This afternoon I spent writing up my experiences of a form of therapy that really has helped me come to terms with my speech as requested by the therapist for her to use as a case study, and I thought it was appropriate to share it here too.

So if you’re interested in what happened next to stammerheadshark, read on:

I was referred to see a clinical psychologist as part of a dual-pronged approach with the speech therapy I was undergoing in December 2010 to see whether it could offer a resolution to the neurogenic stammer I’d developed after accidentally hitting my head in February 2009.

Matters had been somewhat complicated by the fact that not only had it been discovered that I had a brain tumour requiring removal in the meantime, but I’d also been made redundant from my job in Southport.

This meant that the issue of managing the acquired stammer had become clouded by depression surrounding the lengthy period of time I seemed to be taking to recover from surgery (It had been estimated that 6-8 weeks after the operation I would be fit to return to work, but in reality after various complications [I experienced periods of muteness, my walking had deteriorated to that of a toddler's, my stamina was severely affected, and I was suffering chronic head pain] it actually took 9 months), and my concerns that I would appear unemployable as a result of my speech difficulties and the recent surgery.

My confidence had plummeted as a result, and being unable to return to work as soon as I would have liked had very much affected my self-worth, the possibility of being able to move on with our lives whilst I was out of employment, and the reality of needing our own space as we had had to move back in with my foster-family (we had moved back from Leicester after being advised that I needed to be treated by specialists at the Walton Centre once the neurologist and speech therapist treating me had reached dead-ends in their treatments but consequently my partner and I had struggled to find work as the recession was just taking effect on businesses) which although was incredibly kind of them, meant that we were living in a house of 7 adults.

The psychologist was very focused from the outset with her programme of treatment that what had happened in the past was unchangeable, and that we ought to concentrate on what I could do to change my circumstances in order to “live well” despite the speech impediment and recent difficulties, as it seemed to be the case that speech therapy was unlikely to have any effect and I needed to come to terms with it.

I’d hate to sound dramatic, but honestly it felt to me that by accepting my speech as it is now meant that I was abandoning who I really was. I’d made a point of explaining that this wasn’t what I really sounded like when introducing myself to new people. I needed people to know that the stammer wasn’t who I was; I didn’t want anybody to define me by it because I have to believe I am so much more than that. I am not my disability, but at the time, I was refusing to accept it was even a part of me. It was removed from me, just something that had accidentally happened, and I desperately needed to believe that I wouldn’t always have this speech.

To begin with, I felt that by going down the path of “living well despite…” meant that I was cheating myself out of what I considered being well again, and I must admit that I didn’t fully commit myself to the therapy during the first session as I tried to assert who I had been (and now, who I realise I still am) and the things that I had done and was proud of before I acquired the stammer.

After the session, I had reluctantly agreed to return to see Becky as although I felt I was giving up on myself to accept my new speech, I also felt that I was cheating myself out of a chance to treat the stammer if it turned out to be psychosomatic. A week on I unexpectedly received a letter through the post from her, and honestly I cried.

After all the reams of NHS appointments and letters bearing worrying news requesting I returned to various clinics that I had received for months, a letter arrived that told me how brave I must have been, that it had been recognised that I was more of a person than I appeared superficially while I was recovering, that there was still hope and that someone wasn’t giving up on me. I truly felt overwhelmed by all of this.

I felt valued after feeling like nothing more than a patient number for months, and I had faith that I might be able to change my life again for the better. Not that someone was going to do this for me, but that I could be empowered to do this for myself. I was enthusiastic for the first time in over 18 months. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal; but for someone who had been hiding themselves away in their room because they not only didn’t have the physical energy to deal with anything but also felt deeply ashamed of the way they now walked and talked so didn’t want to do anything in public, it was.

I had about 4 one hour-long sessions in total with Becky from December 2010 to May 2011, which doesn’t sound like much to be honest, and nor did they feel particularly intensive at the time; but what it did do was plant seeds of ways to move forward and as I’d ascertained from her initial letter it really was in my hands to make the changes I needed to move on with my life.

At the end of the second session, Becky “invited me” (I loved this phraseology – it felt friendly, undictatorial and encouraging) to look on the do-it.org.uk website for volunteering opportunities relating to my previous work experience, as it would help build my confidence and stamina again whilst demonstrating to a potential employer that I was ready to reintegrate myself in the workplace and wasn’t as risky a prospect as I might have intitially appeared.

As a result, I started working with a charity called SUAG who provide support to the spinally injured throughout the North West as they required a new committee member with experience in marketing. The volunteering benefitted both them and myself, and I’ve been able to continue working with them since starting my new job. Without a doubt, the organisation that employed me wouldn’t have done so had I not undertaken the voluntary work; as they needed reassurance that I could maintain regular hours and focus after such major surgery.

For the past few months now people have mentioned that my stammer is easier for them to understand and that there are fewer repetitions in my speech, from their perspective they believe that this is a sign of my normal speech returning. I’m disappointed for their sake to say that that’s not the case, but rather that I’ve stopped fighting the stammer. By not trying to stop myself from stammering, it’s producing clearer speech and less repeated syllables; that’s fine by me though.

It’s taken me nearly 2 and 1/2 years to get to the point where I have just accepted that I can’t change how I speak so I shouldn’t stress myself out by constantly trying to do so. I know that it doesn’t sound like rocket science; but I just got to the point where it was exhausting trying to control my speech and I realised that it was far more important that what I wanted to say was heard, rather than the way I was saying it.

What truly helped was the informal, chatty and reflective nature of the sessions; little things like the way she introduced herself as “Becky” rather than insisting on formalities (I’d assumed I’d be calling her Dr Simm) which made me feel as though I was an equal in the process, that she and I were working as a team rather than under her direction as a healthcare professional.

I appreciated the fact that both she and my contact at the Job Centre knew of each other professionally, and that she was keeping my speech therapist and GP informed with my progress; it made the process feel much more holistic than I’d imagined it could be.

The letters that she sent after each appointment helped me retain focus for what I’d agreed my next few steps should be, helped me to reassess how far I had come, and meant that when I was feeling low I had something to refer to and remind myself that I had value as a person. A simple thing really, just a letter, but to the recipient it’s so much more.

Also, I’m terrible for pounding on with things and never reflecting on what I’ve done, how it made me feel, what could have been done differently, and how I can apply that experience to other things in my life to make it easier; the sessions gave me the head-space to do this, and although it sounds odd to say it, it actually made me reflect.

As I mentioned earlier, this is something I rarely do willingly as I’d rather spend the time getting other things done and I’d always felt that reflecting was a bit “fluffy” for me. I clearly just hadn’t been doing it in the right way, because what I did learn was that it was incredibly useful as a coping mechanism; instead of floundering at problems or carrying on inspite of them, I started to actively tackle problems that I’d previously felt were outside of my control. It made me think and act differently.

I no longer see Becky or my speech therapist as I’ve come to the “end of the road” with both of them. This time it’s different though; previously I had stopped seeing various therapists because they had run out of ideas how to treat me and I felt abandoned. In both cases this time it’s a mutual and natural conclusion to therapy; both Becky and my speech therapist feel satisfied that they’ve done all they can for me, but I also feel enabled to manage living with my speech as it is now. I am “living well despite…” as she would put it.

And I truly am living well; for all the heartache and difficulty that I’ve faced recently, we’re in a better place now than we were before my accident and I acquired the stammer or the tumour was dicovered. We’re living in a lovely apartment on the sea front, I have a job which I love that challenges me intellectually and working in a team with lovely people, I’m on a better salary pro-rata than I was before my accident (which I honestly thought would never happen as most people with severe stammers do menial jobs that I’ve come into contact through networking with others), we’re living back amongst our friends and family instead of living on the other side of the country and travelling back each weekend, and I’m happy – genuinely happy (even with my silly stammery speech) – which I hadn’t been for a long time.

I’m an incredibly lucky girl. There’s a quote from Winston Churchill that I came across the other day that I thought put my experience very succinctly: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.“

It’s true; it’s taken a long time to get here but I don’t mind the journey that I’ve been on – it’s made me a better person. I’m more tolerant, patient and understanding as a result of all of this. I’m so grateful to the people who’ve supported me and made a big difference to my outlook. Thank you all.

The interview I had on Thursday couldn’t have gone better. Short of having normal speech again, it was pretty much a textbook example of how an interview ought to go. I was engaging and informed, and they were enthusiastic and impressed; but somewhere it all went wrong. I got a phone call later that day to “regrettably inform me that on this occasion I was unsuccessful”. Great.

After going over it all to the nth degree, you just have to believe that there was simply a better candidate; and that – as everyone seems to be telling me – it must be for the reason that something better is around the corner. You would hope.

Sure, I stammered constantly throughout the interview; but for me that’s normal. There was no increase in repetitions as I expected, and I haven’t needed to take any more tranquilisers to retrieve my stowaway speech. The interview panel didn’t struggle to understand my stutter, my presentation went really smoothly, and I had no problems answering their questions.

It was suggested by a family member that perhaps it was a strategic decision by the panel to award the position to another candidate knowing that I would have been taking a substantial cut in salary and therefore more likely to move on to a better job imminently. Well, perhaps. I’d still rather believe that there was simply someone who was better qualified.

What is difficult is knowing whether the stammer was a factor in their decision. Obviously they wouldn’t have been able to openly discuss my speech in a discriminatory fashion, but in relation to making “reasonable adjustments” as per the DDA I do wonder if not being so easily understood might have played against me, as it’s possible to deem that as being an important requirement for the job.

I know that many in the stuttering community will view my disclosure of the stammer as a disability on application forms as weak. After all the threads, forums, websites and literature I’ve read up on as to whether a stammer counts as a disability under the law, there is a resounding answer of  “yes, but it is down to the individual’s willingness to identify as disabled”.

Many stammerers claim that it is defeatist in their attempts to overcome their stutters when self-defining as disabled, and I can see their point. However, these stutterers have developmental stammers which can often be overcome and are often related to levels of self-esteem. Mine is not.

Resulting from brain damage, acquired stammers rarely disappear and are often impenetrable by speech therapy (as I have discovered).

Incidentally, I’ve got another interview on Tuesday morning which I’m hoping will be somewhat more successful than the last. While it’s not the end of the world to be going home to no job, it’d certainly make me feel a great deal more secure than I currently do.

After getting in to work this morning, I noticed that my speech was slowing down and there were considerably more repetitions interjecting themselves in front of words I was trying to say.

The next time I opened my mouth to speak the normal stammer had disappeared to present only grunty sounds again. This is exactly what I’d been terrified of happening in advance of my interview this week.

After, well, quite a long while now since my speech disappeared last, I had hoped that perhaps it was simply a healing phase that I’d finally come out of. Unfortunately, that’s clearly not the case.

I felt so angry with myself; of all the times to go, when I needed to be able to speak most my voice fails me. I have an interview back home in Southport on Thursday morning. It’s a job that I’m more than capable of doing, a job that I’d love to do actually, and a job that I need to get given my imminent return home.

While the quality of other candidates is beyond my control, projecting a good impression of myself is my responsibility. Without speech  I would be unable to answer questions, let alone deliver the presentation I’ve had to put together in advance.

Previously when this has happened, my speech therapist has explained that the issue with the speech loss is significantly different from the stammer.

Where my stutter is a result of brain damage to the language centre and apparently defies medical explanation (fascinating to the neurologists I see, and exhausting to me), the loss of speech is due to my vocal chords constricting. This constriction is unresponsive to  relaxation and breathing techniques, even alcohol – which you can’t blame me for trying. Nothing seemed to work.

So my boss told me to go home to try and relax in the hope that it might coax my voice out of hiding. They’ve been amazingly supportive, I’m so grateful to them for their patience. They also suggested I go to the doctors and ask them to prescibe something that might relax my vocal chords.

After dropping my bike off at home, I wandered round the corner to the surgery (remembering to take a notepad with me) and scribbled furiously at the receptionist to explain what had happened and if I could see a doctor as I hadn’t been able to ring for an appointment.

She told me to go through and wait until I was called, and anticipating more of the same I started to write an explanation for the doctor while I waited to save time once he became available to see me.

When he called me through, he’d clearly been briefed and wasn’t surpised when I thrust my scribblings towards him. He seemed to think that the suggestion for a muscle rexalant was a good one and then weighed up the possibilities with me for prescribing tranquilisers, stating that this was an entirely experimental approach for which he had no evidence would work.

So I picked up a prescription for a truckload of Diazepam from the chemist, popped a pill and piled in to bed hoping to be swept away in drug fuelled relaxation. Well, it didn’t happen.

Lying in bed for several hours in the dark whilst waiting for sleep to kick in, I was becoming increasingly annoyed and thinking that it must just be another prescription that I was impervious to. And then there was a knock at the front door.

Bleary eyed and grumpy, I stumbled downstairs to find my boss standing there in the rain with a box of flowers that had been delivered to work for me.

I started babbling away at him excitedly, and then it dawned on me – my voice had returned and the experiment had been successful.

Awestruck, I took the box from him and was told to spend the rest of the day continuing to relax. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just sat crying with relief.

It seems that in the hours I’d been waiting, expecting an overtly physical effect to the tranquilisers, that my voice had returned and I’d had been unaware as there had been no-one to speak to.

It almost doesn’t matter that the stammer is there after the shock of my voice entirely disappearing. It’s just amazing to be able to speak again.

When I finally moved from the sofa I discovered that the flowers were from one of my clients thanking me for the work I’ve done for them, after they learnt that I am to leave the company shortly.

It’s easy to underestimate people; but on days like this when you discover how uplifting and surprising their actions can be when you need help most, it can leave you completely bowled over.

I’m so grateful.

An odd thing happened this weekend, and upon reflection it’s something I’ve begun to notice others doing also. It appears, and I could be completely wrong about this, that people find it far easier to understand my stutter when they can see my facial expressions also.

I’d honestly assumed that physical vis-a-vis interaction might make it more difficult to be understood with a stammer, but it seems that particular reality is adverse to my initial expectations.

You would think that the overwhelming combination of the stammer’s aural repetitions juxtaposed against the visual spectacle of my mouth going ninety-to-the-dozen would be the cause of miscomprehension, but after noticing people distinctly struggling to make sense of my words when either confusion inducing component is lacking, it oddly seems to be the case that both are required.

We went to visit my extended family this weekend; who, although have had a fair amount of exposure to this oral amendment, still don’t see enough of me to have become fully accustomed to the change in my speech.

It struck me as the day wore on that the only occasions they strained in conversation with me would be when I wasn’t looking in their direction; that they needed to be able to marry the verbal repetitions with the visual clues from my lips in order to cancel out the superfluous sounds they were hearing.

I found it so odd that this might be the case, thinking that the speech alone would be far easier to make sense from, until it dawned on me that this is precisely the reaction my interactions at work provoke, despite my thinking that others wanting to face me when speaking was out of sheer social etiquette.

While I am sure that manners play a part in people wanting to face each other during conversation, it is encouraging to know that we are all a little disabled from full comprehension when the cards are not in our favour.

My hearing has become excessively sensitive since the accident that caused this stammer and infuriatingly if the radio is on, car window is open, or other people are talking in the vicinity, I become unable to string a sentence together let alone my thoughts.

This has led to an unfortunate situation whereby I am the “music Nazi” at work – although I am sure they would prefer that their colleague was able to contribute toward shifting the workload, rather than being exposed to the dulcet tones of Chris Moyles on the radio and then working late into the evening every night.

My point being that with the most inconsequential of actions it can become difficult to maintain concecentration, conversation or simply a stream of thought. In that sense, despite the unusual cicumstances of my own predicament, I am not alone.

People need their own comfort zone in order to be able to operate effectively in, and with this in mind I shouldn’t feel guilty in asking people to be accommodating at times.

It is difficult though. It is a particularly British trait to not want to make others go out of their way for you. It feels rude, and almost as though you’re unneccesarily taking advantage of other people’s kindness.

Although really it’s just a matter of levelling the playing field, and that’s really no bad thing at all.

The issue being a leech; a succinct definition ascribed by a friend when I rather inadequately tried to explain how I’ve been feeling about my stammer becoming part of my identity without my consent. It’s pretty accurate actually.

On Sunday I went to meet a friend in town, ringing them on the way to arrange a meeting place. Nothing unusual in that, although what was particularly disturbing was that after ending the call I realised that I hadn’t noticed I had stuttered during the course of the conversation.

In a sense I was appalled at the idea that I was no longer noticing how wrong my speech sounds, and disappointed that (internally, at least) I’m losing the self-recognition that my speech isn’t normal. Although that perhaps sounds like the same response, it isn’t I assure you. One is a wholly physical reaction, and the other purely emotional.

By this I mean that I feel like I’m abandoning my true self. My self that doesn’t stammer, my self who doesn’t sound like this and hopes to have normal speech again.

It almost feels as though if I give in and accept it as part of who I am then I’ve lost the battle. It feels like I’m still fighting, but my brain’s waving a white flag in cowardice quite simply because it’s easier to give up than be hopeful my normal speech might return. I’m not ready to give in to that though. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be.

The second incident that left me low was a conversation where the other person (after spending the day with me) said they were surprised that this stutter was a recent development, that they had just assumed I had always stammered from childhood like so many others.

I was crushed by the idea that someone would assume that the stutter had always been there. It sounds ridiculous, but I needed them to know that wasn’t the case.

It’s truly not comparable by scale, but to try and convey emotionally how I felt about it all, here goes; it was almost like how a bereaved parent of a lost child needs strangers to know that the child used to exist because being without such a big part of themselves is too much to adjust to. Acknowledging the loss feels like a betrayal of the truth they need to cling on to.

As I ineloquently struggled to explain to my friend how desperate I was for people to know that I wasn’t always like this, that had they met me a year ago I would have been perceived differently, she summed it up perfectly.

This stammer is a leech. It clings on and refuses to let go. It is a social burden I have no choice but to tolerate. It imposes itself without invitation, and I will be relieved if, and when, it finally releases me from its grasp.

Hopefully the neurologists and speech therapists back home may have more success in prising this leech away from me. Or at least they might in time, but it’s worth waiting for.

Moreover, I’ve been lacking; in motivation primarily, although in unity with a lack of connection to the internet (thanks must go BT broadband for continually disappointing me), without which I would have had to take full responsibility for have not written sooner.

And I feel bad about it. Writing has taken on almost a form of therapy (cue the violins…) in the absence of obtaining physical support from the medical profession.

There’s only so many times you can get discharged from clinics without starting to think that perhaps you might smell a bit. Well, if only that was the reason.

Inadequacy seems too strong a word for the quacks who’ve attempted to help thus far, but uninformed might be slightly more accurate.  Although, that’s not their fault, apparently this kind of brain damage is quite rare to encounter.

In spite of the BT homehub fighting my battles of conscience for not writing over the past fortnight, I must confess that I’d become weary of it all. There’s only so much of a good thing you can absorb whilst retaining enough of a hunger for it.

I’d filled up on balancing my thoughts, satisfied a thirst for getting the torrid of anger out onto the screen, and was quite frankly fed up of hanging in the midst of almost delirious optimism while facing the imminent return of the inevitable utter despair that I’ve unfortunately come to know so well.

Well, a good thing can only last so long and I’ve felt a distinct rumble over the past few days; my internet connection has, however, had other ideas about the matter and prevented a raid.

My poor speech therapist, for who I genuinely feel, arranged for me to meet two other  ladies in Leicester who stammer last week. She did this,  I think, to almost appease her own feeling of inadequacy in being unable to impact my stutter; a sentiment that has been vivid in the disappointment on her face when I returned week-after-week unaffected by the carefully researched and well practiced tasks that she had hoped would do something, anything to change the nature of my repetitious speech.

For once, her actions made a difference. And I’m relieved for both her sake and my own. The distinct lack of hope I had that I would be employable upon returning home to Southport gently thawed throughout the hour or so I spent with these two ladies.

They assured me that, in their exprience at least, neither had ever felt that refusal for a job was due to their stammering. They honestly admitted that any occasion for which they had been turned down for a vacancy or promotion was due to their own incomplete skillset or that there were simply better candidates at that time.

The relief was palpable. What I had hoped for, that I might be recognised for my merits in the face of the speech limitations imposed upon me, they believed was possible.

Through their faith that human resource personnel would see beyond the immediate presentation of a person, accepting human fault in the face of fact, it was easier to believe this might become my experience too – and not the horror I’d imagined job hunting would be.

Since then I’ve received notification of an interview, for a role that I would actually like to be appointed in – instead of a job that would simply pay the bills.  I tick all the boxes on paper, and on the face of it I’m a good candidate.

Hopefully, provided there aren’t more experienced opponents and that my speech doesn’t decide to mysteriously disappear for a week, I might just get it. And if not, well then that’s just life and there’ll be other opportunities.

Either way, their stories of careers unimpinged by their own stammers have bolstered my own confidence. I’m so glad I met them and am grateful for the effort they made to come and meet a complete stranger without reward.

They did, by their own admission, take something away from the encounter though. Appearing simultaneously horrified and amazed at my self-induced situation, they were shocked with the ease by which my normal speech had disappeared to be replaced by what they regarded quite a perculiar stammer.

It was disheartening that I sounded nothing like them; their speech blocked occasionally by difficult sounds, my own voice babbling through repetitions that struggle to keep up with my thoughts and are prohibited by breath that still seems surprised by the additional work it is forced to do.

What meeting them did make obvious to all involved, was that our own experiences are unique and alien to those of others. We are incomparable, although fortunately share the common ground of how others perceive us. In that respect, stammer or not, we are all alike and equally alone.

I still hope to one day find someone who has  acquired a stammer by way of brain injury (and who has hopefully regained their speech), but for the time being it’s enough that people are listening. That I can be heard through the stutter is proof enough that it shouldn’t limit me in the future.

I hope.

Often it feels as though life carries you along like a tide, while you drift further away from your destination without the control to bring yourself back on course.

After a fabulous family wedding back home and a zippy catchup with my sister and her children this weekend, we were back on the road winging our way back to ordinary life to churn out job applications and amended CVs for imposed deadlines.

It’s so odd that visiting home in Southport feels such worlds apart from our life in Leicester, but a relief in some respects that it’s a world we’re to return to imminently.

While we were home it was overwhelming to find so many friends and relatives so hopeful and trusting that good things will come, that life can be turned around, and that I might recover my ordinary speech again and that the stammer and speechloss would be gone.

It’d be easy to suggest that it was merely naivety on their part, an ignorance of the medical opinion imparted already; but honestly, I believe it was neither. People are so ready to have faith without rationalised thought, partly – I feel – out of both want and need. And there really isn’t any shame in that, it’s just something I struggle to resign myself to.

It becomes terrifying to constantly hope for a change that you are repeatedly informed is near impossible. Although, perhaps that continuity of hope in the face of scepticism demonstrates an alternative strength, and not – as I’d previously believed it to be – a weakness.

I’m not speaking of religious faith (of which I have none), but of optimism – a concept I’d thought might have been an attribute others recognised in me, but now can see just how much of a pessimist I’d become. I’ve needed to believe that the neurologists and speech therapists are right in their diagnoses that this is a permanent state in order to be able to carry on as normal.

These friends and family members who sought to buoy my confidence that the stammer may just magically disappear in the future may be wrong, they may be delusional, but above all they care.

And honestly that’s what resounds from this entire experience, that the people who matter have reached out and reassured that life will be alright in the end.

No doubt the next few months will be difficult financially after moving home in November, but I will find work and there will be somewhere to live – because there has to be.

And if I can have faith that these things will happen, then perhaps it’s not such a betrayal of my resignation to this acquired stammer to dare to hope it might just go away.

Here’s hoping…

It did make me think though; what if we all have a different idea of what a stammer should sound like, and what the behaviours and triggers are for a “nomal stutter”?

What’s become an everyday norm for me seems somewhat severe and extreme in some people’s eyes, and for others due to its nature doesn’t qualify as a stammer.

I’ll elucidate this further. Take a friend I hadn’t seen for, well, ages – over a year. For her, having known me in a social and working capacity prior to having the accident that caused this brain injury for her, the change in me outwardly was difficult to manage. She said after some time had gone by, “I expected the stammer because you’d let me know about it, but until I saw you I had no idea how bad it was”.

Juxtapose that against this stranger from an estate agents who couldn’t marry together the preconceptions she had of how a stammerer sounds with the voice she was hearing. For her because there was no nervousness, no anxiety, no stumbling over particular words -  just constant repetitions on every syllable, she just couldn’t get her head around it. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t a stutter. It was something different.

I must admit, I fall foul of this myself. It’s hard not to judge yourself against others.

The other stammering blogs I read speak of  “coverts” – people who can control their stammers by learning to speak differently, people who learn an entire repertoire of words that they can substitute in an instant in order to prevent stumbling over a particular letter, people who avoid speaking to others and social situations to prevent their cyclical anxiety of stammering publicly.

I have none of these things. I’m not embarrassed by my stutter, I’m only embarrassed by how other respond to it. I cannot cover the stammer, and I envy the control that coverts have in pretending outwarding that they don’t stutter. I can’t substitute or avoid certain letters, or else I would never speak as my speech is affected in every syllable that comes out regardless. And it certainly doesn’t make me avoid speaking or social situations, they do not make me nervous and I have nothing to hide.

It is because of all these things; because my stammer behaves so completely different to the experiences reported by developmental stammerers (those that form in childhood) that it’s so difficult not to judge, to not negatively compare my experience against theirs. And I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

I received an email the other day about  a stammering group I’m to attend next week in Leicester. One woman had missed the previous thread of messages and said she’d like to attend as she was, and I quote,  “a recovering stammerer”.  I felt so angry.

As though it was an illness she could get over.  As though she had some magic cure, for which there is none unfortunately – believe me, I’ve lost count of hours spent searching the web through the mire of con-artists who promise just that.

Part of me just thought, was she being spiteful to rub it in our faces (probably just proud in her own eyes to have overcome adversity), or just delusional that she was recovering when all it was was that she’d learnt to hide the stammer. For her sake, I honestly hope she is recovering – but until I see it for myself, I struggle to accept that that’s the truth.

So really, the stranger trying to sell me a home was right. Mine’s not normal when judged against traditional standards. It is different to other stutters sadly, which makes it an altogether more isolating experience. But it’s normal to me. And honestly, everyone else is just going to have to get used to that because I (unlike others) can’t change its nature.

Bearing in mind that a finite timescale is involved before I leave my current job to go home, and that jobhunting isn’t a particularly fruitful activity at the best of times especially in the current climate, it seemed prudent to start working to resolve both challenges.

It’s always a bit of a dilemma, and one that I’ve found myself in before; not an enjoyable experience by any means – I was a teary stressed-out mess for a couple of months. But the fact is you come through these things, you find a way to achieve both. Even if it’s not exactly what you were looking for.

So in the midst of trying to locate jobs that won’t care about my stammer or frequent speech loss (not an easy task, I assure you), I’ve been trying to find a place for us to live too.

Pickings are slim, and knowing from the exhausing trawl from home to home that depicts itself as heaven in an advert but presents itself as nothing more than an absolute hellhole, I cannot wait to see the surprises we’ve got in store this time around.

Seriously, I wouldn’t make my worst enemy live in half of those places; I can’t imagine what on earth makes letting agents believe that anyone would willing part with hard-earned money to stagnate between four thickly laquered walls and a heavily soiled carpet. Not nice.

So anyway, without any idea how much we can afford for rent, I’ve just had to pluck a reasonable figure out of thin air and hope for the best. Spending yesterday lunchtime ringing around estate agents to book appointments for the coming weekend was a frenzied affair, slowed only by extremely apologetic receptionists asking me to repeat the telephone number and becoming bemused when I suggested that perhaps it would be more fruitful for them to read back what they had already written down so we might fill in the gaps rather than create further confusion.

Dictating with a stammer over the phone isn’t the best method of communication, so thoughtfully one of them suggested I just sent her an email to verify the number she’d thought I had given her (but couldn’t be sure). It was refreshing to find how accommodating people could be. Although, understandably they had a lot to gain financially from being nice – the next challenge is in determining where that finance will be coming from.

In spite of the jobs I have had, the skills I’ve acquired over the years, I think (at least in the short term) that just swallowing any remaining pride and taking a job in a kitchen or something would do. Money is money at the end of the day; if it pays the bills it really doesn’t matter how you’ve earnt it.

I’ve talked through the possibility of trying to get my old college job back at Pizza Hut, to which there’s been fervent cries of  “Oh, don’t do that! You can do so much better“. Well, maybe – but I’m getting to the point where I don’t really care as long as I know that I’ll be able to afford to pay rent on a place.

I figure that that’s the most important thing. And fingers crossed, it’ll only be a short-term situation until something (hopefully) better comes along. At least we’d be able to make it through Christmas. That’s my biggest priority right now, to not let anybody down.

Brings a whole new meaning to the words “living for the moment“, although probably more accurately it’s a case of  “accepting that you’re living in the moment” because there’s no other choice.

I never thought that job hunting back home was ever going to be easy, especially in the midst of a recession; but I also hadn’t anticipated having my normal speech taken away from me so swiftly either.

Seriously, if I have to see those words again, I’m liable to scream. Well, at least I could again if I wanted to now that my stuttery speech has come back again. I haven’t had to scribble of pieces of paper to communicate for several days now – thank goodness, because it’s really not fun.

So, anyway – jobs. It really is a rubbish situation to be in.

Every application I look at seems to preclude that I’m not an acceptable candidate based on my stammer. And I know that employers can’t discriminate, but there’s outward discrimination, and then there’s knowing that you’re looking at employing someone who can’t speak at all every few weeks and takes a week  to be regain the speech again. Truth be told, I’d be reluctant to hire them too.

And to not disclose this at interview, assuming I got that far in to the interview process – well, I’d just feel utterly dishonest. Because of course it has an impact on work capacity – almost everything you can think of job-wise requires you to be able to communicate with others. I know, I’ve thought about it a lot.

The most frustrating thing about it all is that I am capable, I’d willingly throw myself into the most challenging of roles. Unfortunately, looking at the options available to someone with my problems with speech the jobs that are suitable on the whole are low skilled and lowly paid minimum wage jobs – if you can get them. Which to be quite honest is soul destroying.

I didn’t go to university, do all the extra curricular stuff, and spend years working crap jobs to fill out a CV with the necessary background to end up back where I started. It was poorly paid work then, and things really haven’t changed much.

I spoke to a friend about all this last week (albeit on paper, scribbling as fast as my hand would let me) and he said that if an employer can’t see past the stammer and speechloss to recognise my skills, then would I really want to be working for them. And the truth of the matter is he’s completely right; however, as I pointed out to him – being right doesn’t pay the rent.

So, it’s back to filling out applications, keeping my fingers crossed, and carrying on with holding down the job I have in Leicester until the end of October when we’re able to move back home to Southport.

Hopefully by then we’ll have managed to find the time to find suitable (or most likely any old) jobs for both of us and a flat to rent. It’s a tall order, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

So I had my neurology appointment to get to, which was a mission in itself. I cowardly wimped out of tackling that bloomin’ big hill on my bike up to the hospital again and decided to get the bus instead.

Well, I didn’t realise until I was halfway there to the bus stop that I was going to have to tell the driver where I was going.  You just don’t think about these things, do you? I’m just so used to being able to do it without a second thought.

I thought that for both the driver’s sake and my own it’d be best to not make vague grunty sounds at him in the vague hope he’d be able to make something intelligible out of it, and just opted for typing it out on my phone and sticking the screen in front of him instead.

Bemused, he finally got the message and the deal was done. It was very odd, but I just felt so proud that I’d even been able to just get away with doing that; that he hadn’t just thought I was being impolite.

I got to the hospital, went to the right department and waited for the neurologist to expand upon whatever pearl of wisdom he’d had the day before  but had failed to explain.

He’d promised that I’d get my speech back to normal, no more muteness, no more stammer; you can understand just how eager I was to hear whatever it was he had to say.

After building up to all that hope (again), it all came crashing down around me once more as he explained that he didn’t know what was wrong with my speech, that no one would be able to tell me, that it was just a functional disorder we had to hope would one day rectify itself.

Just.  Completely blasé, without any responsibility for the promises he’d made. The promises I’d naively hoped to believe unravelled right there in that office with silent tears running down my cheeks.

How dare he. How dare he do that to me, I thought. And he probably had no idea of the impact his words had had.

I couldn’t even convey it, not really. When you can’t speak, all the frustration that you need to ooze from every pore, to say out loud can’t come out. Instead I just sat there pathetically, the anger bubbling away under the surface to the point of combustion.

To have to hope that it would all just go away, as though it was a new idea he’d conjured up. As though I hadn’t already spent the last eight months just hoping it would all go back to normal.

I tried to be pragmatic and make the best use of the time I had left with him, scribbling rapidly on my notepad to ask advice.

What would happen if no one would employ me back home in Southport? Was I regarded as disabled (I wasn’t sure, no one had been able to tell me)? Was there any help I’d be able to access so that I’d not be destitute and living in a cardboard box somewhere?

His retort came back as a slap in the face. “Those [he paused]… are not medical questions.”

The sheer look of relief when I informed him I’d not be in Leicester for the next appointment in six months time, I was somone else’s problem to try and fix.

I got back on the bus, going through the same charade of texting the bus driver my intended destination. He obliged me with a ticket and I just sat there; carried back to work with tears trickling behind the sunglasses I had hoped would mask all the hurt away from prying eyes, but were miserably failing in their task instead.

I got through the door, wrote out a note explaining my distress and was promptly sent home for the day. Work has been so incredibly supportive, I can’t imagine how much harder this would have been without their acceptance.

With my boyfriend at work and the house empty except for a couple of fish (who are lovely, but can’t read or give me a hug), I thought it best to see if someone was available to just be there. To help me rationalise it all.

And they were. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so grateful for people being my friends. I went to my old workplace where  some utterly amazing former colleagues calmed me down and cheered me up.

Inevitably being a disturbance to their work, I left and went to find my “rugby daughter” – Quick explanation: my rugby team’s old girls acquire freshers as daughters to help them settle at uni, and I had maintained a close relationship with mine.

She was fantastic. Patiently waiting for me to pour my heart out on paper and supplying me with tea and chocolate in the meantime, we then decided that there was nothing for it but to get steamingly drunk.

We made a good effort if I’m honest. A couple of bottles of Malibu and Sailor Jerry’s rum later with a sunny afternoon, a barbeque and games of Yahtzee and Top Trumps thrown in and I was a mess. But the good sort of mess you find yourself in when you can laugh at all the heartache and misery.

I must have written nigh on an entire dissertation yesterday in that scrawly notepad and one thing came out of it. That now’s the time to make plans.

The plans I’d had for life might have been scuppered by this experience, but it does leave me with a fresh page. A new chapter.

And in spite of all the crap, that’s a truly exciting proposition. I can still achieve anything if I want to, it’s just going to be a bit harder than it was previously.

But that’s okay, because the things we truly value in life never come to us easily. I just need to learn to remember that on bleaker days.

The robot voice deteriorated into speechlessness again, and I’ve spent the last three days having to write on scraps of paper to be able to communicate.

Which, you know, on the face of it doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s that kind of isolation like being lost at sea with no one there, so you write letters – except everyone still is there, it’s just they can’t take on board what you’re trying to say.

Events always seem to magnify the patheticness of having to resort to write when you can’t speak. Take, for example, the fact that my bike tyre got punctured.

I needed to have it fixed so I could attend my neurology appointment today – without it, I would have had to try to speak to a taxi or bus driver. Neither, I imagine, would have been particularly successful attempts.

So anyway, I managed to fix it (in spite of the wheel nuts having been last tightened by a ham-fisted gorilla who must have been determined to never have them unscrewed again) and got to the neuro appointment that I’d waited months for (albeit arriving utterly knackered after taking on an almighty hill that leads to the hospital on my bike – some mean town planner probably thought that one up, presumably to keep the NHS in enough cardio cases…).

Sitting and waiting for what felt like forever (it was only actually an hour and a half, but still a good reflection of the p*** poor timekeeping skills in the NHS), I was eventually seen by the neurologist; only to be told that there had been an “administrative error” and I didn’t actually have an appointment.

Excellent. So the three reminder letters for the appointment that I’d received in advance were in relation to what exactly?

He quizzed me quickly and told me to “speak” to the clinic administrator about having an appointment first thing tomorrow instead. Choice words.

Easier said than done when all that comes out of your mouth are vague grunts you desperately hope sound enough like the start of a word someone might recognise and guess what you’re trying to say.

He then flippantly informed me that he was “certain” I’d make a full recovery.

You know what, I would LOVE to believe him. It would be incredible. But I’ve just had my hopes raised and dashed repeatedly over the past 8 months, with various professionals promising miracles they couldn’t deliver, that I’m loathe to believe him. I honestly don’t think I can cope with being disappointed so much again.

Now if he’d said “we might be able to impact the brain damage”, “we might have some success”, or even just spent more than 60 seconds asking me something more probing than if I could follow his finger with my eyes or waggle my tongue from side to side, then I might be more inclined to have more faith.

I’m sorry, I must seem completely ungrateful. He must know something about it all given his job, but it all seems a bit “finger in the air”. He does deserve a go, and I’m glad he’s trying to make a difference.

I just really don’t want him to be promising the earth without just cause, and then fall short on delivering it.  Until tomorrow I guess (which feels like an eternity away – like Christmas does for a child on Christmas Eve) and we’ll have a stab at actually getting a neuro appointment this time.

So here goes, neurology appointment – take 2.

My speech hasn’t been great today. Much harder to get words out than usual, but really oddly since leaving work to come home it’s slowed right down.

My normally quite speedy stammer (I tend to try to push through all the repetitions quite quickly to get my words out before I forget what I’m trying to say)  has become almost robot sounding over the past couple of hours.

What’s really flummoxed me is that nothing untoward has happened to trigger this further dyfluency off.

Take for example if I was to say “What are we having for tea?” with my stutter as it usually is, it would come out something like “W-wwwhat aaaare wwwwe hhhavvving fffor tttea?” but it’s slowed right down to stammer on not just every syllable, but every sound. I’m literally stammering out every single letter, and no clue why.

I hate it when I sound like this. I feel like it makes me sound like I’m retarded or something. Because in all honesty, that’s exactly what it sounds like.

My boyfriend’s always been really patient with me, but I just hope for both his and my sake that the speech gets back to its normal stuttery self pretty soon because it’s even harder to understand me than usual.

Similarly to when it disappears altogther, I become a bit of a liability when I can’t really communicate and it puts pressure on him to have to do things for both of us. Not that he ever minds, but it’s just hassle I know we could both do without.

Like the speechlessness I never know how long it will last, how long it’ll take before it returns back to normal. Although “normal” now is with a severe stutter.

I hope it’s gone by the morning because it just makes being at work so much harder. They’ve been so accommodating already since the accident happened, but inevitably whenever my speech gets worse than it already is it means that other people have to pick up the slack on the bits of work I can’t then continue to do. A real pain when your job specifically revolves around communicating.

At least this isn’t a problem they’ll have to circumvent for much longer. I handed in my notice yesterday so that we can go home to Southport when the lease on our house comes up for renewal this November.

I know it’s a positive thing that we’re going home, but it feels scary as hell. Basically as I’ve been discharged from speech therapy in Leicester, there’s very little more help I can access here.

All our really good friends and family, you know “the support networks” that my speech therapist kept referring to, they’re all back in the North West. And along with all of them are other speech therapists who hopefully will have had more experience/success in treating acquired neurogenic type stammers.

To receive their help I need to be living there. So it’s back off home we go.

I’ve been living in Leicester since September 2003 now, it’s been long enough. Although I love my job, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all anymore. I still need help, and there’s not anyone left in this city who’s able to give it through the NHS.

What’s really worrying me though is that in spite of the country being in the midst of a recession, it’s not like masses of jobs are flying around. And any that are available that would pay the rent are unlikely to go to someone who can’t communicate well at the best of times, and frequently can’t communicate verbally at all.

I know it’s really negative, but I just think that on face value it’s unlikely that someone’s going to want to employ me. They’ll see the stammer and nothing more. That’s what really infuriates me. Because I am something more. A lot more.

I’m capable and I work hard, but that identity is vastly overshadowed by this wholly inadequate speech now. Hopefully someone, somewhere, will be able to look beyond that though, recognise my skills, and take the chance to give me a job.

Fingers crossed.

Fortunately one of the perks of being a “hanger-on” at a wedding means that no-one’s massively looking to engage you in conversation; you’re just obliged to make an effort to look nice, smile for the photos and make small talk – all of which is fine, and it’s not like this girl doesn’t like to take advantage of an occasion to wear a nice dress!

It’s the small talk bit that’s a problem these days. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind talking to strangers, I’ll happily babble away all day. The problem comes when they can’t understand me through the stammer.

For some people it’s fine, they just seem to adjust after the initial shock. As my speech therapist told me the first few times she met me, understanding what I’m trying to get out is alright once the listener realises that they’re going to hear the each syllable a few times and after a while they stop hearing it.

I guess it’s a bit like white noise over conversations, once you’re aware it’s there and tune into the speech behind it your brain just shuts out the bits you don’t need to listen to. (Only my brain doesn’t do that anymore, hence my inability to work if the radio’s on, to drive well if the window’s open or there’s music etc.)

Anyway, I digress. They were all such lovely people, eager to mingle and make light conversation, but throughout the day (and consequently more so in the evening as they all got that little/lot bit more drunk!) I found myself being given the wrong answers to enquiries I made.

Take the stammered question “Are you having a good day?”, to which the response was often a confused face and then a delayed, “No, we arrived last night…”.

Now, I’m pretty certain I wasn’t speaking another language but I think if people haven’t got the ear for understanding my stuttery speech they just try to pick up on any word they might recognise and take a wild stab in the dark. I suppose just as we do when conversing with foreigners whose language formation patterns we aren’t familiar with.

I should be grateful for how lovely and well-mannered they all were, and I don’t mind not being able to be understood occasionally – it’s not people’s fault, they’re just not used to being forced to listen differently and it takes time for their ear to adjust, I guess.

I think it just got a bit weary. If you spend all day trying to communicate and no-one’s really able to take in what you’re saying despite trying to, you just kind of feel like not bothering anymore. The words are lost on them anyway, and it’s that point in a not so sober evening to just jack in the effort and nod and smile politely without having to speak.

If only my stammer was like others who regain a degree of fluency when drinking alcohol, but it doesn’t. It’s always the same, drunk or otherwise. Which is probably fortunate, or I may have become a raging alcoholic by this point!

So, I guess it’s fine – I’ll just carry on sitting at the sidelines nodding and smiling. At least they tried to make the effort.

I adore music and find myself compulsively trying to join in with songs, but I just can’t do it anymore.

I’ve almost stopped trying to open my mouth to sing now when I hear a catchy tune, as subconsciously it’s finally starting to sink in – but to be honest, the alternative just seems a bit lame.

As the words just can’t get out quick enough, I’ve taken to humming along to things (or whistling, but I’m not great at that!). It’s alright, it’s just often indecipherable as to what tune it is if anyone is listening and just seems like an additional layer of noise. Hardly tuneful!

Ridiculously, the most annoying thing about humming is that after a while it really tickles your lips! No joke.

Stood doing the washing up and humming away to a bit of  Florence and the Machine (not easy I assure you – I should really pick some tunes that are easier to hum!) and I end up with goosebumps allover from accidentally tickling my lips with all the reverberations from my mouth! Rubbish.

Can’t sing, can’t hum – I’m never going to be destined to win X Factor, am I?!

I shouldn’t whinge, but it really is very annoying. I’m pretty much past being upset about it now, just sadly resigned to my stammer preventing me from singing anymore.

If I try, it’s just unintelligible as I can’t stretch the rhythm to fit in all the stuttering repetitions. I try to slow it right down, but that doesn’t work either. To be honest I’m not really sure what else I can do to be able to warble along to the radio.

On the plus side, at least I won’t be so readily convinced to do karaoke when blind drunk anymore, or embarass myself singing along to Guitar Hero with a stutter – well, unless by some feat they release a version for stutterers! Highly unlikely.

Until then Simon Cowell’s just going to have to wait. I’m not holding my breath!

The point I’m trying to make is that children are more perceptive of what’s going on around them than the realities adults choose to face up to.

The reality in this case is that kids will make it pretty apparent that they’re aware of my stutter, ask forthright questions about stamering that adults would never dream of doing.

They’d rather just pretend it wasn’t there. And keep telling me that it’s all going to go away. That I’ll have normal speech again. Whether they’re just hopeful or delusional, I think they seriously need a chat with my speech therapists to bring them back down to earth and realise that injuries aren’t always so easy to fix. Brain injuries are even harder.

This rambling post mostly stems out of my appreciation that my niece and nephew take me and my stutter at face value with no pretences, and the sad realisation yesterday that given their ages (just 5 and 2 years old) although they currently remember when “Auntie Jo could talk properly”, that when they’re  older they won’t have any memory of it at all.

I find that really upsetting. For them I’m never going to be anything other than someone with a severe stutter that they need to explain away to their friends (as my niece currently does). They won’t recall the fact that I used to be able to sing silly songs with them.

And they won’t remember that I used to be able to tell them off when they were naughty, as now the message kind of gets lost in my trying to relay it. It’s hard for someone to take you seriously when it takes five minutes to get the words out – I don’t blame them – I’d get lost too!

I know it sounds strange, but for the people who matter, I need them to be able to remember that I wasn’t always like this. I need them to remember so I can hold on to (however loosely) the notion that once my speech was normal, that the stammer didn’t always identify me. That I was something more.

That I was someone that kids didn’t laugh at, who adults didn’t hang up on, who people didn’t screw their faces up at when I try to talk to them, and who was recognised by their friends and colleagues as being intelligent and eloquent rather than a social burden.

That might sound a little extreme but until you see or hear it in people’s faces and voices daily, the obvious irritation that they’re having to deal with you, why they’re not able to communicate with someone else who can speak properly, then you might have an indication of what it’s like to live with this stammer and not be perceived as being normal anymore.

It’s just sad that people aren’t more tolerant. I don’t see myself as disabled, why should they?

That’s what I’ve been wondering today…if the very people who are professionally most capable of helping to regain my speech and reduce the stammer are ready to pass the buck, then is it likely that anyone will manage it?

I had speech therapy today after about a month of no sessions (she was on holiday etc) and after having been given an assessment in the neurology department at the hospital to determine if there was anything identifiable in the way my brain is now processing information, I’d been quite hopeful that speech therapy might have started to move finally somewhere.

That’s the problem though; I keep getting my hopes up and find them being dashed time and again. This time, by the sad realisation that they’ve simply run out of ideas how to help me.

The upshot of this is that they’re going to discharge me from speech therapy despite the fact that my stammer hasn’t altered, the stutter is identical as it was when I began going to speech therapy however many months ago.

And this is inspite of weekly attempts to find new routes into the brain, altering my speech in various ways to see if any of it has an effect on the stammer.

They’ve consulted speech therapists across Leicester, Nottingham and Birmingham and nothing. No new answers or suggestions.

She simply ended yet another unproductive session by asking where do I want to go from here, almost as if she’d resigned herself to having run out of ideas but not wanting to tell me I was being abandoned.

I’ve been told that they’ll be in touch if they get any brainwaves (no pun intended) about how they could treat the stutter, but essentially – ot to hold my breath.

Rationally, I know it makes complete sense. Why would you keep going to something if people aren’t sure how to treat you? If you had your hopes raised week after week that the stammer might just go away? There’s no point going if there’s not anything they feel they can do.

But emotionally, the sense just disappears and I feel abandoned. I feel sad that it’s come to this. At least while I was going to speech therapy I felt like people were actively trying to help make the stutter go away.

If I’m not being treated anymore, it’s like “that’s it” and that anybody who might have helped won’t be aware of my case.

I’m not angry, as I know that the people who’ve tried to treat my stammer have done everything they can possibly think of; they’ve gone beyond the call of duty, but in this case it’s just not been enough to make any impact.

And the thing is, it doesn’t seem likely that anything will ever have an impact on the stutter. While I try to resolve myself to that, it’s just sad to think of all the hopeful promises made by speech professionals that they’d change the nature of my stammer at the very least, if not eradicate it.

Well, for the time being at least it seems like neither will be likely. I’m stuck being stammerheadshark.

Whilst cycling home from work, a couple of boys threw a rock at me and hit me in the neck. I yelped, but not much more sound came out than that.

It really hurt, and wasn’t a particularly small rock either. What I’m most upset about is I don’t know who I’m more angry with; these prats for hurting me without cause, or my inability to be able to defend myself verbally.

I didn’t know what to do for the best. Stunned and angry, I was torn between getting off my bike and going after them in between the houses; in which case they’d have either run off (which they did after hearing me yelp) and I’d have been unable to catch them, or my bike or bag could have got stolen in the meantime.

And anyway, even if I had caught them, as tempted as I was to whallop them in return to the rock I’d received in the gullet, they’d probably have done me more damage or I would have been held liable for attacking a couple of boys younger than myself.

That aside, what could I have said? They would have just laughed in my face as soon as I started to stammer at them, that is if I could have got any words out in the first place.

I just tried to stay calm and get home without having an accident, and hoping desperately that I wouldn’t lose my speech again. Well, fortunately I didn’t.

But the fact remains, today I was attacked without provocation. Two spineless youths with nothing better to do thought it’d be funny. And as they ran off laughing, I was cursing myself and this damn stutter of mine for not being able to stand up for myself.

Not even being able to shout after them. And not wanting to feel more humiliated by drawing attention to myself on the street with a stuttery shout. Not that shouting even works particularly well with a stammer.

Moreover, frustrated that as hard as I try to avoid getting myself in dangerous situations where I might incur another head injury, it’s all out of my control anyway.

Thank goodness I wear a dippy cycle helmet, and even luckier, that they didn’t land the rock a few inches higher. Who knows what an impact like that could do to me these days?

I don’t want to have to constantly worry for my safety, but incidents like this just make me all the more cautious. And those little pricks probably have no idea, to them it’s a one big joke.

I’m beyond cross. Guess whose speech has gone into hiding again? Bingo!  I think someone up there is playing one cruel joke. I really do.

I’ve had a really rough day; the worst night’s sleep on record last night, first day back at work after having swine flu (major shock to the system – I ache all over), rude people ringing up and informing me that “something’s wrong with the telephone connection” when I pick up, and then British Gas…

British Gas and their sodding voice recognition telephone services. Annoying at the best of times, but throw in a severe stammer and that computer’s got no clue what you’re trying to tell it.

I never know whether to even bother trying them anymore; they just ask you to repeat, repeatedly. Unfortunately, whichever wise ass decided they’d be a great resource failed to acknowledge just how completely inaccessible they are. All a fantastic help when you just want to pay your gas bill on time. Idiots.

Anyway, I then spent a good half hour trying to read out my card number to a random guy in an overseas call centre. Great, he can’t understand a word I’m saying and his level of spoken english is pretty unintellligible. Thank goodness they have an 0800 number or it would have cost a fortune.

I just felt so appalled by having to hear the insult of this stammer that doesn’t belong to me every time I open my mouth, that I didn’t even want to hear myself anymore.

Afterwards, I crawled upstairs exhausted by it all; utterly humiliated by a machine and a faceless call-centre operative, and knowing that if I let it get to me that I faced the risk of my speech disappearing again.

The boyfriend asked if I was okay, and that was it. Floods of tears and my stuttery speech slurred to a halt. Right before our eyes, again. And now I’m back resorting to keying out messages on my phone to be able to communicate.

It’s unbelievably frustrating. This is the third time in just over a month that my speech has disappeared, that and I’ve had swine flu too. So, if there is a god – he’s a real prankster. Only I’m not laughing.

And I just think, as horrified as I am by it all, as much as I never seem to adjust to the shock of how my speech now sounds, that maybe I just need to appreciate the speech I actually do have. Stammer and all, because as humiliating as it is to hear it, sometimes you just need to be heard.

Six months, it seems, is a very long time in the NHS. Six months where nothing has really happened. No improvement, just silent resignation.

Everyone’s so willing to pass the buck, hoping you’ll go away and stop pestering them; because it doesn’t really matter to them – patients are just names. Nothing more, and god forbid these patients let you know otherwise.

Well, the NHS just doesn’t permit that kind of abuse of its staff, does it?! Not that those staff members’ wilful neglect of their patients would ever be perceived as abuse. Never cuts both ways, does it?

I’m rambling. I’m just cross, I guess. Got a letter through from the new consultant neurologist that I’ve been assigned with the date and time of my first appointment.

First sentence, “It might not always be possible to see the consultant himself, in which case a member of his clinical team will see you.” Great.

So the appointment I struggled to book, in spite of the administator’s sloth (more on this in a minute), that had a three month lead in time and one available time slot (“Is that time alright?” It’ll have to be, I’m not waiting another three months…) doesn’t actually mean that I’ll be seen by the neurologist.

It’s not that I doubt the consultant’s team is very professional; it’s more that after the last time I encountered this, I found myself sat in front of the consultant’s clinic administrator. Essentially a glorified secretary, and entirely incapable of offering any sound medical advice.

Wonderful, exactly what I’d spent 4 hours sat in a waiting room for. His advice? That I make another appointment to see the consultant at his next clinic in two months time. It seems as though they keep making patients go to pointless appointments in order to spin the illusion of treating them without actually ever having to do so.

So, anyway. My new appointment was only secured after a marathon effort to contact the clinic. Essentially, upon returning home from Glastonbury I’d received a letter from this new consultant (‘s secretary – you didn’t think that they did anything themselves now, did you?!) asking me to contact them on receipt of the letter.

I was to contact them within seven days of the letter being sent or be discharged from the clinic I’d only just been referred to. The inefficacy of Royal Mail to deliver second class mail as it is, and the fact that it was the middle of the summer and highly likely that people are on holidays, this seemed incredibly ridiculous in itself.

The only way to contact the administrator was via telephone. Great, as if strangers don’t have enough difficulties understanding my stutter on the phone anyway; at least my speech hadn’t completely disappeared that week.

It said to ring between 8am-6pm, so I did. I rang up at about 8.15am to make the appointment, to be told that the specific person I needed to speak to wasn’t in yet.

“She doesn’t normally get in until half nine, duck“. Fantastic. What’s the point of telling people they can make appointments from 8am then? It’s not like patients have lives they have to fit this stuff around, have to go to work themselves. Apparently.

Told to ring back in my lunch hour, that’s exactly what I did. Ringing for over 10 minutes, and still no one’s picking up.  “Great, they’ve gone on their lunch”, I thought. Positively fed up by now and determined to make the sodding appointment “before being discharged from the clinic”, I rang again.

Finally, someone wearily picked up. Asking for the person I needed to speak to I was told that she “wasn’t available”. Amazing. “You asked me to ring back at this time to speak to this person – which is what I’m doing“, I told her. Oh. Right. Suddenly the clinic administrator was miraculously “available” to speak to me. How convenient.

So excuse me if I’m getting a little weary of the elusive games the benevolent National Health Service plays with its patients. It’d just be nice to actually see someone who’s capable of helping me, let alone able to help.

After the last six months of constant disappointments, I’m not holding my breath.

I can’t sing anymore. I’d really like to be able to.

It’s one of the things I miss most since acquiring this stammer. However, singing and stuttering aren’t a match made in heaven – by any means.

What used to make me feel all kinds (elation, serenity, peace), now is just another means of ridiculing me – reducing me to nothing more than a public embarassment.

Actually scrap that, it would outwardly embarrass me if I had the guts to keep attempting to sing out loud – but I don’t. Instead I just inwardly feel the shame of not being able to participate, of not being able to contribute.

Today’s my brother’s birthday. “Come on”, I said to my boyfriend. “Let’s ring him and sing happy birthday”. Yep. I forget everytime.

The boyfriend just asked if I was sure I wanted to, if I was sure it wouldn’t just upset me again and leave me mute again. He’s a wise one, that boy.

Like so many things (ringing someone up, asking for help from a stranger, responding to little old ladies chatting to me in the toilet queue etc), I go to do something and then remember that my mouth and brain don’t like to coordinate how they used to anymore and just feel utterly useless.

More often than not, I persevere with it and make myself do whatever it is I’m particularly reticent about – but singing, now I just can’t keep doing that to myself. It’s particularly upsetting.

I don’t know whether it’s because it’s not even my own words I’m still struggling to get out, whether it’s frustrating because these lyrics are so deeply ingrained in me from years of listening, whether it’s down to the songs sounding normal in my head until I open my mouth and something completely different comes out, or whether it’s down to that lovely misconception that all stammerers can sing, apparently.

Well, whoever decided to spread that one around just makes me feel wholly inadequate. “If that nice Gareth Gates can do it dear, I’m sure you can too.” Hmm, maybe not.

Maybe people need to start realising that stutters behave differently in different people, and particularly that if you have an almighty thwack to the head that your speech will inevitably be different to someone suffering from an anxiety based speech dysfluency.

Or maybe I’m being unfair and just venting. Either way, neither is probably very conducive; it’s not like anyone’s perceptions of stuttering will change overnight, nor is me letting off a bit of steam likely to render me into one of the Three Tenors.

It’s a shame really. I used to have quite a good singing voice. Maybe one day it’ll come back. Here’s hoping…

It wasn’t even anything serious, just struggling to get a word in edgeways while bantering with the boyfriend.

I forget now on a day-to-day basis what an effort it is to get my words out – in that sense, I have become used to the stutter – but with interruptions it’s really hard.

If there’s the slightest background noise or interruption, I feel like I’m fighting against myself to get the words out before I forget what it is I wanted to say. Which I guess is understandable, given that it now takes three, four times as long to get my words out.

The problem is that social interactions just aren’t set up for that kind of delay. Humour is incredibly reliant on timing.

I really miss being able to toss in witty comments at the drop of a hat. I miss being able to be funny in a group situation.

You’re always waiting for an appropriate break in the conversation to get the words out without being interrupted, by which point the moment has usually passed – the witty remark no longer relevant.

It’s silly really, but it’s these things – not being able to joke, not being able to sing along to the radio – the things that you’d ordinarily do without noticing; these things make me feel like a piece of me is missing.

The trouble is that I’m not sure what you call that “piece”;  it’s certainly not personality, I’d sincerely hope that that’s still there in spades. It’s more like an extension of your persona; the minutiae that collectively enhance your personality, but more importantly allow a person to express themself.

I think that’s probably it. I now struggle vocally to express myself, limited in communicative activities – but would have to recognise the value I’ve rekindled in writing.

Seriously, without writing this whole experience would have been a nightmare.

It’s a saving grace when my speech disappears for days on end, allowing me to scribble on the backs of envelopes or key out reams of text on my phone when unintelligible grunts can’t convey what I want to say.

Also, it’s become quite therapeutic; allowing me to express how I’m feeling and reflect upon that rather than having thoughts swim constantly around my head.

So in a way, as much as this blog is a hope that someone, somewhere who’s going through something similar might find it and not feel quite so alone – it’s also a counsellor. One that doesn’t ask awkward questions I’m not sure how to answer, but one that hopefully won’t let me forget this either.

That might sound odd, but through all the hurdles this brain injury has presented me with I’m starting to lose track of everything that’s happened.

I had hoped to get everything down in chronological order, but everytime I go to write some more on What actually happened to me… I just recoil at the thought of not knowing where to start.

I’m going to make a concerted effort to tell that story, before I find I can’t fully remember how I’ve become this way.

I’d had to cancel my appointment to the homeopath earlier this week (which I’d been waiting for as my head pains have come back),  cancelled an evening out with a couple of friends I hadn’t seen for over a year (very disappointed about this), and had to send apologies to a friend who’s getting married today (who I was incredibly excited about being able to see with her hair out and dressed in bright colours and shiny sequins instead of the black dress and hijab I’ve known her to wear everyday for the last five years).

As disappointing as all of this was, there was a sense of relief too – at the thought of not having to humiliate of myself in front of more people, at not having to see the pity on people’s faces or the sheer confusion as they try to make out what I’m trying to say.

Not that anyone would have been overtly rude I imagine, that luxury seems to be held by obnoxious taxi drivers alone. It’s more that I understand that people are trying to understand me but they’re initially shocked.

They see a normal 25 year old girl in front of them, treat her as an intelligent human being, and then SNAP! She opens her mouth to respond and they suddenly believe her to be dimwitted.

It amuses me that just because I have slower speech with all my stuttery repetitions, that they in turn will speak in a slower fashion – as though they think I’ll be able to understand them better. I ONLY HAVE A STUTTER – I CAN UNDERSTAND JUST FINE! It’s just that my mouth doesn’t do what I want it to so well anymore.

I should stop ranting. Apologies. It’s more the point that I find myself reluctant to engage in any social activity where I’m not with people who are familiar with me since the head injury.

If it’s just an extra person with us who I don’t know, I find myself wary of what their reactions will be; if it’s someone I haven’t seen since it happened, I find myself trying not to speak to avoid seeing the shock on their faces; or if it’s a group of people I don’t know – I just want to hide in a hole than confront all their questioning faces.

I really hate that I feel so ashamed of myself, and I know that I shouldn’t  – but that’s easier said than done. Rationally, this stammer shouldn’t define who I am; realistically, it’s becoming that way.

It wasn’t always like this, back track before my accident and I was super-confident. I’d talk to anyone, challenge anything, even won a few elections at uni.

Now, duvet diving is the most tempting option whenever a social occasion appears on the horizon.

There’s two large scale family weddings we have to attend next month, and honest to god, there’s already some serious knicker-wetting going on in anticipation of having to speak in the vicinity of a couple of hundred people I don’t know. And it’s not even like I’m having to give speeches (that’d be an effing riot!) or even the one getting married.

I’d quite like the confident social butterfly that I used to be to come out of hibernation, but that element of my personality seems to be securely cocooned away for the foreseeable future.

Not only have I lost my speech twice (for a week each time), but I’ve gone and caught swine flu too and am now off work until I’m no longer contagious.

Fortunately my boyfriend’s caught it too so at least we’re being poorly together – but when you’re feeling under the weather and neither of you feels like cooking there’s only so much crap food you can eat.

That aside, the symptoms are far worse than the inconvenience… We’ve both had horrendous hot and cold sweats making sleeping a real nightmare. The oddest thing is the freaky dreams I’ve been having, which at the time seemed so vivd – but now all I can remember is the overwhelming feeling of distress.

I should explain, gradually after getting used to my speech being all stuttery I now find that the “me” in my dreams also has a stammer – almost like it’s become part of what identifies her as really being me.

Whatever was going on in my dreams, I forget the exact details now, but the “dream Jo” didn’t stutter for once.

It was so much of a surprise that not only did it interrupt the dream’s narrative for “me” to question why I hadn’t stammered, and other characters relentlessly questioned me too, accusing me of being an impostor – but the culmination of feeling like that woke me up in a bit of a fluster.

I had to try and talk out loud to make sure I still sounded like me, that the stutter was still there.

It’s so odd, after months of wanting it all to go away, wanting to sound like my normal self again, I just felt like it was all too much to have everything change so rapidly back.

I know that it’s what I truly want to happen, but if it ever does happen (I’m still hopeful) it needs to be gradual I think.

It’s been such a shock trying to deal with it and adjust, that for everything to flip back again immediately, after still only really learning to come to terms with the stammer, just all seems too much to cope with.

It’s an odd one; I’m not really sure how to feel about it all – although (un)fortunately it’s not a reality I’m going to have to be presented with any time soon.

No more babysitting, no more lack of internet, no more loss of speech and back to work after a week off.

After my speech disappearing again last Monday, it stayed in hiding until the Friday; and then just magically started to come back again. Sometimes I have no idea what my head is playing at, some kind of jape whatever it is.

I’d bumped into an old school friend when it was reappearing. He was quite tipsy and babbled at me, finally getting round to letting me get a word in edgeways.

Quite obviously I babbled back albeit with grunty speech and a severe stammer, elated as I was to finally be able to get anything out after a week of not being able to verbally communicate with anyone! Although, I’d forgotten that he’d not seen me since I had the accident that caused my speech to change so much.

The sheer look of horror on his face was incredible. He couldn’t get away quick enough.

To be fair, if I was drunk and met someone I’d not seen for ages and they seemed fine until they opened their mouth and then found their speech littered with stutters I’d be surprised too. But it was more the way he responded to it.

He just stood and nodded at me, clearly unable to decipher a single word I was trying to say (and me trying to push out as many words as possible after not having spoken for a week). Quite a laughable situation really.

Well, until he inferred that he couldn’t deal with this right now, he was too drunk and had to go. While I can understand it, I just thought “it’s alright for you – I can’t just walk away from it all”. I guess I shouldn’t be so judgemental, I know how it feels.

On a brighter note, it just feels so great to be able to speak again, even if the stutter’s there. I almost don’t care about the stammer when I’m able to talk again, because as horrible as it is to be lumbered with such a dramatic change to my communication, the bottom line is this; stuttering or not, at least I can speak.

I keep trying to think that this feeling of being grateful for any speech at all is what I need to remember when I feel despairingly of it all in future. Because pessimistic as it sounds, I know it’ll happen again. But rationally I know that if I’ve coped all the other times, that I can cope again – even if it might not feel like it at the time.

It’s infuriating that a 2-year-old is more intelligible than I am, horrible that they can’t even read what I want to communicate to them, and utterly soul destroying that because I can’t interact and reassure them as they want me to that they’re starting to find Auntie Jo boring.

This week was meant to be fun, some quality time with them – but really all I feel is despair. And I’m loathe to admit it. But, honestly – it’s the truth.

I’m so fed up of not being able to control this. That the slightest feeling of insecurity or tension makes my speech disappear for days on end. Really it would be nice if it properly came back at the end of it all, but no – I’m just stuck with this god awful “scutter” as a certain 5-year-old niece calls it.

All I’ve been able to do is smile or nod or try to get the first letter of a word out to try and give them a clue as to what I’m trying to tell them. I can’t even get the repetitious stutter, just a prolonged pained sound that often doesn’t sound anything like the letter it’s meant to be.

Fortunately, the “Yurrrrr” I managed to sometimes get out if trying to say “Yes” sounds a lot like “Yeah” so that’s more easily understood…but in that case I may as well just nod – it’s a lot less distressing for everyone and myself to hear.

I’d like everything to just go back to normal now; for this hideous joke that someone appears to be playing on me to just go away and for the stammer to be gone (and the speech loss for that matter too). Easier said than done.

You know, I was feeling so rational after writing my last post – and now this. It’s like swinging from polar ends on a pendulum; “I can cope”, “No, actually I can’t”, “No really, I can”, “Who’re you kidding? Of course you can’t”. I’m bored of it all – and, anyone else reading this must be too.

I was trying really hard to be positive about it all, but any hope of that evaporated with my speechloss.

My foster mum just suggested this afternoon that there might be something we can do to make the frequent speechloss easier to deal with, and it seems a good idea; to learn sign language so I’m not so reliant on typing out what I want to say on a phone, or desperately scrabbling for scraps of paper to write on.

She suggested that she and my boyfriend also learn and that then it might not be so isolating – but simlutaneously giving me a tangible skill I could use to earn money by signing/typing/interpreting at conferences for people, if I ever found myself jobless; which let’s face it, is a distinct possibility.

So I guess, at least there’s something positive to take from the speechloss this time around.

I’m going to start looking into it because this problem’s not going to go away any time soon and it takes time to become skilled at anything. And, honestly – it’s not something I’d mind doing. At least I wouldn’t have to lug a pen and paper around anymore!

Anyway I digress, this week’s session for the first time really concentrated on the “therapy” bit of speech therapy – it was more like a counselling session than anything else. I think the speech therapist has run out of ideas as to how to tackle it all for the time being and she seems to think that if we manage to deal with my feelings about the stammer, then it might be possible to have an impact of the stammer itself.

So she decided that even if no-one was able to help me currently, that working through how I could help myself further would be a good start. Here’s what happened…First off, she asked me to think of a heavily traumatic incident that I’d been through previously that I might draw a parallel between emotionally.

With that in mind, she then asked me to consider what personal qualities I had drawn upon to get myself through that situation and be able to continue with a normal life, with a view to being able to use those same “internal resources” to help me cope better with the stammer I’ve been left with.

Thinking about it, I chose to use my experience of becoming fostered at the age of 15 and the following spilled out of that:

• Determination: – at the time, I was desperate not to be seen as a failure, to have let anyone down who’d looked out for me or to do anything that might be construed as me going-off-the-rails. It’s the same in this case. Breaking down in an emotional heap as expected just isn’t my style, and I find it completely unacceptable to let myself wallow in self pity. Talking it through to getting everything out your mind and get your head around the whole thing, that’s one thing – but crying for days on end, aside from being a complete waste of my time, is exhausting and self defeating.
• Challenging stereotypes: – I was adamant that I wouldn’t just be another foster kid that people thought badly of, and with this I don’t want anyone to treat me like I’m stupid just because I stutter. Strangers do it all the time, they’re fine with me until I open my mouth and start stammering and then they get this look of pity on their face and start speaking really slowly to me. Idiots.
• To feel like I have a purpose: – just as back then, I used studying for my GCSEs as an outlet to feel like I was achieving something worthwhile, having had the accident it’s been incredibly important to me to carry on working in spite of the communication difficulties presented with continuing in my job as a project manager at a web agency. I’m not going to lie, it’s been really tough but by staying at work throughout everything happening, I still feel useful, and that’s enough to make all the crap worthwhile – to know that in spite of it all I can still make a difference in some way.

I could go on, but quite frankly I’m all talked out for the tiime being.

The point is, even if everyone who is qualified to help me with this is struggling to do so, that it’s possible for me to find some of the support from within. I guess she was just getting me to step back from it all to realise that for myself.

Which is pretty nice really; not particularly useful in the scheme of things, but nice all the same.

Probably the most polite way of putting it that I’ve encountered yet; certainly better than beng hung up on or having someone shout down the phone “are you taking the pi**?” – You’ve got to love the social skills of taxi firms…or not.

But it raised an interesting point; the client had assumed that there was a bad connection over the landline phone because my speech wasn’t clear; and in his eyes, what other reason could there be?

People don’t usually sound intermittent in their everyday speech but poor line connections are an everyday occurance. Although in this case, it wasn’t – it was just me.  And he wasn’t to know – he’s never met me.

My point is this, if bad connections are an everyday hindrance to communication that we just readily accept – when will that be the case for people readily accepting a severe repetitious stutter? Is it just the case that it’s something people rarely encounter? Probably.

And in a way, it’s kind of a nice way of thinking about it all perhaps – to disassociate myself from it all from time to time.

That the effects of the stammer aren’t anything really to do with me as a person – although it often feels like that – but instead are just a break down in communication that nobody can do anything about; but that that’s okay, I can just find another way to get my point across instead.

And you know what, it kind of does make me feel a lot better about it.

One, my blog roll was looking decidedly empty but after looking at different sites on the internet I’d kind of got disheartened by the blogs on stuttering/stammering out there. They all see to be by people trying to sell you some magical cure for stammering – not great.

As my speech therapist said when I first met her, if there was a cure out there they’d give it to everyone who needed it and speech therapists would be out of their jobs and not trying desperately to help people manage their speech. Fair point.

Secondly, and probably more importantly for me, I’d been frustrated by the distinct lack of availability to find people who’re going through the same things that I am.

As I’ve said on more than one occasion, it’s been tremendously isolating acquiring this stammer, learning to live with it, and encountering just how small-minded some people can be.

Well, no more! Last night I (literally) stumbled across the Facebook equivalent for stutterers. Boy, are they hidden away?! You’d think they’d have a high profile  – but they appear nowhere in the Google page-ranking scheme of things. Shame, because it’s exactly what I’ve spent several months looking for.

I’d gone onto stammering.org to see if they had anyone web based I could get in touch with, and then found a sneaky link to stutteringcantstopme tucked away in amongst it all which I clicked.

Major “Eureka” moment. So I signed up and left a couple of posts and replies to others, so far so good. Only problem is the community that uses it don’t seem to be frequent flyers, if you know what I mean. The discussion threads barely seem to get updated.

Hopefully something will come of it, as it seems too good a resource to waste. Either way, they seriously need some “Google-Juice” as my boss would put it, to bump them up the page rankings so others can find them. I’m hoping a place on a blog roll might be a good start.

Yesterday, some dippy driving instructor(!) nearly ran me over in the city centre and then had the gaul – despite being in the wrong – to have a full on argument wth me in the street.

Add to that the fact, I was pretty upset by the incident and also that arguing with a stammer’s pretty difficult at the best of times to get your point across and you’ll probably have an idea of what it was like.

To clarify, before you think I’m a wreckless cyclist whose fault it was I’d just nearly been run over, I’ll explain……this street in particular is one way – like many in the city centre to aid traffic flow – however there’s a CLEARLY marked contraflow lane (with big bloomin signs several times down the street) for cyclists to use in order to get around the city more quickly and safely.

So this daft woman hurtles down the one way street in her car and literally pulls in to park in the contraflow cycle lane about 1 metre in front of my oncoming bike. No indication, no acknowledgement that I was even there.

Dangerous enough as it was, there was a high kerb to one side of me and an onecoming vehicle right behind which left me with no direction to go in.

As you might expect anyone to be, I was SEETHING. Not aided by the fact that she then started to shout out the window at me that it was “a one-way street”.

Now, not that she was to know this but, when I get upset or shocked etc, my speech has a tendency to just disappear – which is not particularly useful when you want to give someone a right rollicking for being a dick.

Added to that the issue of strangers not being able to understand me very well because they’re no used to hearing a stammer – so all in all,it was pretty difficult to respond to her shouting at me.

I got there though! Geez, did she know about it. I managed to babble (despite the stutter) at her how it wasn’t actually one-way if she’d managed to take notice of the several signs down the road, that she as a driving instructor should know better, and that if I hadn’t managed to stop in time I was sure her insurance company would have set her straight about who had priority in a cycle lane – unsurprisingly, the cyclist!

I doubt it did any good. She just kept shouting back at me that it was a  one-way street and that I was in the wrong, so any argument I was (desperately!) trying to make probably got lost in her shouting over me.

Stupid woman. In a way though, I’m just glad I managed to stand up for myself, however hard it was to do under the circumstances.

So, if you’re thinking of taking driving lessons with a woman called Pinky’s in Leicester – don’t. She’s a wreckless moron.

Just being able to get more than a grunt out (even if my speech is still littered with repetitions) is such a relief.

That’s the longest it’s disappeared for; usually it’s just for a day, two at most when I get distressed. The vocal chords just seize up completely and it’s just a case of waiting…waiting for it all to come back again.It’s so weird. It’s almost like someone flicks a switch and it all comes back again. Okay, the stutter’s there but at least I’m not having to write everything down on scraps of paper everytime I want to tell someone something. It’s incredibly inconvenient.

I can see why babies cry so much! If there’s no other way to tell people you need something, it seems pretty effective!

Do you know what I’m most grateful for? The fact that I can write again. Honestly, without it the past few days would have been all the more isolating.

Up until only a couple of months or so ago I still couldn’t write properly after the accident. Not only was my speech out of whack, but I’d lost coordination with my hand to write. Seriously, anything I tried to write looked like a 4-year-old had written it.

I think in a way that upset me more than the stammer initially. I just kept thinking, “But, I have really nice handwriting – where’s it gone?!” It hadn’t sunk in at that point that the stammer wouldn’t necessarily be a temporary thing.

I guess it’s down to the years of playing rugby. Quite a few of our girls got concussion from time to time and a temporary stutter onset by the brain injury wasn’t a shock to encounter – those girls’ stutters always disappeared in a couple of hours or days. So I just assumed that mine would be no different. WRONG!

Crazy really, years of injuries playing quite a dangerous sport and nothing like this ever happened to me – and then I bump my head in the shower one morning and my life is turned upside down. Pfft.

Anyway, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that it’s back. That I’m not reliant on pen and paper to communicate with people. Even if the stammer’s there, at least I can actually speak again. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again for a while.

That, and more importantly, to feel like people can hear me – even if it’s not my voice they’re listening to.

The slightest accident seems to have had the biggest impact upon my life. Crazy really.

Either way, as difficult as it’s made life, it’s been an incredibly eye-opening experience. An experience I may as well share, because prior to hitting my head and causing the stammer, language problems and speechlessness – I would never have imagined that people would react and respond as they have done: in some cases for better, but in many for the worse.

A friend suggested I write about all of this; I’ve thought about it, and it seems a good idea. So here’s stammerheadshark – my story of learning to live with an acquired neurological stammer.