Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Beyond the Wall

I recently ran into two situations where the slumbering beast that is my stuttering reached across the years and reared its ugly head to give me a dose of perspective and humility.

One was when I was asked to speak (into a microphone, no less) to an auditorium full of people on the subject of my employer's book. I was positively mortified. To make it worse I had made comprehensive notes on exactly what I was going to say. A big mistake.

You remember being in school and the teacher was having the students go around the room and read passages of a book or a poem and as your turn approached your anxiety grew and grew until, when it was your turn you were a complete basket case? That's just the way it was. We were doing a "round robin," each of the three of us took our turn reviewing a chapter, so I had plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to place major roadblocks in my carefully prepared mini-speeches.

The stuttering came back in force (in the form of uncomfortably long pauses) while my brain frantically tried to work its mental gymnastics in the most stressful situation a stutterer can imagine. Actually, a stutterers nightmare unfolding in real life. It was horrific.

After the public speaking fiasco my boss suggested (which means instructed) that I join a local club of Toastmasters International. It was, hands down, the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in my speech development.

Toastmasters is an international organization of clubs that is focused on helping you improve your communication and leadership skills. Their e-mail address is www.toastmasters.org It is a positive forum where you give speeches, evaluate speakers, facilitate the meetings and give short impromptu speeches. In two short years I've gone from terrified to get up and speak in front of an audience (a remnant of my stuttering past) to where I feel a sense of loss if I have attended a club meeting and did not get the opportunity.

It literally takes the fear that you have of speaking and turns it into an adrenaline rush. This seems unbelievable to the average stutterer but it is nonetheless so. For about $40 per year and one hour twice a month you can be involved in an organization that is built on the precept that people dread public speaking and wish to improve their communication skills.

I am constantly reminded of the Seinfeld television show episode where in his opening dialog he points out that when surveyed, people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. So logically they would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

This is not far off the mark, and the fear is multiplied when you are a stutterer and the stuttering is multiplied by the fear.

The second occasion was a similar situation. I was giving a portion of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech to my Toastmasters club on the day after MLK's birthday. Because of the nature of the speech I was required to read from a script, as with the prayer I couldn't very well take artistic license with one of the most famous speeches in history. Once again I had very noticeable (and long and embarrassing) pauses and a few stalls in reading the script. But no stuttering in the literal sense of the word. The slight pauses that normally happen now while my brain lays down the non-verbal ramp became more pronounced, but I did not stutter like I once would have.

If you think about it there are similarities between these two relapses. Both times I was under stress. I was forced to think about exactly what I was going to say, I had no alternative route to circumvent the wall and I was out of practice in using the verbal ramp. Needless to say, I won't be doing any more scripted speeches.