Is stammering (haklaana) my fault?
Today i was at a bank with my father. The account details had to be updated but sadly like a government office, everyone was referring me here and there. my father asked me to follow those references. though i had been able to sufficiently get rid of stammering, the fear still bothers me and in such cases when lot of people are standing at a counter or the person is in a hurry, my heart beat rises up drastically, my tongue feels struck and i feel weak, even today. the world seems like running very fast and nobody seems to have the patience to hear. for a stammerer, the changing social norms and conditions have been aggravating the issue. my near and dear ones, till date would be unaware of something that i still face, a constant struggle. but i am able to manage such situations over time. my heart beat normalized as i came out of the bank. I could remember my past that shakes me at just a thought. what a stammerer feels mostly remains buried inside. mostly because he/she is not able to express. and then i thought about many who live that life today, millions of them!!
i remember a childhood when unknowingly i was entering a tunnel which was getting darker and darker. i was bullied my friends. and even not understood by my parents. stammering seems to have no prescribed cure. its a complex issue including social factors. a stammerer is generally labelled as being a looser. somebody who has developed a wrong habit maybe like a drug-addict. but believe me if it was like a drug- addict, we would have almost no stammerers. a drug addict feels "relaxed" after consumption. but how does a stammerer feel on daily basis? speaking comes so naturally to us that we face no difficulty in it and hence we take it for granted. but speaking is a very complex phenomena. stammering has also been associated with humor where many such comic roles were done. in an era of presentations, meetings etc., a stammerer faces problems at every level. what is visible from outside is the tip of the ice-berg. internally there is a cob-web of psychological issues. it becomes an identity crisis. you see the world from a very different viewpoint. you feel alienated from the people outside. you cry sitting alone when the emotions become uncontrollable. and some complex psychological changes do happen. i remember how i stared hating the world when everybody seemed to make fun of me. i was still peaceful from the outside but inside i was becoming rebellious. i could not develop relationships because nobody could understand me. music helped the initial healing and continued as my partner. as i was recovering i entered college and i saw her! she was amazing and having missed so much in life, i decided to not miss this and i did all what i could do to impress her. in search of a relationship, i gave myself totally into it. and all this time i have felt love through the relationship we share. if i had no history of stammering, would i have given so much importance to her, would i have understood her deep emotions, would i have understood the problems of living alone without love, and something that each relation requires today, from where would have the patience come? she accepts that it took her enough time to understand me. but i had the patience to bear that! although my negative experiences had left scars and as a response, i rebelled against the "system". the volcano had erupted, i could finally speak and with that anger i wanted to scream out against all that had suppressed me. (visualize the song-sadda haq :p). i had no worries about "what people would say". no matter what happened, it was a great time and never have i learned so much. after a long time the volcano stopped erupting. and i got a new birth. my anger was gone and i was ready to start again.
some time back i came in contact with TISA (the Indian stammering association) and attended few self help group meetings. i started asking myself at that time if it is the fault of the person! when we are growing up biologically, innumerable things develop inside us unknowingly and we hardly know about the changes esp. in the childhood. speech and psychological growth takes place drastically at that time. if the "normal" process doesnt occur, some minor variations might come in which might magnify later to turn into many issues, one of them being stammering. and when things are not taken care of at the right time, they get complicated and difficult to solve. secondly, we expect children to do well in schools and become doctors or engineers as fast as possible. hence the focus has shifted from the development to the end result which is sadly very shallow. so as i met more and more people in TISA, I started realizing that we really have to find out the fault, it lies outside the individual. otherwise, in TISA i felt great but life is also about doing and sadly i couldn't do much. i failed to play a role. my project work of mtech keeps me so busy that the whole day goes there! i have also started running. the same useless race
nevertheless, my message to people who dont stammer- be patient and allow people with stammering to be themselves and share life with you. dont tag them as loosers. just because you are foolish enough to see the deepness of problem, you have no right to jump to conclusions. encourage them. if you know anybody who stammers, give him/her my reference or of TISA. my message to the people who stammer is- never think of stammering as a curse. accept it first the way it is because it exists. then take it as an opportunity or a gift. a gift of a different way of life. stammering defines me. it has given me a chance to dream and live differently, different from the herd, to be myself. my spiritual growth and out-of-book understanding was triggered by my experiences as a stammerer. i would not have been able to follow my passion of music if i had not experienced those times of emotional trauma and not being able to express. lastly a great story- i once had a talk with a friend who is blind and learns music. he told me,"akash bhai, don't sympathize with me. i have been gifted with a meditative state for life. you would need to close your eyes when praying but i dont need to! in the music class, my mind is totally focused on the sound and there is an infinite world there. life has so much that loosing something or not having something cant reduce the infinite." i was amazed to know his views. he continued, "you might be worried that i have problems while travelling but my other senses are much stronger. my feet can sense the road. i can smell the place, i can count steps and i can at least ask for some help. if you are worried that i take so much time to travel, then i doubt if the people running to the metro stations are reaching any great place! i am happy." i still remember the faith and self-confidence in his voice. i remember his words often when i feel weak. there is the light at the end of the tunnel and the emotions and experiences a stammerer buries inside can become a positive source of life, of inspiration!
specifically, i have been questioning the "race of life" which he even referred to! why this mask of getting educated? what do we get by running behind money and success? i feel determined to get back to my role as a human being. to spread happiness and not be a "money-making machine"!
i remember a childhood when unknowingly i was entering a tunnel which was getting darker and darker. i was bullied my friends. and even not understood by my parents. stammering seems to have no prescribed cure. its a complex issue including social factors. a stammerer is generally labelled as being a looser. somebody who has developed a wrong habit maybe like a drug-addict. but believe me if it was like a drug- addict, we would have almost no stammerers. a drug addict feels "relaxed" after consumption. but how does a stammerer feel on daily basis? speaking comes so naturally to us that we face no difficulty in it and hence we take it for granted. but speaking is a very complex phenomena. stammering has also been associated with humor where many such comic roles were done. in an era of presentations, meetings etc., a stammerer faces problems at every level. what is visible from outside is the tip of the ice-berg. internally there is a cob-web of psychological issues. it becomes an identity crisis. you see the world from a very different viewpoint. you feel alienated from the people outside. you cry sitting alone when the emotions become uncontrollable. and some complex psychological changes do happen. i remember how i stared hating the world when everybody seemed to make fun of me. i was still peaceful from the outside but inside i was becoming rebellious. i could not develop relationships because nobody could understand me. music helped the initial healing and continued as my partner. as i was recovering i entered college and i saw her! she was amazing and having missed so much in life, i decided to not miss this and i did all what i could do to impress her. in search of a relationship, i gave myself totally into it. and all this time i have felt love through the relationship we share. if i had no history of stammering, would i have given so much importance to her, would i have understood her deep emotions, would i have understood the problems of living alone without love, and something that each relation requires today, from where would have the patience come? she accepts that it took her enough time to understand me. but i had the patience to bear that! although my negative experiences had left scars and as a response, i rebelled against the "system". the volcano had erupted, i could finally speak and with that anger i wanted to scream out against all that had suppressed me. (visualize the song-sadda haq :p). i had no worries about "what people would say". no matter what happened, it was a great time and never have i learned so much. after a long time the volcano stopped erupting. and i got a new birth. my anger was gone and i was ready to start again.
some time back i came in contact with TISA (the Indian stammering association) and attended few self help group meetings. i started asking myself at that time if it is the fault of the person! when we are growing up biologically, innumerable things develop inside us unknowingly and we hardly know about the changes esp. in the childhood. speech and psychological growth takes place drastically at that time. if the "normal" process doesnt occur, some minor variations might come in which might magnify later to turn into many issues, one of them being stammering. and when things are not taken care of at the right time, they get complicated and difficult to solve. secondly, we expect children to do well in schools and become doctors or engineers as fast as possible. hence the focus has shifted from the development to the end result which is sadly very shallow. so as i met more and more people in TISA, I started realizing that we really have to find out the fault, it lies outside the individual. otherwise, in TISA i felt great but life is also about doing and sadly i couldn't do much. i failed to play a role. my project work of mtech keeps me so busy that the whole day goes there! i have also started running. the same useless race
nevertheless, my message to people who dont stammer- be patient and allow people with stammering to be themselves and share life with you. dont tag them as loosers. just because you are foolish enough to see the deepness of problem, you have no right to jump to conclusions. encourage them. if you know anybody who stammers, give him/her my reference or of TISA. my message to the people who stammer is- never think of stammering as a curse. accept it first the way it is because it exists. then take it as an opportunity or a gift. a gift of a different way of life. stammering defines me. it has given me a chance to dream and live differently, different from the herd, to be myself. my spiritual growth and out-of-book understanding was triggered by my experiences as a stammerer. i would not have been able to follow my passion of music if i had not experienced those times of emotional trauma and not being able to express. lastly a great story- i once had a talk with a friend who is blind and learns music. he told me,"akash bhai, don't sympathize with me. i have been gifted with a meditative state for life. you would need to close your eyes when praying but i dont need to! in the music class, my mind is totally focused on the sound and there is an infinite world there. life has so much that loosing something or not having something cant reduce the infinite." i was amazed to know his views. he continued, "you might be worried that i have problems while travelling but my other senses are much stronger. my feet can sense the road. i can smell the place, i can count steps and i can at least ask for some help. if you are worried that i take so much time to travel, then i doubt if the people running to the metro stations are reaching any great place! i am happy." i still remember the faith and self-confidence in his voice. i remember his words often when i feel weak. there is the light at the end of the tunnel and the emotions and experiences a stammerer buries inside can become a positive source of life, of inspiration!
specifically, i have been questioning the "race of life" which he even referred to! why this mask of getting educated? what do we get by running behind money and success? i feel determined to get back to my role as a human being. to spread happiness and not be a "money-making machine"!
love this post...wish you very best for getting back to ur role as Human Being :)
ReplyDelete