My name is Zishan Ghulam, but people call me Shaun as it’s easier to pronounce. I am 35 years old and I am in the 1% of the worlds population who stutters. It runs in my family as my brother also stutters. I had it worse, but believe it or not I am happy I did, because it has taught me so much.
This is a review of Stutter, by Marc Shell, published 2005 by Harvard University Press. Part one of three parts
The familiar saying “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” has never been more true than when applied to Marc Shell’s Stutter. A photo of the author as a small child wearing a cowboy outfit graces the book jacket, his innocent face both quizzical and apprehensive.
Dr. Alan Rabinowitz passed away last month at age 65 after a prolonged struggle with leukemia. A distinguished zoologist and preservationist, he co-founded an organization, Panthera, to help preserve endangered big cats in their natural habitats.
Ryan Cowley
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a very visual person. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, it has provided me with one major setback. Due to my stuttering, if I'm speaking with someone, I need their visual attention. So, if someone I’m speaking to is looking at a computer screen, looking through cupboards or sitting in the front seat of a car while I’m sitting in the backseat, getting even just a few words out can be a daunting task. Since I can’t see who I’m speaking to on the phone, it makes speaking even more difficult.
Vvvikesh here, no I didn’t forget my name, I just have a stutter. For more than half my life I never spoke about my stuttering with anyone and I think it was fear of being judged but also guilt. I felt guilty that I was speaking the wrong way and that fluency was the only right way.
Since I was seven years old, I have had a stutter. I never know what to say when curious minds asked how it started, though.
I was always a sensitive, nervous kid with a tendency to worry about things that never ended up happening. In any case, stuttering has been a cog, if you will, for much of my life. That’s not to say, however, that it defines me.