You might have heard the phrase “You’re either green and growing or brown and dying” though a slightly dark analogy, it couldn’t be more true for PWS (People Who Stutter) and PWSS (People Who Stopped Stuttering).
Every time a person falls off stutterer’s cliff, they die a little inside and cement their status as a stutterer just a little bit more. But every time person avoids a stutter, practices mind training, reads aloud, or successfully uses a crutch, they grow a little and become greener.
If you’ve ever tried to revive a plant that has been under watered, you know the minute you give it water… nothing happens… like at all. It is still the same dying plant, the only difference is now the plant is wet. And if you didn’t know it would take a day or two to see anything different, you would give up and assume the plant was dead, right? It takes time to see any change and the longer the plant has been dying the longer it will take to become green again.
There are people who have been stuttering for 30 years and are looking for a quick fix, an instant cure, or that magic pill. The truth is PWS have been reinforcing their stutter every single day since the day they started stuttering. It is going to take time to become fully green and stutter free again.
Take your time, be patient with yourself, keep reading aloud, keep training your mind, keep being the best speech cop you can be. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
