How I won my fluency!

[dritan]

Dear friends! I hope that you forgive me for not replying sooner, but I was full of work these past weeks. I know that you are curious to know everything about my newly achieved fluency. The road to fluency is a long one and to explain everything I have done is needed a long-long night. The main thing is that often when they invite me to participate on the different TV programs, I go very gladly and there are people now that tell me that I push to hard my opinions and don’t let the others speak.
Even so I still stutter sometimes. Not like before, but I still stutter when I am very angry or very emotional. Like everybody else, anyway.
I would like to say something very important tonight. Dear friends! Forget the dream of fluency. Do not dream at all about your speech. We tend always dreaming a bit more than what is possible to achieve.

Beautiful lady!
This is how I call my speech now. Like a beautiful lady my speech needs a lot of attention. Have you ever waken up in the morning with a lady in your bed. (If you have not, ask someone who has!!! : ) The beautiful ladies in the street do not wake up in the morning like this. No! A woman to become a lady needs her make up and attentions. Like every good lady that needs to cure her nails, her hair, her dress and everything else, my speech needs also its cures. I cannot live her get out of my mouth if everything I want to say is not being spoken with grace, joy and attention. But you have to cure your speech. Do not forget this. Everything beautiful needs its cures, its attention. Give the needed attention to your speech. Do let your self to offend your speech. Respect it. Love it, even when it’s not that beautiful.
The fluency is not just something that comes with magic. You have to take care of your speech and like any beautiful lady needs a lot of cures and attentions.

Take care of your speech my friends!

Dritan Kici

[Vermillion]

How did you overcome stuttering?

[studentdoc]

I don't get it either.

[Perad]

its like one big metaphor, can you try again please

[Standingtall]

I may seem out of place, but I do understand what he is talking about. It is very similiar to the rose garden metaphore.

I like to think of my stutter as the most initmate part of me. My personality is so wrapped around my stutter. It is on my mind, when awake and sometimes when I am sleeping. You have dreams, hopes, desires coming directly from your stutter, also on the other side of the coin, fears, frustration and anger. Well, that is how I see it.

[dritan]

Let me explain a bit further what I was saying. If you have tried speech therapy you will remember the fluency that you did get at first. After that everything went where it was before and maybe worst. This thing is happened to me also. I had speech therapy based on speech pattern reeducation and costal breathing. It worked well for a couple of months and after that the disillusion was horrible. I had nearly resigned to my faith when I found in a corner the therapy guide book. Started reading it and… in the room came my wife. With out thinking I told her something nice about her hair or something like that. She smiled and got out again. Then I realized that I had not stuttered at all when I spoke to her. Reading the therapy guide book had made me remember how it was during the therapy and soon after that. More I remembered and more fluently I spoke. But… there was something missing still. I blocked a lot and I was so afraid of loosing what I had remembered.
Then one morning it hit me. I wanted to give a name to my speech. It hit me so hard that I finally understood. My speech was nice and beautiful like a lady that needs all the attention in the world. I was scared to speak to the world before, because I was ashamed like a girl that thinks that she is ugly.
After this the logic took over. What does a real lady when she is in an embarrassing or difficult position? She acts with grace and dignity. She never lets her guard down and always smiles.
From those days everything became much easier and very liberating. I published and small book about stuttering, nothing special, just general information mainly, because in Albania nobody had bothered to do that. Many TV channels found the idea very interesting and begun inviting me to speak about the problem.
Now, even sometime I still do stutter I do it with all the grace and attention needed to maintain a beautiful lady.
I assure you guys; I can go anywhere and speak to anybody now and never crosses my mind to be afraid or to be forced to stay quiet because of my stutter.
When a block comes to my throat I “remove it” with grace and continue my speech.

Regards,
Dritan Kici
Dritan_kici@yahoo.com

[sign543]

Oh, I'd love to treat my speech like a lovely lady. However, my lovely lady keeps dropping her pants in public and urinating in front of innocent children and old people.

I don't think it will work for me. :)

http://www.stutteringstudent.blogspot.com

[Standingtall]

The way I see it, using the rose garden metafore, is you can't have a beautiful rose garden over night. Sure you can plant one, but without the care and attention, that rose garden is not going to last past a couple of days.

Put your speech in place of that rose, You plant the bulb or seed, in good rich soil and you water it and you pull weeds. The weeds can be your negative reactions, like anger, frustration, etc.. Day after day you do this and then you see fruit of your progress. The rose is starting to pop up from the ground. This could be your therapy, you start to see success in your speach. You don't stop and let the rose grow on its own, you still water it and pull weeeds. After many days, with attention and care, and lots of water and sunlight, your rose becomes to bloom. You will start to see, all this work and look how beautiful the rose is.

Your speach may not be perfect after all those years, you learn to appreciate it. A beautiful lady is not made over night. Well, that is how i relate to Dritan's post.

[sign543]

The way I see it, using the rose garden metafore, is you can't have a beautiful rose garden over night. Sure you can plant one, but without the care and attention, that rose garden is not going to last past a couple of days.

.

We should all use what works for us, indeed. I don't think I've ever benefitted from metaphors. The direct approach works better for me. :)

http://www.stutteringstudent.blogspot.com

[Standingtall]

I agree, if you found something that works, go with it. I don't know how to call my way, what works for me. Just call it, changing my attitude.

[sign543]

I agree, if you found something that works, go with it. I don't know how to call my way, what works for me. Just call it, changing my attitude.

Yes, I definitely have changed my attitude over time. My stutter used to really undermine my self-esteem. And still does in some ways, but mostly it does not any longer.

stutteringstudent.blogspot.com

[dritan]

I think you did not understand my "lovely lady". Think a bit first. What does a lady best? Shi knows to be someone else. Someone diferent from the private reality of life. To beguin with you have to learn to be more discrete with the people. Talk only when you realy have to say something. No small talk! No speech without thinking! No loudness! Try to keep your voice down and in a low key. Use allways sliding when you think that a block is coming to your lips.

Belive me,
It Works. Dritan

[Standingtall]

I think you did not understand my "lovely lady". Think a bit first. What does a lady best? Shi knows to be someone else. Someone diferent from the private reality of life. To beguin with you have to learn to be more discrete with the people. Talk only when you realy have to say something. No small talk! No speech without thinking! No loudness! Try to keep your voice down and in a low key. Use allways sliding when you think that a block is coming to your lips.

Belive me,
It Works. Dritan

My apologies and no disrespect to you. I believe you, it worked for you and your a better person for it. It is how I understood it, that is all.

[cotton]

I find this fascinating. I think americans and albanians have cultural differences in what they think of a "beautiful lady". Maybe it's why it's hard for us to understand dritan's analogy.

What if I'm a beautiful lady with a beautiful lady? will I be ?

I think I know what you're saying. Stuttering doesn't allow you to say much so you limit yourself to a few important words? Body language and grace covers up stuttering? I know there are people with physical disabilities who is very good at hiding.

I think you did not understand my "lovely lady". Think a bit first. What does a lady best? Shi knows to be someone else. Someone diferent from the private reality of life. To beguin with you have to learn to be more discrete with the people. Talk only when you realy have to say something. No small talk! No speech without thinking! No loudness! Try to keep your voice down and in a low key. Use allways sliding when you think that a block is coming to your lips.

Belive me,
It Works. Dritan

[dritan]

You dont have to limit your self. You just have to akt and speak with grace. And for gods sake, try to lough sometime with your stutering. A block is not the end of the world. I worked as a journalist for years when I stutterd. Maybe because I wonted to show to everybody that I could do it. Now that I dont stutter I'm not working enymore in the news industry. I found that my "beautyfull lady" now does not give a shit if someone is looking at her or not. Take your mind of the bloody people. What if you stutter. Who gives a shit. If you have to say something that is interesting to the person in front of you, he will leasten to you. If he does not have any interest in what you are saying, even if you take the speech of Kirk Douglas, the bloody idiot in front of you will not hear you. And please guys, try to speak a bit less. I now do realy understand that as a stutterer I was a bloody broken record.

Smile!!!!
Dritan

[sign543]

I think you did not understand my "lovely lady". Think a bit first. What does a lady best? Shi knows to be someone else. Someone diferent from the private reality of life. To beguin with you have to learn to be more discrete with the people. Talk only when you realy have to say something. No small talk! No speech without thinking! No loudness! Try to keep your voice down and in a low key. Use allways sliding when you think that a block is coming to your lips.

Belive me,
It Works. Dritan

Well, I was mostly kidding, actually. I still don't exactly know why you call it a "lovely lady". A lady knows how to be someone else best?

The advice at the end might be worth examining, though. :)

http://www.stutteringstudent.blogspot.com

[cotton]

I like your kickass attitude Dritan! How bad is your stuttering on a scale of 1 - 10? Hmm... I guess I'm still trying to figure this out. So you say your "beautiful lady" worked for you? You can be the most successful person in the world but I think it's hard not to give a shit about something as neccessary as speaking, especially if you're a severe stutterer. Communication makes the world work. I agree I rather listen to what is said, not how it is said. Unfortunately body gestures and tone accounts for 90% of communication over words.

Thanks for sharing Dritan. Gave me something to think about. :)

[Standingtall]

Ok! I get the change of attitude and already doing many of the things you wrote. That's not new for me, but how does the lady thing work. A lady does care about what other people think of her, that is why she is acting like a lady.

[dritan]

Now you are getting there my friends. Let me explain a bit more. We all try to treat our speech as it is; part of our self; portion of our personality; segment of our abstract thinking and all this is true. Our speech is all of that. Now! What is that we like to have? We need a new speech, not a corrected one. We need to find a new face for our comunication aparatus. Now think for a moment that the way you talk is like a normal woman in the morning. No make up, no fitting dress, no sharm no grace. Just a woman that like everybody else in the morning wakes up with bad breath, the hair in disorder and very disoriented.
What does she?
She wash her face and puts on the make up. Coms her hair. Puts on the best dress and her red shoes. Transformed this way she presents her self in public and no one really knows how she really is.
So! Treat the way you talk like something that needs a big change, but not a one time change; you have to change every morning till the day that this becomes your second nature.
You cannot change your genes, what you can do is to teach your ugly lady (your spech) how to become a beautiful lady, every morning, of every day, of every week, of every month, till it comes to you naturaly.

Some tips:
1- Ssssliding is the best way to start a sentence, even if you are not going to stutter.
2- Low key voice, as low as you can.
3- Follow as much as you can what the other is saying.(We tend not to follow the thinking of the person we are talking with)
4- If you block, stop! Smile, breath and then speak, sssssliding on the first sound of the first word.

[amey]

I think you did not understand my "lovely lady". Think a bit first. What does a lady best? Shi knows to be someone else. Someone diferent from the private reality of life. To beguin with you have to learn to be more discrete with the people. Talk only when you realy have to say something. No small talk! No speech without thinking! No loudness! Try to keep your voice down and in a low key. Use allways sliding when you think that a block is coming to your lips.

Belive me,
It Works. Dritan

This "LOVELY LADY" seems to have you in shackles.--- I think everything that you have just said, in this paragraph, is destructive for anyone seeking help.These are all CLASSIC tricks that stutterers use to HIDE their stuttering. PLEASE dont confuse less stuttering with fluency. This is nothing but a bag of tricks. - - What about...expressing yourself authentically, being spontaneous, talking as much as you want, using your real voice...All while stuttering. Yes, it is possible to be a dignified stutterer. - - I use to carry around your bag of tricks. I found them to be HEAVY and a Lie.

[JR123]

This "LOVELY LADY" seems to have you in shackles.--- I think everything that you have just said, in this paragraph, is destructive for anyone seeking help.These are all CLASSIC tricks that stutterers use to HIDE their stuttering. PLEASE dont confuse less stuttering with fluency. This is nothing but a bag of tricks. - - What about...expressing yourself authentically, being spontaneous, talking as much as you want, using your real voice...All while stuttering. Yes, it is possible to be a dignified stutterer. - - I use to carry around your bag of tricks. I found them to be HEAVY and a Lie.

well, you've got a point, i told my speech therapist the very same thing when he tried to teach me those tricks, he told me:" you'll start by using those tricks and slowly you'll loose them and began to talk fluently without using them ".

eg. a child learning to ride a bike wont start riding a bike without the training wheels, right??, the child would start with 2 training wheels then one then none, and he'd be perfectly riding a bike without using the training wheels at all, no one can tell him:" hey!! why are you cheating, if you want to ride a bike ride it without the training wheels, you are tricking yourself by thinking that you know how to ride a bike ", the child is learning how to ride a bike and the stutter is learning how to be fluent, its basically the same thing.

got it??:)

[Nemo]

PLEASE dont confuse less stuttering with fluency. This is nothing but a bag of tricks. - - What about...expressing yourself authentically, being spontaneous, talking as much as you want, using your real voice...All while stuttering. Yes, it is possible to be a dignified stutterer. - - I use to carry around your bag of tricks. I found them to be HEAVY and a Lie.

Well, we don't all stutter in the same way. We don't all repeat or prolongate. Some of us get huge blocks that terminate all speech. That's the equivalent of temporary muteness. Very difficult to be dignified when you can't say a single word ...

[amey]

well, you've got a point, i told my speech therapist the very same thing when he tried to teach me those tricks, he told me:" you'll start by using those tricks and slowly you'll loose them and began to talk fluently without using them ".

eg. a child learning to ride a bike wont start riding a bike without the training wheels, right??, the child would start with 2 training wheels then one then none, and he'd be perfectly riding a bike without using the training wheels at all, no one can tell him:" hey!! why are you cheating, if you want to ride a bike ride it without the training wheels, you are tricking yourself by thinking that you know how to ride a bike ", the child is learning how to ride a bike and the stutter is learning how to be fluent, its basically the same thing.

got it??:)

I am hearing you, but dont fully agree. The is a HUGE difference between MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES and AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR. --- We can TRAIN our brains and bodies to use management techniques, IE -prolongation, deliberately bouncing our letters, pull outs, etc. But tricking our brains?? Unfortuanley, you cant trick a disability. You can manage it and modify it, but it will always be there. - - When I refer to "tricks", I mean lowering ones voice, using starter words, not talking at all, acting like you dont hear the person,etc. --We know them all. Just because these "tricks" may help for a short time, the eventually lose their power. ---Now, directly dealing with the stuttering, not hiding it, is the mose effective method. Managing the stuttering. Learning techniques that help smooth out the stuttering. Being WILLING to show your stuttering. --- I have yet to meet a person who has been CURED. The ones cling to have been cured, give them a little time and the stuttering is finally revealed. --- I feel so passionate because I KNOW that stuttering can be managed--not cured, but managed. Getting past this idea of Cure is the first step. I think. .... all respect, amey

[amey]

Well, we don't all stutter in the same way. We don't all repeat or prolongate. Some of us get huge blocks that terminate all speech. That's the equivalent of temporary muteness. Very difficult to be dignified when you can't say a single word ...

I agree with you NEMO, that we all differ in our severity. I am pretty severe myself. I know the pain of HUGE blocks with no sound.--- But I beleive that the DIGNIFIED stutterer is possible. -- We as stutterers, ASSUME that everyone else feels the same way about our stuttering as WE do. And thet dont. -- It is all about form. How you carry yourself.-- I know this sounds crazy, probably. It took work for me to get to this point.-- I am not crticizing doing what you need to do, thats not it. ---I am just really turned off when stutterers talk about fluency and Cure. Especially those advocating (not you) avoidance and hiding as FLUENCY/CURE.--Stuttering is so SHAME based, people dont understand it, peo0ple are desperate, and to hear this LOVELY LADY metaphor, well, it is just really destructive. -- If ayone is going to be compassionate, we need to be to our selves first.--We have a disability that there is no cure. And STILL the magic potions and miracles are being pushed. it is really sad.---

[Mooks]

Any chance you have a before and after video? As in before you came up with these techniques and now?

[Dinasaur]

In my speech therapy that I'm doing right now, we're not focusing on making me fluent, but rather making me comfortable with my stuttering, which will obviously probably reduce my tension when I stutter...making it less obvious, which makes a lot of sense.
It seems that stuttering originates as a habit from us trying to avoid it so much.
I really, really like your approach on it. Second semester is starting for me on Tuesday and my speech therapist told me that this semester I need to be more open with everyone about the fact that I stutter. It's going to be very hard for me to stutter (esp in front of the class), because I've been hiding it for so long. Any advice?

[amey]

In my speech therapy that I'm doing right now, we're not focusing on making me fluent, but rather making me comfortable with my stuttering, which will obviously probably reduce my tension when I stutter...making it less obvious, which makes a lot of sense.
It seems that stuttering originates as a habit from us trying to avoid it so much.
I really, really like your approach on it. Second semester is starting for me on Tuesday and my speech therapist told me that this semester I need to be more open with everyone about the fact that I stutter. It's going to be very hard for me to stutter (esp in front of the class), because I've been hiding it for so long. Any advice?

You know, I do believe that the severity of our stuttering, in many cases, is due to what we do to NOT stutter. We further complicate the disorder. We pile on the secondaries, avoidance, and all that other stuff.- - - I am feeling for you. Someone JUST telling me I need to be more open with my stuttering would have sent me running!! :) I wish your therapist would take you out into the real world and let you practice this.Model it for you.-- - Well, I SHOW my stuttering and that in itself is a start. It will be hard and you will want to FLEE! But stick it through. Remember, that we are really only fooling ourselves that we are hiding the stuttering well. --- You can also use another form of ADVERTISING...You can TELL who ever you are talking to that you stutter. May sound a bit weird, but it makes the interaction more comfortable for them and YOU. You can say is several different ways 1) I am (blank) and i stutter 2) talk a little bit and when you stutter, just laugh a little and say " that was a good one, I stutter" -- These are just a few. You can find your own "signature", if you will!--The important part is NEVER APOLOGIZE. - - My little line when i give presentations is " My name is Amey and for those of you who dont know me, I am a person who stutterers."-- or " obviously I am a person who stutterers", or " no I am not drunk, I just stutter". ------- Our goal when doing this, is to make it a stutterable enviorment. The listener knows what to expect AND we will loose the need to present ourselves as fluent speakers. the HUGE, ENOURMOUS ELEPHANT in the room is then removed. EVERYONE is more relaxed. ---I promise you this is an easier way of life. It takes practice. You are simply telling/showing a truth...That you are a person who stutters. This "outing " process is important. You go try it!! You are stronger than you think! KeeP EYE CONTACT and do it!! You are not alone in this. LLLLLLLLLove, amey