October 1st, 2015

Post date: Nov 6, 2015 1:52:31 PM

Last night we had a "late September" meeting of the Eastern Maine NSA Chapter. " Late September" because our September meeting didn't happened until Oct. 1st !   It was a great turn out for us with 7 people in attendance at Dysart"s Restaurant/Truck Stop:  5 PWS (Chris, Claustin, Natalie, Mike and myself) and two spouses (Jane, Vanessa).  It was great to welcome Vanessa to her first meeting.  We spent a lot of time with our round robin talking as each of us had important news or concerns to share.  These topics included 1) stuttering a lot during the visit of an old high school friend, 2) having to deal with many phone calls and "house maintenance arrangements" when getting ready to head south for the winter, 3) dealing with more stuttering as a new retiree and seeking new roles as a "speaker", 4) coming to terms with the inconsistency of stuttering but now having hope that, even in bad cycles of stuttering, less stuttering, less severity will come around, and 5) sharing good news of increased self esteem , along with more acceptance of stuttering....that they can co-exist  !  AND...good news of being recruited for higher paying jobs with more responsibility!   So...all great topics, each of which could have taken up the whole meeting.  As it was we slowed down by about 8:15 and so I brought up the topic of the recent StutterTalk episode (www.stuttertalk.com) about  " The Problem with Fluency".  In this episode there is a great discussion between Peter Reitzes and Chris Constantino about using the "term" fluency...when "stuttering" is a better term.  Does using the term "fluency"  lead us to more focus on fluency rather than accepting stuttering and moving on with its management.   The discussion on StutterTalk also went to the extreme position that stuttering is  "so much okay" that working towards better fluency, speech therapy, etc.  is, in this view,  disrespecting who you are.      So, this is a hot topic !! and we all had our opinions....mostly towards the middle ground I think!   Too much talking/ too many nuances of opinion for me to summarize !  But...it's a great topic to toss around at a meeting !!

Finally, we never did get to the activity I had planned, a discussion of time pressure.  So, that will keep for next Meeting.