Stuttering, Surfing, And Becoming A Speech Therapist

Transcript

[00:00:00] I'm Maya Chupkov, 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 Welcome back to proud stutter. I'm your host maya chupkov today. We have randy panzerino He's a stutter clinician researcher surfer and student of life.

Welcome randy to the podcast Hi, thank you so much for having me on. Yes. I'm so excited to have you here um, I think I first noticed you on instagram and You Realize that we both live in California and that you're a big surfer. And I just thought that [00:01:00] there's probably connection between your love of surfing and your stutter.

So wanted to have you on to talk more about that. But before we get into that, I just want to ask about, um, like what was your upbringing, like, like how was your stutter? Um, impacted on your childhood. I grew up in, um, um, Melbourne beach, uh, Florida, um, which is like a small town on the Eastern side of Florida, kind of near where they launch all the space, uh, stuff off, uh, um, and so I grew up, I was a pretty happy go lucky kid.

Um, and as I was kind of like dealing with my stuttering growing up, you know, I. It wasn't like the main focus of my life, but it was definitely causing me a lot of anxiety. And I was just kind of like an anxious kid. Um, and I remember [00:02:00] like when I was growing up, like I was always striving to get like straight A's in elementary school.

And I was staying up late doing homework and I would cry a lot. And I was just a very anxious child. And then there was kind of a point even in my childhood where I was like, you need to just, Cause this is just too much. Um, and I, I, and I kind of remember like my grade slipped a bit, but I was able to kind of cope with some of the anxiety.

Um, and then as I went into high school, um, you know, stuttering wasn't like the main thing, but it was definitely something that I was trying to conceal. Um, like I. Remember I was even on the, uh, um, um, morning announcements, you know, like when they play a little morning announcements and, um, I like didn't recall stuttering on that, [00:03:00] even though, so I was obviously able to.

I, my stutter pretty well, but looking back, I feel like everybody that I grew up with was totally aware that I stuttered. Um, so yeah, growing up through, um, childhood, uh, high school was amazing. I had a lot of friends. I was also a really short. kid. And even throughout high school, I was like, I think the shortest kid in my high school.

So it was just kind of like this happy go lucky kid who liked to joke around. And you went to the University of Central Florida for college. Um, how did your stutter show up then? Yeah, for sure. So I was always kind of interested in psychology. Um, you know, when I grew up, my family kind of had an interesting dynamic.

Um, my parents ended up getting, um, uh, [00:04:00] divorced, uh, when I was, uh, 15. Um, and so I really always had an interest in like, uh, human relationships. So I went to school for psychology and I was still kind of like avoiding confronting my stuttering. I was going out a lot. Um, and of course I stuttered, but it wasn't something that I was open about.

I didn't disclose to people that I stuttered. I actually was, um, supposed to do the morning announcements for my high school, but I ended up chickening out because I didn't want to like accidentally stutter on live TV. So that's kind of where our stories maybe are a little different. Difference so the fact that you did that is incredible and so brave and I just wanted to say that Um, but switching gears a little bit.

Um before we started [00:05:00] Before we started recording You mentioned there was a time in your life where you hit Um, can you talk about that more? I think like prior to hitting rock bottom, I had just never really confronted my stuttering and, um, kind of dealt with it in regards to the feelings and thoughts that I was having.

And I was still trying to hide my stuttering so much. And that was making me avoid different situations and things like that. But I think the main thing was like It was the end of my undergraduate degree in psychology and I was starting to apply for like actual jobs. And I'd always worked in restaurants and in hospitality and you speak a lot in those types of roles.

But for some reason, I just thought that I was never going to be able to hold like a, a job, like a, [00:06:00] like a, I'm a, I'm a corporate job or something. I remember I called my dad one night and I was like, yeah, like, I, I, I just. And I just confided in him, I just don't know what I'm going to do. And he kind of, he, he's always supported me, but he was able to get me into speech therapy at my university's clinic for, um, uh, communication, um, uh, disorders.

And so that's kind of where I made a lot of positive changes, but it was kind of that like early twenties. kind of story you hear where, when, uh, a lot of people who stutter, like enter the job market or whatever, and they haven't confronted their stuttering, they don't know how to navigate that. And that was kind of the rock bottom moment for me.

And then that was kind of like, okay, you're gonna go to speech therapy. Um, you're not going to [00:07:00] chicken out, like you're going to actually try this. And I think the main reason that I never wanted to go is just that anxiety that I had. And what did you do next? Because I, I imagine. Like once you hit rock bottom, like it's not like you all of a sudden are able to kind of get out of that So so yeah, what what I guess helped you come out from rock bottom I went to speech therapy at the University of Central Florida communication disorders Clinton Nick and essentially when you go to speech therapy at a clinic at a university, there's graduate students in training, and then there's a clinical supervisor who is like a more seasoned speech pathologist who oversees the, the students.

And so, um, my mentor, Dr. Charlotte, um, was the [00:08:00] clinical mentor there. And I remember that I would go, you know, work with the graduate students, but then always After the session, I would always talk to Charlotte, um, and we would go in her office and just have a chat and we became really good friends. Um, and then obviously the therapy intervention was very holistic and you know, it, it didn't really just target, um, things about my speech, but how I felt and the thoughts that I was having and reducing anxiety.

Essentially over time. I just became fascinated with stuttering and I've always been kind of introspective. So like, I feel like when I declared my first major in psychology, it was because I was very just like interested about my own life and things in my childhood. And so now I became fixated on this thing called stuff stuttering and I wanted to learn everything about it.

So I [00:09:00] started rereading all the, uh, grades, um, um, and I started, you know, learning a lot more about stuttering and just the field of speech pathology. And then essentially I went into her office one day and I was like, yeah, I think I want to become a speech language pathologist. And she's like, yeah. Yeah, I already knew that.

And I was like, all right, what do I do in X? And she's like, declare another major and, and, uh, come on in. So, Oh, I love that. Oh, that's getting me chills. That's so amazing. In your early research or maybe even the, the, any, any of the research you do now, is there anything like some, like something in your research that surprised you or that you thought was like really.

Interesting or something maybe like a lot of The public don't know [00:10:00] about stuttering. That's kind of like part of the research you did. Yeah. So I wrote undergraduate and master's theses, um, with my other mentor, Martine van Ryckahem. Um, And my undergraduate thesis related to looking at, um, the life partners of people who stutter.

It was part of a larger investigation, which a friend of mine who was a master's student at the time, um, kind of started, but, um, we essentially like administered a test to the person who stutters as well as their, um, a life partner to figure out the extent to which The life partner understands the amount of anxiety they have in different speaking situations, the amount of uttering or speech disruption they report in those same situations.

Or, [00:11:00] um, how they think about their speech or their, um, uh, communication attitude. Um, and what we found with that is that the life partner wasn't as much aware of the amount of anxiety or the amount of stuttering that they had. Um, report in different situations, but they were aware of how their partner thought about their speech or their speech associated attitudes.

So that was an interesting finding where kind of the life partner was in tune with their partner. Partners, uh, perception of their speaking ability and how they think about their speech. Um, and then with that particular investigation, the, um, a length of, um, a relationship duration did not have an effect.

On, um, the partner's, uh, ability to perceive that. So, um, [00:12:00] they were able to really become in tune with that quite quickly. And then as a graduate student, I did, um, a thesis in a study where I looked at psychological distress in people who stutter. And then I looked at, uh, relationships between affective behavioral and, uh, cognitive experiences of stuttering and how they relate to psychological distress.

And what did you find, um, like, yeah, what were your findings in your research? So we found that as a group, Um, people who stutter had similar levels of psychological distress compared to people who do not stutter. And, but we found a, a, a very psychologically distressed subgroup of people who stutter, um, But the amount of highly distressed, uh, people who [00:13:00] stutter kind of approximated, um, the amount of individuals just who do not stutter, who report to have any sort of mental health dysfunction.

So there's a lot of research out there that is kind of conflicted, that is kind of conflicting to people who stutter have generally more, um, mental health issues and people who do not. stutter and we found that, um, that was not the case. Um, and of course that this is looking at just general mental health.

We obviously know that social anxiety in people who stutter is greatly elevated when compared to people who do not. And then also related to that study, um, we essentially just, um, recorded, and it wasn't overly surprising, but Um, the things that influence [00:14:00] psychological distress include, um, speaking related anxiety, the person's reports of increased speech disruption across different scenarios, their, uh, communication attitude, as well as the extent to which they use different avoidance and escape behaviors.

Wow. I didn't even realize there was that much, much research around like, um, Like psychology and stuttering and also the life partner one before I, um, before I met you. And, um, how did you Recruit for these studies because there's not a lot of people who, I don't know, a lot of, I could maybe predict that it might be hard to find people who stutter out there in the world.

Yeah, no, definitely. Recruitment for studies for people who stutter [00:15:00] is difficult. Um, and I'm not like a full time researcher or anything, but I know there's a lot of really awesome universities and people out there that are doing some amazing research. And, um, it's definitely hard to recruit people who stutter and it's also.

It tends to be the people who stutter that engage in research are also a part of the stuttering community or involved in stuttering support groups or are receiving treatment. Um, so that's definitely an area that I know is Kind of an issue is, um, researchers want to study those types of people who stutter, but also those individuals who stutter, who are out there, who do not engage with the stuttering community.

And that's also kind of a topic that I've had a lot of discussions with recently with [00:16:00] people where, um, and that could be a whole different podcast, honestly, but the amount of people who stutter that do not engage with the stuttering community is. So when you were talking about your up breaking, upbringing, you mentioned you, um, you, um, were, you grew up in Florida.

which is a very like beachy, beachy state. And now you live in California near the beach. So, um, so I think that's a good segue into talking about, um, how, like, how you, like, you're, you surf, you're a surfer and how that plays into stuttering and maybe some of your other Activities, like, it sounds like you grew up being really close to the water, so would love to, to talk to you about, about that.

[00:17:00] Yeah, so I grew up in Melbourne Beach, which is, uh, on a, uh, uh, a, uh, barrier. I, I I island, um, in a lot of the eastern side of the country is a barrier island where it's like a piece of land and then there's an intracoastal and then there's the main land. So where I grew up, it was like a. Five minute walk to the beach in a five minute walk to the river.

Um, so I had a boat growing up. My dad had a boat, pretty much everybody had a boat, you know, we would go fishing and diving. And then we grew up surfing and going to the beach, um, and just doing all other, um, uh, um, uh, water sports, like you would imagine. So I really grew up on the water, took up surfing at a pretty early age.

Um, and then there's a really cool surf culture there in Melbourne Beach, [00:18:00] a lot of really, you know, famous surfers are from Brevard County, which is the county that I grew up in. So I can, I competed as a child and as a teenager, I was on my high school surf team. Um, And then I also, um, competed, uh, in college as well.

And it's always just been a favorite pastime of mine. I've been on a lot of trips to different places to go surfing. And then, uh, two years ago. A little more than two years ago, I decided I wanted to try something new. So I applied for jobs here in California. And then, um, I got a job with the school district here.

And, uh, I was like, and my bro, and my brother lives here as well. So I was like, yeah, so I was like, well, I like [00:19:00] surfing and I like the beach and I want to try somewhere new. So California makes the most sense. That's awesome. How did surfing kind of intersect if at all with your, your stutter? Yeah, it's like my, it's like my escape, you know, like I go out there, you don't really need to talk to anybody when you're surfing, it's not like you're going to paddle out and somebody is going to like paddle up to you and be like, Hey, who are you?

What's your name? You know, it's, if you don't want to talk to people, that's fine. If you do, that's fine as well. Usually if you're talking to people. When you're surfing, you're not really like catching a lot of waves. So, you know, if the waves are super good, you're usually not talking much at all. You're just paddling for different waves.

And, um, so maybe it was something like that where it's like, it was a place where if I wanted to talk, I could, but I didn't really need to. Um, [00:20:00] but surfing's always just been like a great escape for me. Um, and, um, like just kind of navigating being a person who stutters in the surfing world. You know, I still felt some anxiety, like going to surf contests, or I've always thought about like, what if they like interview me or after the heat or something like that?

Um, but yes, surfing is definitely like my, my main hobby. Um, and, uh, I think like when, I think we all have like a great escape where it's like that, like for me, it's like that thing where when I go, go, go to sleep at night. To like relax myself I just think about like I'm surfing like a I'm just like, s surfing, and like, it's really easy for me to think about, and it helps me fall asleep.

It sounds like you are now [00:21:00] very engaged with the stuttering community, and so I, so I know you're part of like a few organizations. Where do you kind of see The stuttering worlds moving towards or like what it's how it's evolving. Yeah. I mean, in regards to, um, uh, research, you know, like. Pendulum swings is something that, um, you might've heard and people, I feel like, um, the age old kind of research question in the stuttering world is like, do we work on our speech or do we work on accepting our stuttering?

It seems like it's definitely swung towards the acceptance piece. Um, and for really good reason. I mean, people who stutter have. Been discriminated against and for so long, and there's been a lot of people that have [00:22:00] received some really damaging therapy that only focused on their speech. But, um, I think a lot of the research nowadays is looking at that acceptance piece and looking at different therapy interventions that don't really as much target any sort of speech behavior, but just work on the feelings and the attitudes, um, and really validating it.

uh, treatment interventions that focus on the psychosocial variables are as effective or more effective than working on any sort of speech. Um, but you know, there's so many walks of life with stuttering and kind of like you alluded to before, like, I wonder if that's also a reason why a lot of people don't engage in the stuttering support community because maybe they're the way that they deal with their stuttering is [00:23:00] different than what's advertised with a lot of stuttering support groups.

Are there other ways that we can in, in power people to, you know, help them come to terms with their stutter beyond support groups that you feel would be helpful? I'm not, yeah, I'm not really sure. You know, I just think it's, It's pretty staggering that so many people do stutter don't engage, but I actually, um, two friends of mine, um, we did a presentation at the World Congress, uh, stuttering and cluttering in Austin, Texas, recently, and it was looking at, How do we increase stuttering support group participation?

And we kind of just had kind of like activities for the [00:24:00] participants who attended the presentation. We kind of had activities for them to do and we kind of learned a lot from them.

One of the things that they mentioned is like they, they only came to find stuttering support, um, mainly through a friend or through an SLP who kind of held their hand and brought them into the community. So some of the main barriers were things like anxiety and shame. Um, and then another big theme was that they didn't really like the term stuttering support group.

They thought it was kind of like pathologizing. Um, so there's certainly a lot of factors that are kind of. Barriers to bringing people in. But, um, I would, I just, it breaks my heart because like, once you get the person into the stuttering world, they almost always report like, Oh my God, this is amazing. [00:25:00] Um, so I don't know if like maybe bigger organizations need to like, do like mass marketing campaigns and spend funds there to where like, There's billboards and there's just, you know, how do we draw people in?

But I just want them to come in, obviously, because I want them to experience what we're experiencing, which is like the magic of when two people start to get together and chat, you know? Yeah, no, definitely. And yeah, I feel like there's just so many layers to why. People don't engage, like even if it's right in front of their face, it's like, no, thanks.

You know, that's just, there's so many levels of emotion. That, yeah, like, so, I think, yeah, I definitely agree that we need to keep trying different ways to reach people. We can't just rely on the same things we've been doing, but to just be really [00:26:00] creative. And have a mix of everything like billboards, just like me, like better media representation, just like everything, just everything.

We need to try everything. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. I think a large component that I've been big on just, and it relates to my own experiences, but I think.

Shame is a large component where, and I want to learn more about shame, but I know that shame is, Something where when you feel shame, you tend to not talk about it. And as far as my journey, it's like, I knew that there was help out there. Um, but I never engaged with any sort of stuttering support until we're really until after that.[00:27:00]

experience like I had mentioned, um, but it's like, why didn't I just punch in on the internet stuttering or stuttering? And then probably the NSA or some sort of stuttering support group would have popped up somewhere. But I think I was really shameful about it. And I was just not open willing to open the black box and be like, And just, I was just not going to even go down that road.

I think part of everyone's journey coming to terms with their stutter, whether they like go to speech therapy, engage in a support group, listen to a podcast, like watch a TV show. I don't know, like there's so many ways you can start coming to terms with your stutter. Um, but I think like there's this experience of really looking at yourself in like a really real way, even though it can be really hard.

Um, and I know like you've experienced that [00:28:00] journey and, um, yeah, I think that there's like this on the authenticity, um, part of stuttering where it's like, once you like really start coming to terms with your stutter, there's this like, Authenticity that's almost like unleashed within you. And so I know that's like a really important topic for you.

So we'd love to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, yeah. I think, I think the first place that I really started thinking about this was I was a camp counselor at Camp Say, which is a, a summer camp for kids who stutter. And it was my first year as a, as a counselor there. And I was just in this freeing place where everybody was so accepting.

Everybody was [00:29:00] given, um, so much dignity and respect and time to speak. And I noticed that in that context, I start, I felt so good and I was trying new things. And I was just really being my most authentic self. And it just kind of proved that within the context of society and stigma and kind of like managing our, our, uh, what people think of us and things like that.

Um, I, I wasn't being as authentic as I wanted to, as I was, I can't say. And I feel like more authentic just in general, when I am talking to another person who stutters, or if I'm even talking about stuttering, because it's something that I'm, I have to be vulnerable about. And obviously like, you know, stuttering is [00:30:00] something that we could choose to hide.

So when we let our stuttering out, we're being vulnerable. Um, there's a lot of really amazing stuff. By Chris Constantino about this, where, um, where essentially we're able to be more intimate with the person that we're talking to, because we're sharing this vulnerable part of ourselves and we're kind of inviting them in to be more vulnerable and.

When we have conversations with people and we stutter openly and we share this part of ourselves, we have deeper connections. So that's the main thing that we can gain from stuttering. Um, and it's my hope that all people who stutter realize that as well as people who do not stutter, but I also have learned that.

Just people in general throughout the lifespan, authenticity seems like a general theme that people [00:31:00] tend to eventually adopt. And some people adopt it sooner than others. Um, some people live very shallow lives where they're interested in things and they're in, in the conversations that they have don't seem to me have a lot of meaning, but then they, you know, try to be more authentic in.

Really just be who they want to be and stop worrying about what other people think. And I think for people who stutter, we learn about this sort of theme early on because our stutter is what gets us there. So that's kind of the main thing that I'm thankful for in regards to my stutter. Yeah, I, I completely agree.

Like, I feel like that moment when I really just. Like went to the root, the root cause of everything. I was [00:32:00] like, yeah, it's my stutter. And, and then the, and then everything changed after that in a, in a positive way. So yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, that's the reason I do this podcast is because you never know who's going to type in stutter.

And Apple podcasts or Spotify and, you know, take that first step. Um, so yeah. Yeah. Well, this was such a great conversation, Randy. Thank you so much for, um, giving us your time. It's 8 00 AM. Pacific time where each of us are at right now. So very early, but I think we did a great job. So, um, thank you so much for sharing so openly.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for having me on. And thank you for all you do, um, for the stuttering community. Um, I, I've listened to a few episodes of the Proud Stutter [00:33:00] podcast. Just listen to the John Stossel one, which I thought was amazing, because it seems like it's You're definitely re reaching like, um, all, all these different people.

And, um, and I'm also really excited to see the documentary as well. So I'd love to continue to just. Be friends and let me know if there's anything I can do in regards to your mission because I think it's amazing.

And that's it for this episode of Proud Stutter. This episode of Proud Stutter was produced and edited by me. Maya Chupkov. Our music was composed by Augusto Diniz and our artwork by Mara Ezekiel and Noah Chupkov. 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 [00:34:00] 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 too. Until we meet again, thanks for listening. Be proud and be you.