July 28th, 2016

Post date: Jul 31, 2016 8:26:30 PM

The E. Maine Chapter met last night with a nice group of 4 PWS (me, Natalie, Claustin, Mike) and 1 spouse (Jane).  First we had several announcements!  YES..the Sept. 17th Adult Workshop in Portland is a go!!  We reviewed the day's agenda and we will hopefully reach out to all other New England NSAers and Canadians, to make the trek to Maine in September!  We will have three separate break out workshops, a separate session for spouses/significant others/family, and we'll also watch and discuss the Academy Award winning documentary "Stutterer".  We're excited to have two of our own as presenters (Chris Marshall and Nancy Hall) along with two amazing, dynamic gals from Boston (Sarah Onofri and Jess Giuffre) who will be leading the individual sessions. It will be held on the campus of USM....stay tuned for the brochures and registration information.  Spend the weekend and hit the Old Port wonderful restaurants and sites/museums/shops for the rest of the weekend!

Other news is that an SLP Continuing Ed study group will be inviting us to come speak with them about the experience of stuttering this coming year.  They meet on five different Wednesday afternoons at Dysart's throughout the year.  More details and dates to follow.

Natalie is also going to gear us all up to participate in a Maine Chapter "Google Hangout"...so we can have a second "virtual meeting" each month.  This will help all of us who are not always able to make the trip up to Dysart's each month.  She will be posting more information on our website and also send out more directions about how to go join in, dates and times!  As our Maine members get used to this format, we will find that there are other places to go in cyberspace!  There are other stuttering Google Hangouts (etc.) that we could join in on that are national in scope, i.e. Stutter Social meets three times/week on various days and times.  

Mike also shared the concept of Podcasts and discussed Podcast catcher apps that help organize your favorite ones on your phone.  Most notably, we talked about StutterTalk as being a great podcast that you can download and listen to a whole slew of stuttering related topics and speakers.  

Finally...discussions!!  We all checked in with how we were doing since last meetings.  All the major topics seemed to simply center around "learning to be comfortable with and accepting of stuttering".  How hard is that!!  All chimed in on this and where we all were along the journey.  There was certainly a continuum among us... as is probably present among the whole NSA membership.  A frustrating realization that we discussed last night is that... even when by ourselves or even when seemingly very relaxed and feeling ok to stutter... that stuttering will often still find a way to stick it to us!  So it does prove the point that the glitch really IS part of our neurophysiological makeup... and we will always be "dealing with it".  However, Claustin remembered our discussion of the Stuttering Hexagon from last meeting and reflected that when we are in "balance, equilibrium, harmony"... then stuttering can be easy and just "blends in"!