Stuttering Mailbag: Answering Your Questions About Pride, Acceptance, and Beyond

Transcript

Maya Chupkov:

It I Maya chubkov and I'm a woman who stutters welcome to Proud stutter a Show about stuttering and embracing verbal diversity in an effort to change how we talk about it one conversation at a time.

Hello. Hello, welcome to a special mailback episode of proud stutter. It's the first episode where we'll be answering a few listener questions and by we I mean me it's just me today. But before we begin, I just have some updates to share on all the things going on with proud stutter.

Save the date for our first annual Gala which will be on Wednesday December 6th at the Fate in San Francisco. It will also be a community comedy event to raise awareness for stuttering and speech diversity will have a comedy show with the one and only Nina g and an art Showcase from proud stutter illustrators including a reading from proud studdard's new comic book by Indie ho

And we'll have remarks from supervisor Dean Preston. You might have remembered his name from all the amazing stuttering resolutions. He's done in San Francisco will have a silent auction with a lot of really cool prizes and much more.

All proceeds will go to the production of proud stutters Multimedia Audio documentary on Californians. Who stutter.

I want to shout out our amazing planning and Community for this event. We have Julian bernavides Sophie kensing John albach and Johnny Pina. Our next update is just wanted to shout out. We have a new reoccurring donor Pablo Mesa. I am so appreciative of all of proud stutters reoccurring donors Jonathan rice. Distin Wells John Compton Wing angry breast in Jen Bolin, Jay slap, Martha Horrocks and Ingo Helbig without your support proud stutter would just it wouldn't be possible. It's a labor of love and I'm just so grateful becoming a reoccurring donor is super easy. You can go to proudster.com/donate click on that button and it will take you to our flip cause account which

Allows you to make a tax deductible donation. You can also donate at the link in the show notes.

Your donation will go directly into producing the show and lifting up stuttering voices.

So I mentioned that our audio documentary will be on Californians whose stutter. Please drop me a note. If you live in California and want to be on that event list, we'd really love to start inviting people to all these California events. So, please

Let me know if you live in California info at proudstetter.com.

Alright, so you might have also seen that proud stutter is up for a signal listeners Choice Award for most inspirational podcast. Ah, I am just so excited about this.

I would really love your help to get proud starter to first place by voting at vote.signalaward.com and searching proud stutter or you can just click on the link in the show notes. I tested it. It takes two minutes. Thank you so much. Voting closes October 5th would really appreciate your vote and last but not least. I will be hosting an event by the brilliant Nina G where she will be releasing select clips from her new comedy film that event is on Saturday, October 14th coming right up at The New Parkway Theater in Oakland, and that's at 1:00 pm.

Alright, let's get into your questions. So before I dive in I just wanted to know that I'm going to be keeping these questions Anonymous. It wasn't very clear on whether or not people wanted me to say their names or not. So so yeah, I'm Gonna Keep the questions anonymous. And I also wanted to note that. These answers are from my personal experience. I am not a therapist or trained doctor or a nurse. This is really just coming from my own experience.

And most of the questions I'll be answering are about stuttering of course, but there are a couple that aren't that don't have to do with stuttering. So I'll start with those and then yeah, let's get into it. So our first question is what shows are you into right now?

I love talking about shows. So the two shows that I'm into right now is summer house, which is a Bravo reality TV show. I always need to be watching a reality show because it really helps with my mental health and just takes me out of like the craziness of my day. And then the second show that I'm super into is Ahsoka. I'm kind of a new Star Wars fan. I started out with watching Andor and then watch the Mandalorian and book of Boba Fett and now I'm on to Asoka. Those are the only Star Wars I've I've watched so it's kind of I'm kind of unique I guess in that way still haven't seen the films. I'll actually be talking about Ahsoka soon on the podcast trash compactor hosted by John Bernhard who also happens to stutter. So definitely check out that show.

Star Wars fan I've actually been on that show a few times talking about Andor and the Mandalorian. So alright. So the next question is what are your public speaking tips? What I'll say is it really helps me?

To break up what I want to say to Chuck chunks so I don't get overwhelmed. All right, so now we're getting into the stuttering questions. So first starting related question is how can I feel more comfortable with my stutter rather than try to be covert? So what has helped me is. Slowly opening up to people about my stutter it took several months for me to do this. And to be honest. I'm still not 100% comfortable. With my stutter, but I really started to turn a corner after opening up to people. and one of the things that I'm trying out is when I'm around friends or people I feel comfortable with Around stuttering with I when I start to stutter a block like when I'm literally experiencing it in real time. I've been stopping and saying something like I'm experiencing a block. Can you help me out and either?

I can say that the word after that or my friend help me say what I want to say. It actually really helps ease the pressure for me. and I used to be really annoyed when people finish my sentences, but now I'm but when I'm asking people to help me out, I feel more in the control and yeah, it just eases the pressure a little bit Alright next question.

How does one open up to their employer? or new employers about their stutter Who this is? This is a good one. So I've had so many jobs where I never disclosed my stutter and it was so hard because my job had so much to do with speaking to strangers and people kind of like higher up and And you might have heard that, you know, I used to work in PR and it was just really hard being a person who stutters in that world. So I totally feel that it's not an easy thing to open up to your employers about your stutter.

The first time I ever opened up about my stutter is in my current job, but I also felt that you know, my coworkers were very understanding. So I guess it's really up to you on whether or not you feel comfortable. opening up Like does the company organization have a diversity equity and inclusion statement on their website? That's usually a good indicator or if you have a co-worker you like and trust that might be a good place to start.

If you could get rid of your stutter, would you I think about this question all the time and my answers. No if it wasn't for my starter, I wouldn't be doing this podcast and I wouldn't have met all the amazing people who Stutter from around the world, but I do want to preface that by saying that I didn't always feel this way. I spent most of my life not liking my stutter and viewing it as my enemy something. I had it to be it wasn't until I started coming to terms and opening up about my stutter that I really started to appreciate all the things that It gave me and so we have a few more questions here. What are some areas of growth are setbacks in your acceptance Journey.

Do you still find it hard to be open about your stuttering? I still get very frustrated when I'm trying to say something, but it doesn't come out the exact way. I want to say it. Oh that is yeah. It's it's a constant frustration. I think it's because of the years I've trained myself to be covert and avoiding certain words and phrases. It's just a really hard thing to unlearn. and to just like stutter easier and yeah, so and also I've grown the most with being open about my stutter like I said before.

There have been so many moments where I've opened up about my study people. I've just met and they and then they go on to open up and it just it creates this space of deep connection and I think the vulnerability Factor really just

Once other people see you then they're able to kind of meet you where you're at. All right. Last question. What do you think about speech therapist? Who stutter?

I love speech therapists who stutter I think all y'all are incredible and I think more people who stutter should become speech therapists. We need you and who knows maybe. I'll do it. Someday. I don't think so. But but I definitely think that we need more and yeah, so please if you want to become a speech therapist and you stutter do it.

And yeah, that is all the questions. And thank you all so much for tuning in. We'll probably have another one of these. In a few months. So yeah think of your questions send them to me and I will see you next time and that's it for this episode of proud stutter. This episode of proud stutter was produced and edited by me my chupkov. Our music was composed by Augusto Denise in our artwork by Mara Ezekiel and Noah chukov.

If you have an idea or want to be part of a future episode visit us at www.proudstutter.com, and if you like the show, you can leave us a review wherever you are listening to this podcast want to leave us a voicemail check out our show notes for the number to call in more importantly tell your friends to listen to until we meet again. Thanks for listening be proud and be you.