Hi everyone! My name is Isabel, and I am a person who stutters! I developed my stutter at the age of 3, and unlike most people, who stutter when they are children and quickly grow out of it, overtime it began clear that I was one of the 3 million cases in the world that would carry my stutter with me for my entire life. Try to imagine my devastation when I was told "Sorry, but there is no cure for stuttering." From the age of 3 I was branded with a mark that made me different, a blemish that made me stand out from the crowd. And this mark could not be hidden.
I feel that I need to pause for a bit to clarify, for the readers that may be confused, what stuttering really is. No, it is not caused by emotional issues. And NO, it is not a “nervous” problem. Stuttering is not caused by anxiousness, though it is affected by it. Stuttering is a communication disorder involving disruptions, or “disfluencies” in a person’s speech. Part of me hates that definition, because stuttering is so much more than that to me. It is a huge part of my daily life. Stuttering decides what I will order at Starbucks, whether or not I’m going to hang out with my friends today, whether I’m going to pick up the phone, and whether or not I’m going to talk to that one boy that I like.
“What is your name?” I hated asking it, and I hated it being asked to me. I’ve always thought how unfair it is that my biggest weakness is out there for the world to see. I sometimes try to cover it up, using the thousands of techniques that I have been taught at a thousand speech therapy sessions, which I had gone to for a thousand years. But once that question has been asked there is absolutely nothing that I can do. They will see my face contort as I try to squeeze out “I-I-I-I-Isabel S-S-S-Szilagyi”, and I will see the look of confusion and discomfort written all over their face when I finally finish and look up from my shoes. And that will only cause me to stutter more. It is an endless cycle that I will never escape from.
The world we live in is an impatient one, and it is constantly looking for points of weakness. When I entered elementary school, there was no hope for me to emerge unscathed. I quickly learned that, for me, kindness and patience was not only hard to come by, but close to non-existent in the elementary world. No amount of therapy sessions will help me deal with all the times that I was told to spit it out, or asked what was wrong with me. During my elementary years, the majority of the kids would not speak to me or look at me other than to mock me or push me around. I only had a couple of best friends, but that was all I needed. They didn't care if I had a stutter, and their kindness and patience meant so much to me.
I finally moved to a choice school in 6th grade to get away from the bullying, but I could never escape from it, and middle school started out rough. There was a group of boys in my class that would bully me frequently. They would do things like record me talking on their phones without me knowing and make fun of me. Finally the main person that would bully me left and the bullying died out for the most part. As the years passed, I tried my best to never let anyone sit alone at the lunch table, because I had spent so many years all by myself, and I knew how it felt. Eventually I started making more friends by trying to accept everyone, and at last people would take the time out of their busy day to hear what I had to say.
I knew that after 8th grade I would have to move onto high school, and I was terrified to go back with the people that had previously tormented me. I ran away from the bullying, and that's how I ended up here, in Insight. I hoped that it would be a bully free environment where I could finally learn in peace, without having to walk down the hallways feeling terrified that I would get pushed around or mocked for something that I could never control. Recently I have been going to the National Stuttering Association conferences, where I have been greeted with caring, love, and patience, and because of Insight the years of bullying have finally come to an end. I am so grateful for all the people that have stood up for me and supported me, so I will continue to do the same for everyone I see! I will forever be a supporter for those who are bullied, and if you are one of those people, don't give up!
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