Self Help Experiences

Stephen Greene

Hi All
My name is Stephen Greene and im the present chairman of the Irish Stammering Association.

I started this thread to find out peoples experience of self help groups and to get some feedback on what is working well in their self help groups and areas that could be improved on.

I believe a strong and vibrant self help movement is essential for positive change and awareness for the community affected by stammering.

I am looking forward to hearing the experiences of my fellow stammerers

Thanking You

Stephen Greene

Stephen Greene

I would like to share with you my own experience. I was in my early 30's and had therapy as a child and in my teens. I had got to the stage in my life where I felt that my stammer was holding me back on a social and work basis.

I had grown tired of not being able to say what I wanted to say and avoiding words and situations. I looked into what was out there and I found that there was a selfhelp group in Dublin being run by the Irish Stammering Association.

I remember that I was very nervous about going to the meeting, as I had never really being around other people who stammered. My sensitivity of my own stammer was so that I would find it hard to be in the same company of another person who stammered as I would have to confront my own feelings of guilt and shame I had in relation to my own stammer.

However my first meeting was a very positive one. The disclosure of “hello my name is Stephen Greene and I stammer” to a group of strangers was a very powerful one as I had spoken to my family and close friends about my stammer before but never to anyone else. I soon realised I was not alone, here was a group of people like me living with a stammer.

I admit that it was uncomfortable at the first few meetings listening to people who were struggling with their speech, but as I got to know these people you start to see beyond the stammering and see the courage of the person, who although having such difficulty with their speech had made the effort to attend the meeting and talk about how they were feeling about their speech and how they were getting on with their life.

The self-help group helped me to explore my own stammering. I had used ever trick in the book to avoid stammering and it was within the safety of the group I could start to identify what I was doing to avoid stammering.

More importantly I was able to talk to the group about how I felt when I avoided situations and words. I could now draw on the experiences of my fellow members and you do feel a lot better when you can share painful experiences it gives you the permission to start letting go of the feelings of guilt and shame.

The selfhelp group was open to anyone who stammered and I felt this was very important as we had people from various different therapy programmes and people like myself who had not been in therapy since my teens. It was a gateway for me to explore the different options in therapy that were out there. It was important for me to realise that the self-help group was not a therapy group where I could go and get my speech sorted but a group where I could explore how I felt about my stammer and work on such areas as self-esteem.

I did find a therapy programme that suited me and I went on to become a self-help leader in Dublin and now down in Waterford. I know I would not have ended up as Chairman of the Irish Stammering Association if I did not find the courage to attend that first selfhelp meeting.

This is my story.

Thank You.
Stephen Greene