I live in Dublin with my amazing wife and two daughters. I’m a musician and IT professional.
I’ve been dealing with a medium-to-severe stutter for as long as I can remember.
Every attempt addressing my speaking problem in both conventional and non-conventional ways failed miserably. Things started to really change when I realized I have been seeking answers for the wrong questions.
Since 2015 I’ve been exploring my speech and self-expression, trying out and perfecting different ideas and practices. I’ve been interviewing anyone and everyone I can find who has overcome their stutter or who is expressing themselves in an inspiring way.
Today, I find myself very social, confident and having a lot more control of my speech. Here are some of my recent achievements:
- Public speaking confidently
- A video interview for a major online news channel
- Fixing my ability to read aloud to any type of audience
- Constantly getting comments about the ‘amazing change in my speech’
I also stutter much less. But that’s not the point; it’s the side effect.
That is the point.
Why I started this blog
I was the boy whose biggest fear was having to read aloud in class. Having all eyes burn me, while I’m spurting syllables between long gaps of suffocation.
I was the boy who needed to ask his best friend to speak for him at the store, as previous solo attempts ended up in an embarrassing guessing game between my pointing finger and the shopkeeper.
I was the one always sitting alone at parties, trying to look cool and hoping no one turned to him and broke the facade.
I was the child who adopted invisibility as a way of life. I accepted shame and embarrassment as the default emotions associated with speaking.
For the first 20 years of my speaking life, I had accepted these situations as ‘normal’ and felt unworthy because I ‘had a stutter’. It took me another 10 years to undo this and find a different path.
(See full lecture in Media)
When I was 22, after having one of the worst stuttering experiences of my life (see here for more), I realized I have to take back control. I began putting myself into difficult speaking situations, stretching the limits of my comfort zone and proving to myself that ‘I can’.
I gave toasts, lectured at college, worked in jobs involving presentations and phone customer support, led large bands of nine-eleven musicians, talked on stages and even on live radio.
Ten years later, I felt my life was no longer controlled by my stutter, but I still felt blocked from fully expressing myself. I felt that my stutter still controlled my external shell. I was finally ready to take on the stuttering monster once again, only to find I was fighting myself all along.
I believe there’s not enough help on stuttering that takes the core of the problem head-on. Speech-Language-Therapists are often not knowledgeable enough or not experienced with this niche problem. Even if they are, it’s rarely from first-hand experience and there’s a massive lack of understanding of the inner world of a person who stutters.
I hear about people getting bad advice ALL THE TIME, making their (or their children’s) speech WORSE.
I believe that you can only take someone to places you’ve been yourself.
Most people I know, who fully recovered from speech problems, have done it by themselves and got on with their lives without really sharing their knowledge and experience.
By sharing my path, I aim to push and empower you on your own journey to full self-expression.
Yours,
Ido
Hi Ido,Thank you so much, I love your Blog; you are a wonderful inspiration for everyone who has an interest in stammering.
I remember as a very young student SLT, a lecturer (an SLT who stammered), telling us that “courage” is the most important predictor for a happy outcome for any client who stammered. You have a really beautiful courage that encourages me as a therapist, who is on same page as you entirely.
I hope the days of therapists focussing on simply teaching entirely new “fluent” speech patterns are long gone. For me it has always been an absolute privilege and humbling to be a therapist, helping anyone who stammers discover their innate courage; develop new insights into their “iceberg” and personal story ; learn about how mindfulness; self compassion and resilience can help and take the smallest steps forward in the direction they want to go to be true to themself and live life to the full with confidence and pride as a person who stammers.
Your blog is a really valuable resource to share as you exemplify and clarify every concept that I, as a non-stammering therapist, try my best to convey, way more effectively than I can.
I just bought a brilliant 2019 book “Stammering Pride and Prejudice, difference not defect” . I think you would really like it, it is available directly from the publishers J&R Press.
It is very much an “ode to stammering” and tells how society needs to be helped change, not people who stammer. (I know this is not a new idea but the many and varied contributors really consolidate this idea).
Contemporary western cultures where we are always being confronted by very slick and rapid speakers in the media and where there is a sense of urgency and time pressure about everything, is what needs to change. I think we have got a glimpse of how things can be different in recent times as everything has slowed down.
I’m not sure if it is still taught to SLT students but when I was in college in the mid to late seventies, we were taught about a famous 1940s study where anthropologists such as Margaret Meade and others living with indigenous cultures around the world were asked to report on the incidence of stammering in those cultures. It apparently didn’t exist, this was thought to be due to the more relaxed interaction patterns in those cultures. Hesitations and repetitions were also seen as a very normal as individuals planned what they wanted to say.
As you know, early intervention strategies such MPC Parent /Child Interaction therapy, kind of replicate this pattern and families and educators are now being helped to slow down and adapt their conversational style to facilitate very young children who are neuro-developmentally at risk of stammering.
Thanks so much again and I look forward to reading more of your posts and sharing them.
Kind regards,
An Aging Speech & Language Therapist
היי עידו,
ניתקלתי בבלוג שלך והתחברתי לדרך הברורה בה אתה מסביר את הכרונולוגיה של הגמגום בציר הזמן ובציר ההרגשה.
גם אני מגמגם. אלא שהתופעה אצלי היא שלא מגמגם בהרצאות וסדנאות
. ך כן בראיונות עבודה ושיחה עם אדם זר.
בעיקר, כשיש היררכיה ברורה, בה אני נמצא מול דמות סמכותית בוחנת הנמצאת מעליי בהיררכיה.
במשך שנים התפרנסתי מייעוץ תעסוקתי, הכנה לריאיון עבודה.
הקטע המצחיק הוא שאני, המגמגם, הכין מאות מועמדים שעברו בהצלחה ראיונות, שהוא לא היה עובר בחיים.
אפילו כתבתי ספר בשם “התקבלת !” בשנת 2014. תעשה גוגל- אבי יקואל.
אז מה אני רוצה לומר לך ?
שאהבתי את ההגדרה של “המסע שלי עם הגמגום”. שהחלטת לגעת בזה בצורה פומבית ללא בושה וחרדות מה יגידו.
הבן שלי יהלי בן 12, בכיתה ו. השבוע סיפר לי שתלמידה שלומדת איתו בכיתה מגמגמת ושיתפה שלפני כמה שנים ניסתה להתאבד וחוותה דיכאון במשך מספר חודשים, כולל שלא הגיעה לבית הספר.
בתחילה, הקשבתי מבלי לתת למילים לחדור את הסדקים בזיכרון.
אלא, שלפתע שאל אותי יהלי : “אבא, תגיד, איך זה מרגיש לגמגם? מה מרגישים בגוף כשזה קורה ?”
עניתי לו מיד מבלי לחשוב : “יהלי, אתה יודע שמעולם לא שאלו אותי את השאלה הזו….” התחלתי להסביר לו על זה שאין אויר, שהמילים לא יוצאות, על דפיקות הלב, על הימים שאתה לא יכול להגיד מילים שמתחילות באות “ב” ולמחרת מילים שמתחילות באות “ת”. פשוט כי ככה זה. ומיד עבר לי בראש השיר של רוני סומק “נקמת הילד המגמגם”….
לאחר מכן, שאל אותי יהלי : אבא, למה אתה לא עושה הכנות לריאיון עבודה למגמגמים ? או עובד עם מגמגמים ? ואז נתקלתי בבלוג שלך במקרה או שלא…
אולי זו התשובה להרגשת הריקנות שאני מרגיש לא מספיק מדויק במה שאני עושה.
אולי זה הפחד מלגעת במחסום הזה של “המגמגם הקטן” כמו שקראת לזה.
אולי זה נקרא בשלות ? ואולי פשוט הגיע הזמן לגעת בזה ולעזור לאחרים ?
לא יודע, אבל יודע שמאוד נהניתי לקרוא את הבלוג שלך.
אבי