Blocking the Fear Out

By Rob Bloom
Written for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered"

[Host]:

Imagine for a moment that you're talking to somebody and, all of a sudden, your vocal chords tighten and you are at a loss for air. As you struggle to push through the blocked sound, you try blinking and squinting your eyes or contorting your mouth and jaw to squeeze out the word. Meanwhile you're ashamed to look at the person in front of you. They might be smirking, laughing, or worst of all, pitying you. You'd rather be dead than make eye contact with your listener. For commentator Rob Bloom, a person who stutters, this is his everyday reality.

[Rob Bloom]:

Every since the age of three, I've st-st-stuttered. Contrary to the stereotype, I'm not a nervous or anxious person. I stutter because…well, I stutter. It's a neurological quirk that runs in my family. But when I was ridiculed for stuttering as a child, I began to fear speaking, which actually caused me to stutter more. This led to a vicious cycle from which I am now, at the age of 27, just learning how to escape.

People often ask me, "What's the big deal about stuttering? Can't you just slow down and speak fluently?" No, I can't. I don't stutter because I am talking too fast. Stuttering is like carrying a giant rattlesnake around your neck — you know it's going to strike, you just don't know when.

And while every person who stutters has a different method for tackling the behavior, my solution was simply to hide it. I did this by taking a word that I was afraid of and substituting it for one that I thought I could produce. Now while switching one word for another doesn't sound that hard, try doing it within milliseconds during a conversation. Despite the fact that I became a walking thesaurus, there are some situations where substitution doesn't work. To a person who stutters, questions like Where do you live?, what do you do?, and the ever-so-frightening what's your name? are catalysts for a panic attack. In questions like these, there's only one specific answer – which means there's no way to talk around or substitute words. But do you really think I was going to let a little thing like the truth expose my shameful stuttering? Nah! To maintain the disguise of a fluent speaker, I've done everything from ordering something other than I what I really want from a menu to giving a fake name when introducing myself.

You're probably wondering how a sound or word becomes problematic in the first place. In my experience, it all relates to the emotion you feel in the moment of stuttering. For example, if I stutter on my name and my listener snickers and says What's the matter? You don't know your own name?, I'm going to log that moment in my memory. My mind will start racing as I visualize myself blocked on my name at an upcoming meeting, cocktail party, or even when making a simple phone call. In just minutes, I've done a wonderful job of convincing myself that people will always laugh when I say my name. With such an intense fear of judgment and ridicule from others, wouldn't you want to hide, too?

Now while certain fears are learned – like saying my name – there are other times when the rattlesnake strikes suddenly and randomly. For example, three years ago I was asked to give my social security number in a busy doctor's office. In an instant, I was blocked and unable to produce speech. My worst nightmare was coming true.

"How was this possible?" I later asked myself. After all, I had never before stuttered when saying numbers! So what could have triggered the block? Was it my feeling that I was taking up too much of the nurse's time or my fear that my secret would be uncovered? Whatever the case, here's the real kicker – that encounter is still with me today! And any time I must say a number, my mind instantly refers to that one moment and, without skipping a beat, responds with fear.

I have spent my entire life in fear of stuttering. Going on a job interview, asking a woman out on a date, or even answering the telephone was, in my mind, equivalent to staring down a hungry tiger. Can you imagine how stressful it is to live like that? Two years ago, with a serious stomach ulcer and increasingly high blood pressure, I knew something had to give.

I decided to stop hiding from stuttering…and life. For the first time in my life, I closed the thesaurus and said exactly what I wanted to – without avoiding or substituting words. I also joined Toastmasters where I willingly stood before a group of people and spoke. Were these things hard? You bet they were! But in facing my worst fears, I learned several important lessons.

First, most people are only interested in what I'm saying, not how I'm saying it. For every one person who laughs, there's ten who couldn't care less. I've also learned that people generally want to know the polite way to respond to a big ‘ol stutter or blocked word. The best response is to be patient and let the person finish. Don't try to help by finishing the word – that just reinforces feelings of inadequacy. And, please, keep eye contact when the person is stuttering so we know you are comfortable.

After years of living in denial, I've finally accepted that I do, in fact, stutter. And while this might always the case, I now realize that are more important things to focus on. I've learned that if you take the emphasis off fluency and instead, focus on the fun of communicating your message, the rattlesnake just might go to sleep. So now, after a lifetime of being controlled by my fears of disfluent speech, I've finally found a way to silence the negative thoughts and feelings: I've turned the tables and now, I'm blocking the fear out.