I waited to see The King's Speech because I wasn't sure how I would react. I stutter, and watching another stutterer on a big screen with dozens of other people seemed a little too daunting.
But curiosity got the best of me. I couldn't see how Colin Firth could pull off a convincing stammer. After all, I'm an expert, and I still don't understand how it is done. No one does, really. There is some evidence that it is linked to little misfires in the brain, but no really knows why 1% of the population is so afflicted.
Firth nailed it. The sing-song. The broken cadence. Those are all tricks that we use to get the words out. I see the words in my mind, but they don't tumble out correctly - like an automatic card shuffler gone haywire.
It was, of course, particularly troublesome when I was a child and a teen. I had a summer job as a lot boy at a car dealership in Arroyo Grande. Washing cars was my main task, but the crew gathered together one day to complete a parts inventory. It involved counting nuts, bolts and other items in the parts department.
"Are you sure you can do this?," the general manager asked. I just stared at him. I wanted to scream out, "I'm not stupid!" Obviously, things have changed over 30 years. The shame long since went away, but the struggle hasn't.
I've read that researchers believe stuttering is genetic, but no one in my family was afflicted. I was terrified when I became a father that my daughter would be affected, but her speech is fine.
My mother always attributed the stutter to my lifelong hearing issues. I had a cholesteatoma tumor when I was young. It was removed once, grew back, was removed again and somehow damaged my hearing, which, affected my speech. The stammer began when, ironically, I was undergoing speech therapy after the surgeries. To this day, I have a 50% hearing loss.
The tumor can destroy the little bones in the ear, but I don't know if that was a contributing factor to the stutter. My mother always believed the intense therapy and the stress associated with it played a role. Who knows.
My parents took me to more speech therapists than I could count. A hypnotist tried regression therapy, but that went nowhere. My parents would get frustrated and yell: "Slow down!" "Relax!"
Those well-intended efforts just put more pressure on me. Like all stutterers, I developed coping mechanisms. I lingered in the background, unwilling to speak up for fear someone would notice me. I seldom introduced myself - especially to girls - because, as is the case with many who stammer, saying my name would set off trip wires in my speech. I spent hours alone in my room reading books.
I was insecure, self-conscious, humiliated and often felt defeated. Then, I decided I had had enough. I was sitting in a high school biology class when a voice in my head said, "You know, you are missing out on a lot of life." So, I started talking. I thought the stutter might diminish if I stopped trying to hide it. I hoped it would flee if I let it loose.
I enrolled in a public-speaking class and, when given the choice between oral or written reports, I chose oral. I even took a couple drama courses. It was scary and painful.
It helped. At least a little. The stutter became more infrequent, but never went away. I came to terms with it, and even became a reporter. Only rarely in thousands of interviews over three decades of reporting did anything go south. But I have to control the discussion. Keeping my speech in check requires much concentration and focus. The stutter can spring up out of nowhere, often surprising and embarrassing me.
That's why I don't drink - alcohol loosens me up too much.
I'm almost 55 years old, and I've stuttered all my life. I'm not going to grab a microphone at a wedding and declare a toast. Stand-up comedy is out; it takes too long to get to the punchline. The stutter will never go away, although I can go for days without a relapse.
I've accepted it, but I can't help but wonder what life would have been like without a stammer. Would I have been glib, articulate and a magnificent orator? Would I be the same voracious reader? Would I have gravitated to a career that didn't involve writing, my preferred method of communication?
I guess I'll never know.
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