The Time I Thought I Cured My Stutter
Until I knew I didn’t
I, along with the other NSA Nterns hosted another zoom webinar last night. The topic for the evening was The College Experience. I’m feeling a little nostalgic after all that talk. A lot of changes occurred during my college experience (this is just everything that happened between 2015–2019) with my stuttering journey. There were a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows. But this is the story of when it all began. This is the story of how I convinced myself I no longer stuttered.
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Have you ever wanted something so bad that it actually comes true?
I think that’s exactly what I did.
I’m 18, and I just finished high school. I wasn’t exactly going straight to a 4-year but I was still moving no less. I was starting fresh. It was almost too freeing to be able to start new in a place where no one knew me.
And one of the things I decided was that I was no longer going to stutter.
Because my 18th birthday wish did not come true and I still woke up with a stutter, I had to face the fact that this is what the rest of my life will be. And that made me angry. But when I kept thinking about how I could transform myself when I got to college, I thought this could be it. This could be what I needed.
I was already pretty covert. I just needed the confidence. I needed the mind > body mentality. I told myself I could do it. When I went to bed at night I would see myself, fluent and thriving. That’s what it was:
fluent and thriving
So when I introduced myself, I never mentioned that I have a stutter
because why mention something that wasn’t there?
And it wasn’t.
It was the most bizarre awakening. This is what manifesting felt like!
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I never felt so free
I felt so much lifted off of me. All the things that were holding me back like making friends, going to parties, having a social life, and just being myself, all felt possible.
Anything was possible.
I couldn’t believe that this was all that I had to do. I just had to convince myself enough that it was never there.
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Nothing good lasts forever though right?
I’ll have to go back to my journal to see where it was. When was the moment in which I started to spiral?
To be honest, it doesn’t matter. The moment it did, however, I buckled. I started reeling. I thought this was the beginning of the end.
This was the moment when I realized that no matter what I did, it wasn’t just going to go away and the only way out of it was through.
Part of going through it was accepting the fact that I had a stutter.
The acceptance did not come until a few years later, but I did however have to first confess how I was a big fat liar.
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I told my two closest roommates
Thankfully, they were understanding.
It took time with other people, but I mostly never said anything about it. Instead, my confidence dwindled. My anxiety increased. I was less active in class. I became who I always was. And my stuttering journey really started.
For a moment it was good. It was like a movie.
Like I had “one day” to be fluent and I did everything I ever wanted to do. I did everything that I felt like ever held me back from being my most authentic self. It felt good, great even.
I know I can get there again. I believe it. But first, I have to accept who I am, all the good and the bad, because I know I am capable. I’ve already seen it. I’ve already done it. And I am manifesting once again, that I am already there.
