A mouthful of words
By Phyllis Foundis

Somewhere in a hazy memory of childhood I remember what it was like when I didn't stutter. I felt assured. Confident. And proud of the sentences that left my lips without falter. Nobody teased me. I wasn't ridiculed. But one day my thoughts developed stage fright and refused to come out of my mouth on cue. I must have been around eight or nine when I realised I stammered. I didn't wake up one morning repeating my words or my consonants. It just happened. I thought it was hereditary. My uncle, who also baptised me, had a terrible stammer. He had what I call a 'face-convulsing' stutter. Various members of our family would make fun of him behind his back and not take him seriously even when he had something serious to say. This angered me. And I wondered whether his fate awaited me.

My parents accepted me whichever way I spoke. They didn't try to change me. They didn't ask questions about my 'impediment' although once my mother asked why I didn't stutter when I sang.

My world changed when I started to write. Suddenly I could express myself with a fluency I'd only ever dreamt of. I could write - clearly, simply and continuously without hesitation. It was so liberating and I felt so powerful.

I made a silent, written pact with myself. That she who wrote would continue to express freely in words what she struggled to say in speech. And she would write and write and write ...

Whenever I read about a famous person with a stutter, I'm heartened. A person in the public eye with a speech impediment is a reassuring thing. They came, they stuttered, they conquered. I love that.

Over the years I've written millions and millions of words. And spoken about half of them. In earnest. I've trained myself not to stammer - much. I stumble over the occasional 're' sound or 'a' sound, but on the whole, I speak as freely as I write.

Slowly, but surely, I'm coming to terms with myself as someone who stutters. And stammers. But not someone who is defined by her stammering or stuttering.

In my mind, stuttering is only a disability if we think of it as one. Sometimes, it can even work in our favour.

Lewis Carroll stuttered. So he surrounded himself with children who made him feel comfortable. One child in particular captured his imagination - a little girl called Alice.

If it wasn't for Alice - and Carroll's stutter - the world would never have visited Wonderland. And what a loss that would have been. Thank God for the stutter. And the stammer.

From the Winter 2002 edition of Speaking Out