Last night I went to a very enlightening lecture by Mark Onslow, Director of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre, about the relationship between stuttering and anxiety, and a new online treatment (a trial of which I'm booked in to do in October) that has been developed around it.
It was very interesting, although it was a bit of a barrage of statistics that I'm struggling to remember. But basically, people who stutter have a very high chance of developing subsequent anxiety disorders, a much higher percentage than non-stutterers. These disorders begin right after the onset of the stuttering.
Interesting new research shows that 2/3 of stutterers relapse after speech restructuring treatment (eg, like the treatment I had in February), and these 2/3 are usually the same as have the anxiety disorders.
Also, these anxieties are largely based on irrational fears that have become ingrained, and so simply treating the stutter won't change those anxieties closely mingled in with it.
He likened it to a study of people with arachnophobia. Someone was shown a picture of a spider, and a measure of their anxiety was taken. It was high, even though it was just a picture. They were asked on a scale of 1-10 what the probability was of the spider actually coming out and biting them, they said 4. This is irrational fear.
There are similar things like this deeply ingrained in stutterers that blow the problem out beyond just a physical thing. There is huge fear of what the stutterer will perceive in the listeners face. They will laugh. They will think I'm retarded. They won't respect me. They'll walk away before I'm finished. So stutterers will rarely look you in the eye as they speak. These things stem from little bits of truth that come from a life of stuttering, but become magnified into irrationality.
As Mark Onslow said, if something is true in a small way, is it really helpful to think about that thing all the time, in every conversation, with every person you meet?
So for me, this is all very exciting research, and I am very keen about doing this online cognitive behaviour treatment. Yes I want to manage the stutter, but I also want to get rid of all this unhelpful baggage that keeps me shooting myself in the foot.
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
6 comments:
Does some of the responsibility for this rely on the listener too though?
I know when I met you there were a few times I wanted to just jump in and finish a word for you (I think I only did it twice - which is less often than I would in conversation with my wife ;)). It wasn't due to thinking you were stupid or retarded or anything, more just that you looked like you were having trouble and I wanted to help. I remember you saying that it doesn't help, so I bit my tongue.
Is some of the anxiety caused by people who aren't aware that you have a stutter, and so don't realise that they aren't helping, but hurting?
Oh definitely. There is certainly stuff that's happened that has been the catalyst for those things to develop.
BUT, and this is a big but (I like big buts, I cannot lie) stutterers can end up in a very dark place if they pin all their problems on other people. I'm like this because my year five teacher..etc etc.
So many stutterers get stuck there, and I felt stuck there too (and still am now and then). This is a helpless place, because all you're doing is blaming and feeling sorry for yourself, while really going nowhere.
In my oppinion, the less I dwell on people's reactions or treatment of me, the better off I will be.
I think this goes across all areas of life as well. When you blame and resent, the one who really loses out is you.
And thanks for your patience when you met me, I really appreciated you giving me the time to say what I wanted to say.
I think this goes across all areas of life as well. When you blame and resent, the one who really loses out is you.
You don't (usually) have any way of changing the other person, but you do have some control over your own responses. Of course I say this while wanting to place blame on others constantly - but I can know what's right, even if I have trouble living it myself :)
Hey Ben,
Just want to say I'm always amazed how open and honest you are about this struggle of yours, and I think it's really awesome that you're not afraid to talk about the things you're working through.
So you have more courage than most (definitely more than me).
It's interesting what you said about not looking people in the eye. I find it hard to look people in the eye when I'm talking for the same reason - and I often stuff words up. I'd say most people can relate to social anxiety in one form or another.
Sounds like a really interesting study and I hope it goes well!
Thanks so much Soph, I really appreciate that.
I tend not to look people in the eye for several reasons - social anxiety; processing what people are saying, which I find harder to do if I'm taking in extra visual info from their eyes; thinking about my responses to what they're saying; growing up shorter than all my classmates (I was younger than everyone else and didn't start growing until Year 9) - even now I try to get lower than people I'm sitting with because being below their eye-level feels "normal" to me; and I tend to lip read to double check what I've heard (even though I've got pretty good hearing, particularly in my more highly trained left ear).
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