You mean, stammering isn't normal?
By Mary Smiley

Stuttering as a child only became an issue because my sister didn't speak like me - with stoppages in mid sentence.

I didn't really realise that I had a speech defect. I thought it was normal to pause or have breaks in sentences that were sometimes not deliberate but it never really bothered me till I got older.

At eleven years old, I moved to Sierra Leone (West Africa) with my family, where I lived for the next six years.

I noticed that my speech got worse over there but I think quite a few things contributed to that. Mum and dad had gone back to England, and my relatives were very antagonistic.

It was a disaster. The worst bout I ever had was when my aunt was disciplining me for not washing dishes. I can actually see her face now as she asked me: "Why haven't you washed the dishes?"

She stood there and watched me struggle to talk. To make matters worse she kept smiling and saying, "I'm waiting".

To this day, I cringe when I think about how long it took me to answer - let's call it 5-6 minutes and I remember feeling absolutely exhausted at the end of it.

My mum had a tip-off from someone that if I drank water from a bell, it would improve my speech.

She looked all over the country (England) for one. She found it, and it worked wonders. I have since lost the bell - but my resouceful mother had already found another remedy, which I still use today.

That was over ten years ago. I have noticed that as I get older, the stutter lessens. To tell the truth I don't actually stutter that severely and people I have known for years have no idea. Only close friends and family know the extent of it.

It hasn't prevented me from getting jobs or socialising - in fact the majority of the time when I do get a job, it's through talking my way in.

I get lots of practice with my speech, as I am a trainee journalist. With journalism it's all about communication. We have open debates and give seminars on various topics and if I don't contribute, I fail - so I guess that's my therapy.

There was a time when I did lack confidence because of the stutter and I let it run my life. I detoured and followed a different course instead of journalism. But I believe that when you are destined for a certain path in life, it will become apparent and that's what happened to me.

I can say that as a woman who stutters, the world is not an easy place. It can be hard. You not only have to look good but you have to sound good too. I would say that starting to take control of the stammer, rather than it controlling me, was the breakthrough to my new-found confidence.

From the Summer 2003 edition of Speaking Out