The program interviewed relatives, friends and people with whom she had worked. A few of them, like Adam Hills from Spicks and Specks remarked they were unaware she stuttered.
In 2006 I told my son I was going to a speech therapist for my stutter he looked at me in complete surprise and said, "you don't stutter mum." Stuttering rarely happened to me in the comfort of my own home but I was still surprised at his comment.
From my late teens I had winged clear speech at times and other times I would contort myself in spitting out the sounds which so often evaded me. Many times I said nothing because it was just too hard. Megan in her interview talked about the time she was conversing with another stutterer, I also had that experience. I couldn't become too close to her, it was just too difficult to have a conversation.
My life had suddenly turned in 2006 and I was working toward employment as a community service coordinator. It meant I had to talk to staff and clients. I wanted to talk without blurting, stammering or tying myself in knots. I have attended social gatherings where I came across people who did not know how to deal with my stutter and made fun of me and others who carefully avoided me. In my work experience as I stuttered over the phone or face to face the employer or client allowed me my speech performance as if it didn’t occur. Sometimes they just added the words I was trying so hard to say. I am never sure if that made me feel better but at times I was relieved.
My community services course was due to finish soon and I was looking for employment in my chosen field. It was time.
I gathered my confidence and made an appointment with a middle aged, matronly speech therapist. She was surprised I was almost fifty and had never had speech therapy before. She asked me what it was like at school. I could not remember stuttering as a child only in late high school. She asked me questions I couldn't answer. I returned home, thought about what she had said and asked my mother.
I already knew all the answers but I was blind to them. When I was sixteen I became very ill, so ill I could not stand, I had no energy to open my presents at Christmas (just after I got sick). My big sister thought I was going to die. When I finally looked in the bathroom mirror my eyes were hollow and I looked like ‘death warmed up’. Three months later most of my hair fell out and I needed iron and thyroid tablets to regain my health. I don't remember visiting the doctor but my mother said she was told my brain was going too fast and it affected my speech! Goodness me, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Upon returning to the speech therapist, she simply said, 'trauma.' She gave me smooth speech exercises to do. It didn't seem to make any difference so Google and I did some research.
Desperate situations call for desperate measures and desperate I was! I filled in the form, gave away my credit card number and pressed the 'buy' button. It was done. I waited in anticipation never believing it would actually help.
A week or so later it arrived in a brown paper parcel. It arrived from oversees and cost me, from memory about $30. I was hesitant to use it, but what is life without a risk or two? Being a Christian was hypnotherapy safe to use? I didn't know but I was going to try it.
I opened my CD player, placed the CD in and pressed the play button. I listened to the whole recording while I sat on my kitchen chair. It talked about what caused the stuttering to happen. I had my answer. I revisited my illness and my embarrassment of losing my hair and the fear of losing control of my health and independence during my illness. The illness only lasted a couple of weeks but it had devastating results.
The CD was to be played at night before sleeping. Every night I put it on, rarely was I awake when it finished.
Then the most amazing and unexpected thing happened. I didn't grow two heads or showed disturbing behaviour but I could connect words together without stuttering for sentences at a time. I was hooked. Some days I would play the CD at home, I would recount my trauma, I would give it away and not take it back. After three months I didn't use the CD anymore, I was almost stutter free. Sometime later I had what I thought was a relapse and out came the CD once again. I listened to it again for a week. Since then it lives in my top drawer, I haven't played it for seven years but I know where it is.
Megan Washington's story brought me back to my days of stuttering. This week I listened to myself, how do I speak? I was surprised there is still a slight stutter in my voice but it is infrequent. If you asked me I would say I am fluent in my speech. I am never afraid to speak up because I know I will no longer embarrass myself, or others. It took me over thirty years to do something about my stutter, in hindsight, it was too long.
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