Happy Friday!!

I’m excited to share James Hayden’s story with you all today. James is a personal friend of mine and I am inspired by his resilience every single day! In this blog post, James writes about his stuttering journey and outlines the differences his 20-year-old, 23-year-old, and now 29-year-old self felt and currently feel about stuttering.

James Hayden is an HLA technologist, writer, and a person who stutters from the New Orleans area. James is the author of Dear World, I Stutter: A Series of Open Letters from a Person Who Stutters. His work has been published by The Mighty, The Stuttering Foundation, Stamma, Yahoo, and MSN. James has also appeared on several podcasts, presented at the National Stuttering Association conference, the Australian Speak Easy Association Virtual Conference, numerous universities, and was a speaker at TEDxOchsner 2019. He also serves as the chapter leader for the New Orleans chapter of the National Stuttering Association.

James writes:

Would your younger self believe how your life turned out so far? Would they be able to comprehend the good, the bad, and the ugly that helped make you you? I know my 20-year-old self would not believe what my current 29-year-old self would tell him. How 20-year-old me thought my life would turn out and how it actually turned out are vastly different things. With that said, I’m really glad how my life has turned out and that it’s not what I thought it would be. So, how did I get from where I was to where I am today and why am I glad my that my life didn’t go according to my plan?

Twenty-year-old me thought I knew it all, and had life all figured out. Or at least that’s the face I put on for everyone. In reality, I was this scared kid who was not confident in myself or in my voice. And I wanted nothing to do with being a person who stutters (PWS). If someone brought it up to me, then I told them off. My reaction was caused by that person mentioning my biggest source of embarrassment and shame. Yet, if I’m being honest, it was this shame that contributed to heading my family’s advice and going back to speech therapy in the fall of 2013. It was through my two years in speech therapy where I slowly realized that maybe stuttering wasn’t the worst thing in the world and was slowly coming to terms with being ok with this part of myself. During this time, I also found out about this thing called the National Stuttering Association (NSA). Little did I know just how much that group would change my life. 

After two years of avoiding NSA meetings for numerous reasons, I went to my first one in October 2015. Meeting other PWS is a true game changer. For the first time in my life, I had other people that truly “got it.” When I said, “I had a rough phone call the other day,” or “Ordering through a drive-thru sucks,” they could not only empathize, but they understood as well. It is through my involvement in the NSA that I’ve met so many incredible people, including my mentor. It’s also the spark that led to everything I’ve done over the past five years. 

A few months after my first meeting, on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 to be exact, I participated in my NSA chapter’s open house. Myself and four other PWS served as panelists, shared our stories, and answered questions about stuttering from the community. That night in the main conference room of my local library was a game changer. It was through the open house and sharing my story with the SLP students at the local university where I realized that I liked talking about stuttering. Ironic, huh? The one topic I never wanted to discuss three years ago with friends was now the one topic I wanted to talk about with complete strangers. Those two experiences were the catalyst for my next adventure. 

Growing up, many people told me that I was a good writer. I only used that skill for academic papers and the occasional thank you note. For me, writing for non-academic reasons was not something I wanted to do. Writing fiction never interested me and writing about myself meant I had to talk about myself and show emotions. To quote a few people from college days, “James, you’re emotionless.” Which was true. My emotions were so buried, they might has well have been buried at the bottom of the Hoover Dam. I did this because being vulnerable with people was very low on my list of favorite things to do. In hindsight, I know this wasn’t the best way to deal with my emotions. 

All that started to change after the open house and my guest lecture. I realized that I enjoyed talking about stuttering and that it was cathartic for me. During that same time, I was at job I hated and knew I needed something that was anything but my current job. I figured let me get my story out there and see what happens. The best way I knew how to do that was to write about it and try to get it published. I thought maybe this could turn into something. Little did I know what was to come. 

My first article was simply my story up until April 2017. I submitted it to The Mighty and a few weeks later it was published. To my surprise, it received great reviews. I knew this was something I wanted to continue to do. Partly because it could lead to a new job, but more importantly of how cathartic it was for me. Over the next few months, I wrote a few more articles for The Mighty and The Stuttering Foundation of America to great reviews. In addition to my published works, I was writing for a hypothetical book that I thought would maybe happen ten or so years down the line if it ever did. The book happened much sooner than expected. On Thursday October 19, 2017 I was fired from my job with no backup plan and no idea what my next steps were. Shortly thereafter, I moved back in with my parents where my biggest decision of the day was how many episodes of Survivor will I watch today? That got old after a couple of days and I figured let’s make this book a reality. My thought was, “What’s the worst that could happen? Nobody buys it, but it’s a fun fact about myself.” I wanted to try and possibly fail as opposed to look back and asking “what if I tried?” I spent the next few weeks writing, editing, and formatting my book and on Monday December 4, 2017 I self-published my book, Dear World, I Stutter: A Series of Open Letters from a Person Who Stutter. Since that December day, I’ve continued to contribute to The Mighty, The Stuttering Foundation, Stamma, and others.  

Looking back, I see that first article as a huge mile post in my stuttering journey. That article was the first time I actually owned and acknowledged my stutter because I wanted to and not because I had to. It was no longer the elephant in the room, rather it was just another part of what makes me. The first article and subsequent articles taught me it was ok to show my emotions and to be vulnerable. For so long, I avoided emotions like one avoids the banana peel in Mario Kart. Yet, writing changed it. When I started writing, I wrote for me and forgot others would read this. With this mindset, I allowed myself to explore events and relationships that I safeguarded myself against. I still keep this mindset when I write and it allows me to be my most vulnerable and authentic self. Writing taught me it’s ok to show emotions and that being vulnerable with yourself and others is a good thing. 

Over the next few months, I reached out to different podcasts to see if I could be a guest and to promote my book. A few were gracious enough to have me on as a guest. As someone who listens to many podcasts a week, I thought it would be cool to be on a podcast. Little did I know just how big of a step this would be on my journey towards accepting and embracing this part of myself. For the first time ever, my stuttering moments wouldn’t be limited to me and the person I was talking to. Rather, they’d be recorded for all of posterity.  The first time I listened back to myself on a podcast I almost turned it off. Hearing my stuttering moments back was embarrassing and difficult for me. Yet I’m so glad for doing those early podcasts. As uncomfortable, embarrassing, and difficult as it was to listen to them, the appearances helped for what was to come over the next couple of years. 

In the summer of 2018, I told my best friend that I want to do a TED talk one day. He said, “Cool. Go for it.” For the next few months, I hemmed and hawed about applying. That changed in February 2019 when my company announced the first ever TEDxOchsner in June 2019. I continued to hem and haw until I had a chance meeting with the lead organizer. I made my pitch to him and he encouraged me to apply. After several interviews, I was picked to be one of the twelve speakers. I spent the next few weeks working on and practicing my talk. D-Day arrived on Tuesday June 12, 2019. I was the final speaker before lunch and spent the entire morning freaking out and trying to calm myself down. At last, it was my turn. Before I stepped on the red dot, I told myself, “It’s going to come out the way it’s going to come out and it’s going to be ok.” I then proceeded to step on the red dot and gave my TEDx talk about the power of embracing our vulnerabilities to an audience of 300 people and live streamed to an audience of 25,000+. I had so many stuttering moments during that talk, but I didn’t care. I accomplished a bucket list item and celebrated it by hugging every single person backstage. Before I ate lunch, I took a moment for myself to realize just how far I’ve come. I was 26 at the time and 20-year-old me never would’ve filled out the TED talk application. 23-year-old me would’ve done it but, would’ve been mad that he had that many stuttering moments and that was the first impression many people had of him. At 26, I didn’t care what others thought. Over the past three years, I’ve watched it back numerous times and each time is an experience. Hearing myself stutter on a podcast was one thing, but watching myself stutter was different. The first couple of times I watched were, if I’m being honest, difficult and uncomfortable for me to watch. Over time, the difficulty and embarrassment faded. Now when I watch it, I think about of the parts of my talk that I forgot to say and how I talk a lot with my right hand. Unbeknownst to me, and the rest of the world, my podcast appearances and TEDxtalk helped me get comfortable with what was to come a few months later. 

2020 happened. Kobe died. COVID-19 entered our vocabulary.  Zoom no longer referred to that PBS show that aired back in the day. And masks were no longer things we only were on Halloween and Mardi Gras. As everyone knows, in person events were a no-go and virtual meetings became a way of life. That meant I used Zoom a lot for my guest lectures and other organizational meetings. Because of my constant Zoom use, I had to watch my stuttering moments in real time. It’s one thing for me to hear my stutter on a podcast or watch myself stutter after the fact such as my TEDx talk video. Watching my stuttering moments in real time was something different. If I’m being honest, it was embarrassing. It was the first time I actually saw my head jerks, my blocks, my head shifts, and my other secondary characteristics in real time. The people I was talking to knew I was a PWS and didn’t care, but still. My thought process was “if I’m embarrassed by this, then surely my audience is embarrassed for me as well.” As the months progressed and I got more use to Zoom, the embarrassment subsided and by July of 2020 I didn’t really care or focus on my stuttering moments. That helped me when I started playing online games of Survivor later that month. I was on many Skype calls with my tribe mates during the game.  While on call with them, I was more focused on what I was saying and if they were lying to me and not so much if I was stuttering or not. Over the past two years, Zoom calls are just a part of regular life and not something I stress over. All the lessons from the past few years all built up to my biggest adventure thus far. 

In August 2021, on a complete whim, I applied for the eight-day live reality game (LRG) Surviving Reelfoot. For those unaware, a LRG is a fan made and fan produced game typically based Survivor, The Mole, Big Brother, or a newly created game. These last one to eight days and take place in a park or someone’s private property. To my surprise, I made the cast and wondered what I got myself into. In June, I found exactly what I got myself into. I spent four days and nights in the Tennessee woods eating a couple hundred calories a day, living in the elements, not really sleeping, playing in several physically and mentally intense challenges, plotting against my fellow contestants, being in a constant state of stress and paranoia, and having the time of my life. If I didn’t do everything I previously mentioned, I never would have done this. This game was livestreamed on their Facebook page. This meant every stuttering moment, every secondary characteristic of stuttering, and every vulnerable moment would there for the world to see. I couldn’t hide behind a blog, a book, a podcast, or a Zoom call. My authentic self was on full display for all to see and here. And I didn’t care. After a while, I forgot we were being filmed. I finished in 12th place and was the first member of the jury, but that’s irrelevant. This is the most tangible sign of how far I’ve come on my journey with stuttering and how much I’ve grown as a person. My 20 year old self never would have agreed to do this for many reasons. The biggest being having his stutter live streamed for the world to see. Also, I did not want to admit being a PWS to myself, so why would I admit it to others? At 29, I disclosed immediately that I was a person who stutters and it was a non-issue (as it should be). For many reasons, my adventure was emotional for me. I celebrated my personal and team victories, I cried tears of joy and tears of sadness, I laughed over the dumbest things, and voiced my frustrations to the camera. 20 year old me would never have dared to show that much emotion around strangers, much less want those emotions recorded. At 29, I didn’t give a second thought to showing those emotions. During the reunion I also made sure to wear a shirt that says “It’s really(6x) ok to stutter (really)!” I knew many pictures were going to be taken that night and put on social media and I wanted to make sure others knew it was ok to stutter. That’s a shirt 20 year old me never would have worn, much less purchased. 23 year old me would’ve worn it, but with a sweatshirt over it. At 29, I made the conscious decision to wear that shirt and make sure the message was heard.

So, 20 year old James, do you believe me? At times I don’t believe it either, but it’s true. Because of you and 10 year old James I’m living the mantra “it’s ok to stutter.” I’m living that stuttering doesn’t define us but we define it. I’m living that the only thing holding us back from everything is us. If I’m being honest, the next ten years are difficult, but they’re pretty damn awesome. And isn’t this life better than the one you currently have in mind? I think it is.