My family recently unveiled what they called a “time capsule”, which really was a giant bucket of old elementary and middle school projects from decades ago. As we dug through it, I came across a journal. In it, I was much more frank than I remember, and wrote pretty emotionally about a condition I was born with: stuttering.
To be honest, I’m a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to decision-making. This has led to both successful resilience as well as epic whiffs in judgement. With stuttering, I think I’m so close to it, so affixed to its dragooning, that sometimes I think I’ve almost written it off in a way. But, if i’m honest with myself, I know that’s not true. I’m reminded that these characteristics: my tendency to (sometimes carelessly) plow through something, and my persistent, frustrating vocal blocks and ticks, are intertwined at the root. My impatience, impulsivity, and restlessness feel genetically bound to my psyche much like stuttering is bound to both my overt verbality and my covert communication processes.
In fact, the majority of the battle with disruptive speech is happening between the ears, out of sight, wildly steering a litany of firing neurons toward a result that often looks, sounds, and lands awkwardly. This is because the stuttering is forcing the stutterer’s hand in more than just the verbal. It’s widespread. Long before another person hears or sees anything, there is an internal negotiation taking place.
What word should I use? Can I say the thing? Maybe? Is there a different word? Yes, replace the word. Meh, not a great word, pick another. Fine, try the first one. No, try the other, it’ll work. OK, I need to breathe. Shit, is someone seeing this? Ugh, I’ve lost my train of thought. Should I push through the block or avoid it? Land the damn plane. OK. I’m done. Or am I done? How did it come out? Better repeat my thought again to clarify - to myself - what I was intending. Do they think this sounds idiotic? Did I make my point? F**k, did I make my point too much? Stop. Listen to those around you. Smile. Crack a joke to make yourself feel better. Ok, really Matley, stop.
I have realized my physical ability to communicate directly impacts my decision-making, because, quite literally, my ability to communicate is, itself, a series of messy decisions.
So let me ask this: When faced with a choice, how do deeply personal characteristics - disability, fear, neuroticism, conscientiousness, trauma, etc. - intervene in our ability to execute a decision? What is it about who we are that impacts the critical moment of “now do the thing”?
We’d like to think of a decision as a relatively clean transaction: gather the information, weigh the options, determine what matters, and hit the gas. But we aren’t neutral arbiters. We bring us, with us: our fears, our history, our insecurities, our habits, and our impulses. Sometimes we bring a disability. Many times it’s something we have gotten very good at pretending isn’t there.
And perhaps the most consequential parts of those things are the ones nobody else can see. Perhaps our decision-making is driven, in large part, by our communication skills, internal or external.
That distinction seems applicable far beyond speech.
A person who is naturally risk-averse may experience the same opportunity differently from someone who is impulsive. Someone who’s experienced failure deeply and intimately may assign a different weight to this possibility from arising again than someone whose experience has mostly reinforced their confidence. A highly conscientious person might deliberate long enough to miss an opportunity that an impulsive person would seize. And hell, the impulsive person might also make three decisions in the time it takes the conscientious person to make one - and ultimately regret them all.
No single person is necessarily making a “better” decision than another. They are making a decision through the machinery they have. Consider that perhaps our greatest challenge is actually our most intuitive skill.
I think stuttering gives me a sense of empathy I’m not sure I’d have otherwise. It gives me an understanding of daily struggle (and yes, others have it far, far worse than I do). It exposes me - for better or worse - as authentic. As much as I try and weave and bob around speech, there’s no getting around there’s something there - and I think this is curious to some people, even if they are bewildered.
Also my stuttering reminds me that maybe I do actually need to listen to the abbreviation of speech. Maybe my brain is telling me to stop - by force - to consider being more thoughtful. To listen to the world around me and express myself more earnestly.
I’m not sure where this revelation takes me, but I think it’s important to recognize that we all have a superpower disguised somewhere in there as a nuisance, or even a demon. By claiming this new power, we may reshape a decision we may make or avoid. I think in that sense, we should welcome our struggles - perhaps not with open arms, but with a curiosity we may have longed to avoid.