In the Eye: Interview Part 1

I decided to interview my little sister about stuttering, thinking I would get a couple of good quotes to share. However, after recording and then transcribing her answers, I was forced to edit and cut until I felt like only fragments remained... and yet... there were still three pages of 12-point text left standing. So, here is Part 1 of many more to follow:

My precious sister and her precious sugar

Me: When was the first time your stuttering became noticeable? How old were you?

Isabel: I started stuttering when I was three years old.

Me: How have your peers reacted to your stutter over the years?

Isabel: Often people will finish my sentences, just ‘cuz that’s an automatic thing to do. A hard thing when I'm speaking with my friends or people at school is that they won’t look me in the eye and I hate that. Because I hate thinking that I'm making people feel uncomfortable. Because it’s not like I can do anything about it.

What made me especially sad is when I went to the stuttering conference and when people stuttered it made me feel uncomfortable and I was like, "if I feel that way, what are other people feeling? I am a stutterer and it even makes me feel uncomfortable!" It blew my mind. It was worse than I ever dreamed of it being, being on the other side of it. I’d never had that experience before.

I think that whenever I'm introduced in any new situation, people have a hard time adapting to it. It was fun, in a sad way, to ask my friends what they thought on my very first day [of middle school], when they heard me talk for the first time… I had answers like “I thought that you were making fun of the teacher” or “I thought that you were having a seizure” or many varied answers that just cracked me up because of how sad it was honestly.

I was nervous about introducing myself for the first time at [school]. I have a hard time with saying my name, as everyone who stutters does. I bet half the world thinks my name is Belle now because that's just the first thing that comes out. And you know what? So my name’s Belle. I don’t like having to change it. That’s not my name. But it’s my name to them now because I couldn’t say it.

Whenever we would play those icebreaker games, where you would all sit in a circle, and then the teacher would come around, they were terrible. Because every single time it would come down to me I thought “I'm gonna throw up!” Like one of those horrifying 3-2-1 countdowns when you're on a rollercoaster. And every single time everyone would stop and stare at me! And I was thinking “nothing’s going to come out, you're just going to have to deal with it.” And that was hard. 

And I hate reading out loud books in class. I hate when I get the long parts. When I'm reading out loud, it’s really bad. I try doing things like tapping my foot and that can work some days, but some days it doesn’t. And presentations are hard. Especially since some days I don’t stutter one time and sometimes I can’t even speak. It’s like I'm a mute person. There's nothing coming out. Or I stutter on every single word. When I stutter more than usual, people always look at me ‘cuz they’re not used to it. Then I get more stressed out because I know that they’ve noticed that I'm stuttering more and I keep stuttering and then I think “this is never going to come out.”

When we’re in big groups it’s hard because these days all teenagers are just so fast. Even the kids who can say the things they want to say have a hard time getting a word in. And then here’s me and I think of something really funny and then it’s passed, you know? If I said it, it wouldn’t even have to do with the conversation at all.

Me: How does the general public tend to react to your stutter?

Isabel: Often they’ll look away from me because I think that when kids are little and they see someone that isn’t like everyone else, that’s disabled at all, always their parents tell them “don’t stare; don’t stare because it’s rude.” So I think that’s one of the reasons why when I stutter, people just look away automatically- like, everyone that I’ve ever met. They don’t even look at me.

Sometimes the general public is mean. I’ve experienced so many times when people ask “did you forget your name?” I hate that one. They think they’re just joking about it… saying things like that, making a joke, or mimicking.

I don’t like to call stuttering a disability, but I’m going to do it here. I don’t find it fair that stuttering is a disability that people find is socially acceptable to joke about. That stupid Porky Pig in those cartoons! Every single time I hear the audience laugh, I’m like “shut up!” You know? Would they have a person with [another type of disability] up on the screen and have them laugh at them? No, no one would ever do that because it’s considered rude. And horrible actually. But it’s happening with stuttering and it makes it so that when I go out into the public people are laughing at me and it’s a joke. That doesn’t seem fair. 

Repetition

A phenomenal video that everyone should watch. Phil Kaye's performance of "Repetition:"

Behind the Name

“Seconds Flat:” a name that I almost want to leave standing on its own so that whatever vision creeps into the reader’s mind is exactly what it’s supposed to mean. However, the need to present my intended purpose is just as pressing.

It started with lines from a Beatles song: “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, found my way downstairs and drank a cup, and looking up, I noticed I was late. Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus in seconds flat.” To me, the lyrics paint a picture of the constant chaos that is life. In fact, the very title of the song, “A Day in the Life,” seems to speak to that. We’re born into a rushed world, a world where we are shuffled and spun from one moment to the next and can barely grab hold of the seconds that slip by us.

It is a world that shows no mercy for pause.

But there are times when my little sister can feel like her world is pieced together by nothing but pauses. Pauses that are foreign to an unfamiliar ear, pauses that are absent of the voice that is expected. Pauses that sound like seconds flat.

And so the name is given another meaning. My little sister is 15 years old, hilarious, and possesses a deeply caring heart. She is also a person who stutters. I want to share her story, and the story of people who stutter everywhere. I want to be a connection between people without much information and those who have mountains to share. I want to make sure every second is measured by love and not impatience. I want to tell you about seconds flat.

"Waste Land"

(Note: Unrelated to stuttering, but still important!)

“It’s not a pretty place… unless you look from far away.”

These were the words spoken by Vic Muniz in the film “Waste Land” as he looked out over the landscape of Rio de Janeiro. Though the Brazilian city is famous for its vacation paradises, it is also home to Jardim Gramacho, one of the largest garbage disposal sites in the world. Muniz set out on a mission to spend time there, learn about the people, and embark on another one of his creative projects that combine art and social issues.

While watching the stories of the people living there unfold, I began to feel more and more attached to them and their futures. I started to root for the pickers, who earn their living by collecting recyclables from the waste. I cried for the 18-year-old mother of two who threw up after seeing a dead child in the heaps of trash. I respected the choice that people made to work there, over prostitution or starvation, despite the difficulties and hardship that came with it.

These people live with rats while I watched them from a flat-screen TV inside the library of a school that is offering me an education that most of them could only dream of. I watched men pick up books out of the trash like treasure, while the shelves of literature surrounding me only solidified the message that was pouring from each story shown: I do not appreciate all that I have. And beyond that- I am naïve to what most of the world lacks.

I finished the film feeling motivated to change that, in every way possible. I need to appreciate and utilize all the opportunities that I have; I must educate myself on the situations of others. There are countless places that look pretty from far away. Now is the time to start looking closer.

(To watch the film, search for “Waste Land” in your Netflix instant queue)