Call Me DJ Stutter Are You Comfortable Seeing Another
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MAY JUNE 2011 119 W. 40th Street, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10018 • 800.WeStutter (937.8888) • 212.944.4050 • email: [email protected] • www.WeStutter.org Are you Comfortable Seeing Another Call Me DJ Stutter Person Stutter? CHASE DECRAENE #TIM MACKESEY, CCC-SLP, BRSFD Here I am at the club with 400 people listening to me The recent success of the blockbuster powerful and motivating movie if one as I introduce myself over movie The King’s Speech has attracted lets it be so. the microphone as “ DJ people who stutter ( PWS ) to the theater The phenomenon that makes a PWS Stutter”. I am the resident in droves. Many PWS are ecstatic over the either avoid The King’s Speech movie or DJ at the hottest club on my college cam - portrayal of a hero who stutters- King feel unease while watching it is called pus. My business cards and promotional George VI . Other PWS have confided that projecting. The Encyclopedia Britannica posters all say DJ Stutter. If someone would they don’t feel they can go to the movie defines projection as: a form of defense have told me I would have this courage because seeing another person stuttering in which unwanted feelings are displaced back when I was in grade school, I might upsets them. Another group of PWS have onto another person, where they then not have believed it. I have learned to be gone and reported they felt very uncom - appear as a threat from the external world. open about stuttering and I encourage all fortable watching the actor Colin Firth A common form of projection occurs of you to let go, too. stammer. What happens within us that when an individual, threatened by his own My name is Chase Decraene and I am a could make us resist seeing another person angry feelings, accuses another of harboring stutterer. From elementary school to high stutter/stammer? It is important to solve hostile thoughts. Projecting, for example, school, my palms would get sweaty just at this for our own peace of mind. could result in a PWS assuming that King the thought of raising my hand in class to These recent conversations with PWS George VI feels exactly the way you do ask or answer a question. Imagine my palms provoked a flashback for me. I saw A Fish about stuttering. Projecting is also called when I had to do a presentation in front of Called Wanda in a crowded movie theater, mind reading – when we presume to know everyone! Let’s just say that I had to bring a and when I heard the audience explode exactly what another person is thinking or towel to class that day. It didn’t matter if the into laughter as Kevin Kline tormented a feeling without evidence. teacher called on me to speak or not. It was stuttering Michael Palin, I slid low in my Projecting leads to a mind-body state just me getting myself riled up because I seat to hide. I remember worrying that if called dissociation. Your physical body is in didn’t want to abnormal or be looked upon the audience detected my stutter, they the theater but you drift off into thoughts as “weird” by my peers just because I stutter. would turn in my direction and burst out and feelings about stuttering. The Merriam- I started deejaying in my freshman year in laughter. A Fish Called Wanda was a Webster dictionary defines dissociation as: of college and wanted to find a unique low point in motion picture portrayal of the separation of whole segments of the name that I could stand by and support. stuttering. I hope we never again see such personality or of discrete mental processes I decided on the name DJ Stutter because a discriminating and cruel movie again. from the mainstream of consciousness or well, first off, I could stutter the music The King’s Speech is the polar opposite of behavior. Your unconscious mind could while performing as a fun technique, but from Wanda. King George VI works with be recalling a particularly tough moment more importantly, it advertised the fact speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey of stuttering from your own past. You see that I stutter. I love it when clients call me Rush), gains control over his stammer, and another cast member’s reaction and compare for booking and they seem shocked when delivers a historic speech for the world to it to one of your stutter memories. In one I stutter over the phone. Hello! I guess hear. King George is a hero. This can be a scene the king’s brother mimics his stutter they didn’t get the hint on my business continued on page 8 continued on page 3 Advertisement: “I Stutter.” . 2 Chapter News . 5 Mandy Snapshot . 2 Odds & Ends . 6 Special Seat . 3 Let Us Salute the Silence . 7 Conference Schedule . 4 Golf Tournament . 8 First Timers, Are You Ready? . 5 Advertisement: “I Stutter.” #ERIC J. GARNER # When I think of advertising, I think of big billboards, colorful commercials, and catchy slogans. Some businesses Snapshot: Mandy Finstad use talking ducks or geckos to help con - sumers recognize and remember their Here’s a chance to get to know Mandy Finstad, University of Ulster and The Catholic products. As a person who stutters our Editor. Below she shares some information University of America respectively, and (PWS ), I was attending last month’s about herself. served as an active member of the Irish NSA Los Angeles – San Fernando Valley Growing up, my Dad was in the Navy, American Unity Conference and the Irish chapter meeting, where I was intro - which meant moving around and meeting Northern Aid Committee. Finally, in duced to the concept of advertising my new friends every few years. While some March of 2009, that dream was realized, stuttering . Although the concept was might consider this a nightmare, to me it and I was on a plane, alone, headed to new to me, I quickly recognized that it represented seeing a new place, setting up Dublin. The next two weeks were spent could be an effective tool in building a new bedroom, and making new friends gallivanting across the Emerald Isle with more awareness around stuttering. in the local school. Perhaps it was basic an Irish friend, meeting the first two PWS In the world of a PWS , “advertising” survival in these situations that forced me ever to enter my life, and rediscovering refers to stuttering freely in the presence to make a decision: get out there and who I was in the process. of others, allowing them to recognize thrive, or shrink away into the wallpaper. Upon my return I had a renewed ‘joie you as someone who stutters. After lis - While I had my rough times early in de vivre’, and vowed to myself never to be tening to others in the chapter meeting, adolescence, the older I got the more I afraid again. From here on out I would live I learned how they embrace this oppor - came into my own person. I developed an life to the fullest and never let an opportu - tunity to advertise in front of others. interest in music, and threw myself into it nity pass me by. Just two short weeks later, I had spent my entire life attempting wholeheartedly, joining no less than seven I found myself alone again, bravely headed to hide my impediment, only to realize performance groups throughout my four 45 minutes north to Baltimore to see a now that I had been hiding my true self years of high school. I was a far cry from music performance put on by a new friend. and limiting what I had to offer to the one of the ‘popular girls’, but I was a After the show, while waiting to say good - outside world. decent student, part of a loving family of bye to my friend Justin, I heard a stuttered I was missing out on great opportuni - four, and I had my hobbies and my core voice behind me ask, “How do you know ties to increase awareness about stuttering. group of true friends, and that was all I Justin?” I turned to see a gruff looking guy Advertising not only allows you to feel needed to feel secure in who I was. sitting on a brown leather couch, and since free about stuttering in public, but also After high school I attended George my friend was busy at the moment, I sat educates the listener who doesn’t stutter. Mason University (Go Patriots!!) in Fairfax, and chatted with this stranger whom I Beyond what is seen on television or VA , and while I didn’t continue my music would soon welcome as the third PWS in in movies, this person may have never studies, I still had those core people in my my life. As they say, the rest is history… encountered someone who stutters. life, and it was a happy four years, and Nearly one year later that man got down So anytime a person who stutters gets when I walked across that stage in May on one knee in the mud on an island off the an opportunity to talk to and share with of 2000 with my B.A. in Psychology, the coast of Ireland and asked me to be his wife. others the realities of stuttering, it is a entire world was mine for the asking. Since then I’ve left all of those odd jobs step forward for the rest of the stuttering After a 2-week graduation gift trip behind to come home and work full-time community.