. Because when you're doing battle, you gotta learn how to heal quick.

If you bomb, it's f*cking Jacksonville. So like, you're never going to see these people again. What I said to myself was that they're gonna forget about me in 3 days.



"The thing that helped me was just telling myself, and keeping this in mind, that I am not that important to be in people's mind." So I love you, but I would reframe this. I would never say, at the time I might, but now, the idea to say that you're not important, but I get what you're doing. What I said to myself was in the same circle. But now, did I honestly cry myself to bed that night? There was a good chance. But I also said that, look, it's hard work. I've done the work. I've lived a life. But I lived it with no one to tell me. On my journey, no one told me if I was right or wrong. It was by my freaking self. I was doing battle alone. I told my parents, who couldn't get it, who were nice, but they couldn't get it. My sister couldn't understand too. Again, they're nice, but they don't understand.

Confidence is so important. It's what drives what you see now. Like, these are the weird things that literally unlock whatever you see right now. If you've stuttered, like we have, you know that it feels like a battle out there. I don't think that's crazy to say. So when I set the mood, when I set my mood right, I'm getting ready for battle. I'm gonna go and talk to whoever the f*ck I want. It's kind of like battle, where you're going to put some time in, because you're going to go fight a fight. I mean, it's not fighting for me, because I love it. But it's like, you're going in to do a lot of talking, so get f*cking ready.

Date yourself

Here's a 5 star tip I'm gonna share. It sounds weird, maybe embarrassing, but it's cool. That is date yourself. What I mean by that is, if you've had a hard day, or a hard time, or a hard week, or a hard life, start to do some things for yourself. Take yourself out. Go get ice cream. Go out to an event. Do something fun that makes you smile. Do it. Date yourself. Like, make a time for you to have fun. The whole purpose about this is most people who stutter think all day long about their speech, right?



Heal quick from negative emotions

When you're in battle for your fluency, you gotta heal quick from negative emotions. F*ck what other people think. So this is what I do in my life.

1. When another word carries the same meaning, I may choose it rather

than force a block. Exact information still matters, and a difficult moment does not decide the rest of my day.

2. F*ck that person. Or, I don't care. Or, I don't give a f*ck. When

you're doing battle, you gotta learn how to heal quick.

3. No matter what time of day it was, it's too early in the day to hate

yourself. So that was my crutch.

4. What I'm teaching you, my friend, is I want you to share one great

fluency moment right now with me. What I'm going to teach you is think about that before bed every night for the rest of your life.

5. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you make because you want to be

smooth. You want to talk well. You want to have a good life. You're trying hard.

6. They're gonna forget about me in 3 days.

7. Date yourself. Go get ice cream. Do something fun that makes you

smile.

8. If I missed a day, if there was some reason why I did not talk to a

person for a day, I would make it up and do 2 the next day.

Fluency is won. Each day you win it again the next f*cking day.