Our Members

Meet Marybeth Allen! 

One of the fantastic co-leaders of the Maine Chapter of the National Stuttering Association.

    So…what to say about me!  I don’t remember a time when I didn’t stutter!   I have strong memories of events in public school…sitting in classrooms being very anxious about being “called on”, not raising my hand even though I knew most of the answers, and the stares of peers and teachers in the midst of some good stuttering speech!   I even had an 8th grade science teacher who told me to “sit down and let someone else answer if I couldn't spit it out”.    Being a sensitive child and wanting to “be normal and accepted”, wanting to just “be like everyone else”, I learned early on to try hard to “not stutter”.  I think I was a pretty good “covert stutterer” and so I “tip toed” through life: ever vigilant, ever changing words, sentences and removing myself from situations/opportunities where speech was required.   I did have 4 good speech therapists in junior high, high school and even college.  They all worked from different theoretical approaches of “stuttering therapy” , and so I got exposed to accepting stuttering as a fact of life, and speech techniques to either produce fluency or  to “manage and reduce severity/tension” in my stuttering.  BUT…the real fear of stuttering, the fear of being “found out”, the fear of not always being accepted because of my speech, the fear of being judged as “abnormal”, held me back.  It held me back from some life choices and challenges because it seemed that fluent communication /speech was usually a necessary ingredient.  And of course, the fear of stuttering also held me back from actually “using and practicing” the speech therapy strategies (which do work if you can use them!) because, of course you needed to get out there in the real world and actually “talk” and therefore be willing to “stutter” in order to practice and become competent and confident in using those “speech tools”.    But, despite it all, I made it through elementary school, junior high, high school, college,  marriage, graduate school in chemistry, and motherhood all while being “accomplished, having friends, good social times etc.”.  But it was all on the surface.  It was always at the cost of vigilance and anxiety that I would get into long, hard stutters and be “found out”.   No matter what I did, I typically felt I could have “done better”.  

    Well…amazingly here I am, today at this point in my life.  Yikes!!  I’m 68 years old!    Stuttering doesn’t hold me back…much!!   I’m fairly “fluent” most of the time, and yet I “stutter”, and acknowledge it when I do.    (Wow! I wish I could go back in time and knock some sense into the child/teenager/young adult that I was).   I went back to school when I was 40 years old and earned a second master’s degree, this one in Communication Sciences and Disorders.  I founded and co-lead the E. Maine Chapter of the NSA and am now a speech-language pathologist with a specialty certification in “Fluency Disorders”.  I’ve recently retired from a 15+ year career as part-time clinical faculty at University of Maine, during which I’ve given many lectures and “public presentations”.  Not to mention actually working with many other stutterers, helping them to, in fact, “acknowledge and accept that you indeed stutter!” 

    How did this transformation happen??   Well, I think the “recovery of me” happened as I lived my life.  At some point after I married, I tuned into my burning desire to “be who I really was”.    And so I struggled and strove and took on the challenges that led me there.   Along the way, I was a wife of a physician who often had to act like a “single parent” due to my husband’s hours and schedule, I raised 4 children, I taught college level chemistry and science, I worked in biochemical research labs, I moved and “relocated the household and family” three times, I volunteered for many organizations, I went back to grad school in communication sciences disorders, and established a career as a speech language pathologist.  And yes, so many times stuttering got in my way and I despaired…but just as often, I rose to the challenge and “did it anyway”.  In sum, over all those years of “dealing with the real life, I took the risks that those life opportunities presented me.  I went ahead and “communicated” in many different ways on texts that I would never ever had willingly sought out!  And, even though I stuttered, I gradually realized I was “doing okay” in those challenges, despite the fact that I still stuttered.  I could begin to allow myself to stutter and to be okay with me.  And with an increasing acceptance of my stuttering, then I could call upon all those speech therapy lessons/speech tools and actually begin to put some of them to use.  So I gradually came to realize that I was living my life “successfully”,  doing and being who I wanted to be, even though I stuttered…but could now also feel good about “working on my stuttering” instead of hiding and denying it !  Another major help in my new perspective towards stuttering was my Christian faith that also seemed to “mature” at about the same time. I knew that if God loved me as I was, then that's all that mattered and I could learn to “care less” about those listeners who might be judging my speech!!!   In addition, the support of my husband, who actually convinced me go back to school, was also instrumental!  He affirmed that I HAD made much progress over the years with managing stuttering and believed that I had a lot to teach and to give to others!  Finally, the actual studying and learning about the speech mechanism, the theories of stuttering, the development of persistent stuttering, helped me to be even more objective, and able to self-monitor my speech as I practiced and used speech tools.  I learned that I could be objective and “feel what was going on proprioceptive-ly” and work, in the moment of the stutter, to modify it.   It was every single one of these things... just as it takes a “whole village to raise a child”, it took a major part of my lifetime, God, my husband, a few supportive speech therapists and professors, and my own striving to be myself…to get me , thankfully, to where I am now.  I like it here.

Meet Ravi, a member of the Maine Chapter of the National Stuttering Association.

Please read what Ravi has to share regarding his stuttering journey so far...

    My name is Ravi Patil. I started stuttering at the age of 10. I had some speech therapy when I was a teenager. But, it did not help a lot because most of the therapy was focused on the performance in the therapy room rather than the outside world. I had no option other than to continue with stuttering. My stuttering led to low self-esteem, low confidence, reduced social life and several rejections in job interviews. However, at the age of 25, I happened to get access to a good speech therapy service. My speech therapists worked with me to understand the speech mechanism, ways to control my stutter and negative feelings. The most important thing that they taught me is to how to take speech therapy techniques out of the therapy room to the outside world. The key is to use techniques in a situation starting from the most easiest one followed by the difficult ones as you go along. As of this writing, I still work on my speech everyday and hope it will continue to improve. 

Natalie Bragan attended her first National Stuttering Association (NSA) Conference in July 2014.  Here is a little of what she had to say post-conference:

    To be honest, I really was not sure what to expect going into the NSA conference in 2014. I went because it was so close and I had heard so many wonderful things, I figured this was the time to experience it for myself. The event was so foreign, I had never experienced anything remotely like it.

    I walked into the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. with quite a bit of personal shame, embarrassment and genuine hurt because of my stutter, not realizing I still had so much to let go of. The NSA conference and most importantly the people, melted away a good portion of those feelings. I've never stuttered with such abandon in my life, nor realized it was so therapeutic. But I am so grateful for the extended support system I've gained through the NSA and this conference.

    The NSA brought out the courage and confidence I probably had all along, but was hiding behind the fear. Meeting all of the amazing members of the NSA, stuttering and non-stuttering alike, was an amazing experience. The people I met are brilliant, beautiful, courageous, funny, and most of all, outwardly stuttering without apparent fear. It didn't matter if they were scared or not, it was confidence that they exuded and that got me thinking, “How can they do this so openly and I won't?” Not “can't”, but “won't”. The first time, I stuttered in front of an NSA'er at the conference, I didn't feel the level of shame that I typically felt; it was fading fast and only continued to melt as the conference went on. Complete freedom is the only way I can describe it or at the least the best way. (Being a walking thesaurus because of my stutter and circumlocution, I could probably think of a lot of ways to describe it, but I digress.)

On the flight back to Maine, I met my "seat-mate", Janet, an older lady on vacation to Maine. We talked the entire hour and a half trip back to Maine, discussing our lives, family, travel and most importantly the NSA. Before this trip, I would not have spoken to this woman, except in short, flippant, meaningless sentences that were above all “easy” to say without stuttering. For the first time, I could carry on a conversation with a stranger without the fear that I would stutter and “give myself away”.

    We were helping each other in different ways, she (being a nervous flyer) needed the conversation and I (being a person who stutters) needed to initiate it. I stuttered before she knew I was a person who stutters and I STILL didn't feel ashamed. I told her about the NSA and that I am a person who stutters part way through the conversation and I did so without that pressure in my chest or emptiness in my gut. The NSA conference gave that to me and it was because of the people (you know who you are).

    From the bottom of my heart, thank-you. Thank-you to Tammy Flores (Executive Director of the NSA) and generous donors that made it possible for me to attend and to the amazing people that I had the pleasure of meeting while at the conference. I owe all of you a debt that I hope to repay in spades to the NSA and other people who stutter.

    Thank-you for reading and taking an interest in me and the NSA. For more information please visit http://www.westutter.org/.