Stuttering Spotlight- Cristina Mortara
Hello Everyone!!
I am thrilled to be able to feature Cristina on our blog once again! Cristina wanted to share her experience after taking a big examination recently.
A few months ago I took an important exam, the most important exam of my last years. A final exam of a course that lasted years, to become a psychotherapist. A big dream of mine. A great investment.
This exam consisted of two written papers and an oral exam.
At the end of the oral exam, I heard some members of the commission say that ok I was prepared, ok I've done a brilliant course over the years. But I have "this difficulty in speaking" and I was given one grade lightly lower than my colleagues. Thankfully, I don't care about grades, I deeply believe my competence as a therapist must be seen in other factors. But this fact takes me back to the past in all the times when at school (and not only there) my grades and results were influenced by how much I had stammered. There was a grade for my actual preparation and another grade for my level of fluency/disfluency.
And I wonder: how much effort it takes to stay anchored to the idea that it's okay to stutter, that stuttering is not a problem? That my worth isn't connected to how much I stutter?
I recently read the book "Stammering Pride and Prejudice", it's a masterpiece. In particular there is a chapter written by Christopher Constantino where he underlines that adults are discriminated against in their social and professional lives. It was useful to me, because I finally gave a name to this phenomenon: discrimination.
I was not unlucky or not good enough, I was discriminated.
I know I was the victim, but I felt shame anyway, it's painful.
This is an example of a wound caused by stigma of stuttering.
In these situations, in my experience, there is a very useful antidote to pain: stuttering allies. Being surrounded by people who think it's ok to stutter, who are proud and support you exactly as you are, it's so important and salvific. After the exam I felt embittered, whereas my husband was angry. I feel grateful for his anger, it let me well understand what had happened. Stuttering allies can lend us their emotions, even those emotions we don't allow ourselves.
Cristina
