Let's try this again...

So, I've done a pretty miserable job of posting in my blog up until now. The thing is, I think of things throughout the day to write, but by the time I get home I've either forgotten them or couldn't be bothered with it. None the less, I like the idea of having a blog, so I'm going to try to take inspiration from James Kochalka and distill the day down to one particular event.

24 April 2009

Yesterday I was able to celebrate a small victory. At work I needed to contact someone at a contract lab in the 'States to clarify a point. However my contact there has only been in touch with some exec with another company, who has only been in touch with my CEO, who just forwarded their info to me. Unfortunately, the contact info was just a mailing address and phone number.

A little background is in order perhaps. I have an issue with phones. For many (unfortunately formative) years I had a fairly severe stutter. This led, as any visible difference from others will at that age, to ostracism and isolation from my peers. Over years of therapy I've learned how to speak more or less normally, but by then the damage was done: speech was, and remains, a huge source of anxiety for me. These days I can handle face-to-face communication well enough, but I am still virtually incapable of picking up a phone and calling my best friends, much less a stranger.

So with a minimum of psyching up, I was able to call my contact, clarify the point that needed to be clarified (whether or not my very dilute prototype sample needed an MSDS), and concluded the call with no problems. Mind you, I did pretty well have to script most of the call, but for me that's still a huge step.

Hm, maybe I should learn to draw comics. It would certainly be a lot more succinct. And interesting

 

i hate using the phone too, altho it has nothing to do with stuttering. i have a weird hierarchy of people i will call, people i will text and people i will IM.

 

I carry around a notebook with me and if I think of a good blog entry and have time I'll write it out on paper before I enter it here or a lot of times I just scribble down thoughts in it that might lead to a blog entry at some point.

I also have a phone phobia. I don't know how I ever did without text messaging before!

 

i know lots of people on here who have phone issues. i had to call a BLer a few months ago and both of laughed about the nervousness we both had about talking on the phone.

 

Spork-- heh, no kidding. That's pretty well all I use my phone for now. Good idea with the note pad, I'll give that a try next week.

a_c-- I'm finding out that phone issues are not all that uncommon. Both my parents hate calling people, as well as many of my online and IRL friends.

As an interesting aside, according to a British scientist, it is more expensive to receive data from the Hubble than it is to text, bit per bit. Thank Jebus for unlimited texting plans!

 

I rarely gab extensively on the phone anymore. It was a smoking trigger. I quit over 3 years ago and haven't returning to the phone since. The only person I talk to beyond 5 minutes is my mother.

My sister in law's bf stutters. He did not come around to meet the family until a year of dating due to the anxiety of the meet and greet. My husband is the eldest of 5 and there is always many members of extended family around. With us, he had nothing to worry about. I notice that I stumble over words more than he does.

 

That's often the case. People who stutter and have overcome it one way or another end up being VERY aware of the mechanics of speech, and usually sound pretty polished as a result. Usually this requires a lot of training and/or speech therapy, with the added bonus (at least in my case) of being able to project one's voice like a pro.

Most people who have met me as an adult are quite surprised when I tell them that I stutter-- usually after they make some joke equating stuttering to some sort of intelligence impairment. That's one of the few things that will instantly piss me off, although people are generally pretty apologetic about it afterwards, and I would never stay mad at someone who made such a joke. The fact that they couldn't tell that I stutter is a good thing, so it's almost like a twisted compliment.

The stress is always there though, and the more anxious that one is the more likely to get stuck on a syllable.