Imagine for a moment you’re a musical note with a stutter. What does your dynamic and texture sound like next to the other notes in your song? What kinds of conversations would you have with other musical notes?

I have always stuttered as far as I could remember my earliest memory of speaking. I could barely get past two phrases without being impeded by a speech block. I couldn’t fathom why my speech never came out smooth like everybody else’s. Kids and some simple-minded adults would pose random questions to me and laugh their lungs out as I tried to answer. I could barely utter a word without instigating a war between my vocal cords and articulators.

I have recently had the exceedingly good fortune to attend both (a) the ISA World Congress (International Stuttering Association) in far-northern Finland in August of 2025, and (b) the inaugural “STARS” Conference (Stuttering Treatment and Research Society) in Laguna Niguel in Southern California the following month.

Does a disfluent tongue impede a free utterance? Does fluent speech necessarily reflect the will of the speaker? Joshua St. Pierre, who holds a PhD in Philosophy and is currently Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta, asks this question in his book, Cheap Talk, Disability and the Politics of Communication. After seeking therapeutic relief from disfluency for most of his life, St. Pierre now “[refuses] to see stuttering as a state of diminished agency”.

Introduction

This is a story of how my stuttering became, at least for a while, something less than 99.99% better. At times it is a bit of a scary story for me. At times, it is even a bit humourous. And a few times, however, it felt glorious and triumphant.  

An important part of the CSA’s mission is to “promote awareness and understanding of stuttering.” As such, we support the accurate representation of stuttering in traditional and digital media of different types.

At 15, I believed I was doomed to stutter for the rest of my life. I had misread an article, interpreting it as a life sentence. That misinterpretation led me to a desperate moment, standing on top of a 33-meter tower, ready to give up. What saved me wasn’t a miracle cure or therapy, but the love of someone close to me—my mother—and, in time, a complete change of mindset.