Stuttering, Code Switching and Redefining A Good Day With Dana Amihere

Transcript

Maya Chupkov:

Hi I'm Maya Chupkov and I'm a woman who stutters Welcome to proud stutter, a show about stuttering and embracing verbal diversity in an effort to change how we talk about it. one conversation at a time Welcome to Season Two of proud stutter. I'm your host Maya Chupkov, a proud woman who stutters we are doing things a little differently this time around. I got such positive feedback from having an ally as a co host, Cynthia Chin from season one, that I decided to keep the pattern going for season two. So how will this look? So all of our guests will be people who stutter. And then for every episode, I will be joined by a different co host who doesn't stutter. It's a way to build ally ship and community with people working on different issues and in different spaces, because we are stronger together. Of course, you can follow the season along on twitter at proud Stutter and Instagram at proud stator and become a supporter of the show through Ko-Fi.com/proudstutter. It's the equivalent of Patreon but just takes less of a percentage all your help on Ko-Fi is incredibly appreciated as we are 100% listener funded. Supporters a proud stutter on Ko-Fi get proud stutter merch a featured interview in our newsletter and more. Thank you to our proud setter supporters, Madeline Carr, Lucy Reed and Dustin Wells and all the other ones I mentioned in previous episodes. If you want to hear your name on the pod, all you have to do is sign up to become a Ko-Fi supporter. 

Like season one. These interviews were recorded remotely, usually in somebody's home. So you might hear some sounds and signs of life. Like a siren blaring or a dog walking through the room. Usually my dog walking through the room. Thank you for your patience with that. All right, so let's get to the interview with our first guest and co host for season two. Welcome to the debut episode of season two of proud stutter. Today I am joined by Dana Emma here our guest co host Dana is executive director of Afro LA, a community focused news outlets centering the black experience in and around Greater Los Angeles. Our guest for today's episode is Cameron rains, a person who stutters and a lecturer at the University of South Australia. Welcome to the show, Dana and Cameron. So excited for you guys to be our first guests. 

So Cameron, can you tell us a moment where your relationship with your stutter shifted?

Cameron Raynes:

Yeah, look, I can. It's, look, I was a covert stutter most of my life. It's still am to some extent, although I don't you I hardly use any covert techniques anymore. And I really stutter these days, I got to a very low point around about 2007 2008. I was working. I was working in an open plan office. And I had spent years and years avoiding situations like that, and controlling the type of work I did, the situations that I got into. And I was at a I was working as a writer and editor for a communications consultancy, ironically enough, in the Adelaide Hills. And I was traveling about an hour and a half each way on on train and bus to get there. And I was almost at the point where I was going to have to throw my job in because as I say open plan office, worst thing for someone with a stutter, especially having to speak to clients on the phone. And it was a small office, there was no escape. There were five or six of us at various times. And my stutter was came back worse than it had ever been worse even than high school. And I had a young family, daughter and a son aged eight and 10 My wife is a school teacher. So I I set the bus stop. And it was the end of a hard day. And I asked myself a question. The question was, what's your definition of a good day? And as soon as I asked myself that question, I knew it was important because my definition of a good day was one where I did not stutter, especially in front of a stranger. And that sank in and I realized how terrible it was that I was 4445 something some laying around there. And the best I could come up with for definition of a good day was defining it by a negative. So I sat there for a while and thought, well, this is completely screwed up. What the hell do I do to get myself out of this mess? And the answer came almost immediately, I thought, well, what if i From now on a good day is one where I do stutter, especially in front of a stranger. And I was scared, I immediately thought, well, there's something in that. But if I do that, I'm going to have to go up and stutter in front of them. So it was very unsettling, very scary. And then a few days later, I went up to at the same bus stop knowing full well which bus I needed to catch. And I went up to a stranger and asked them, what what bus do I need to catch to get back to the city. And there was such a profound feeling of, well, wellness, wellbeing strength. I had goosebumps. It was, it was just an amazing feeling. I didn't stutter, of course, because finally I was volunteering, I was taking charge of my stutter. I remember feeling so good about that. And walking away and giving myself a little patent very subtly, just giving myself a little pat on the back. Because I knew it was important. Now I can do I can do things differently. I can I can turn to face this thing. And let's see what happens if I do that. 

Dana Amihere:

That’s really awesome that you that you took that experience and you turned it into something transformative. You presented at workshops on writing and stuttering. What has it been like for you to become a public speaker as someone with a stutter? 

Cameron:

Yeah, well, after I had that epiphany about talking to strangers, I tried to do it on a daily basis, and just tried to do it once or twice at the most each day, because it was quite tiring to psych myself up and to put myself in that situation. But I had so many good experiences doing it that it just started slowly to to become a routine ran about the same time I had. My first book published was a history of the Aborigines department in South Australia. And I got invited to speak on national radio several times. And my speech wasn't too bad. But there were quite a few hesitations and blocks and repetitions. And I knew I wanted to keep on writing. And I knew that this, I embrace this, there'd be more of these kinds of opportunities. So I found a public speaking group called Rostrum. I think in America, you mainly have Toastmasters, very nerve wracking at the beginning, especially for those early speeches. But I knew that this was good for me as a person and good for me as a speaker, roundabout. 2012 2013, I went in for my first competition, then I was asked to consider becoming a public speaking coach, which frightened the hell out of me, but I said, Yes. Okay. Because I got to the point where I was just gonna say yes, to anything to do with speaking. That was the attitude I took. If there's something about speaking, if you're given an opportunity, you put your hand up and say, yes. So I said, Yes, got trained in coaching public speaking for rostrum and started coaching. And look at this point. I love nothing more than getting on the stage. I feel empowered, and I feel excitement it is, it's weird. It's just the weirdest thing because I had all those experiences of being in being made to stand in front of a classroom of kids and just feel like as the ugliest person in the world, and it just ripped the guts out of me. It was just a horrible, horrible experience. And I was, I was damaged by it considerably. So to go from that to now where, if you see me three minutes before I have to give his speech somewhere, I'm just excited and delighted, absolutely nervous. And it's just bizarre. 

Dana:

That is amazing. To go from, you know, just being something that is just nerve racking and debilitating to something that truly gives you excitement and joy. And it's interesting to me that, you know, public speaking, of course, is something that's, you know, so extroverted and outwardly communicative, but you're also such a wonderful writer, which of course, it's a nonverbal, verbal form of communication, but it seems that you've also used that talk harness as a way to talk about stuttering and to deal with stuttering in some ways. The protagonist of your book first person shooter is a teen with a stutter. 

Can you talk a little bit about how you used to writing or how writing has impacted how you you process your stutter?

Cameron: 

There's so many interesting things to be said about the connections Twain stuttering and writing, there's been quite a few writers throughout history that have started. And for most people who stutter, we don't get to figure out our thoughts, our ideas? Well, we do we figure out our thoughts by ourselves at home. But in the cut and thrust and parry of conversation, we don't really get to refine our ideas and put them out into the spotlight and have people interact with them. Because we, we tend not to talk, we tend to be recovering for 20 or 30 years with, with never telling a joke, because that's the worst thing you can do as a person who stutters, and very rarely telling stories. Because again, that's, that's a pretty bad thing for a person who stutters because the story has to make sense, it has to hold together, there has to be an ending and, and timing is not as important as joke telling. But timing is still an issue. For me, writing was always a way of trying to get some clarity about my thoughts and about how I felt about the world, and about my place in it. So I was always from a young age, writing a lot. And I've always loved stories and storytelling, because store reading was one of probably my main escape, because I wasn't, I wasn't a very sporty kid. I like playing sports. And I like being outside, but I wasn't particularly good at any, any sport. So so. So reading was really my escape.

Maya:

Reading was also my escape. Reading just was always my safe space where I could just escape from reality, and just be with the characters. And it's therapeutic. Like when I get stressed, I just read and I feel better. And I've noticed that in a lot of the books I read, when they're describing someone who's nervous, they use the word stutter stammer. And so I find that kind of interesting, because like, for me, just because I stuttered doesn't necessarily mean I'm nervous, like, sometimes I stutter, even when I'm literally the most calm. And so I think writers like you, you're just paving the way. And it's one thing to write a book about stuttering, it's another to have that just be like a side thing. That's not the center, but like having a character that stutters. And it's not a big deal. Just normalizing it.

Cameron:

Yeah, that that film couple from a couple of years ago with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, set in Hollywood in, in the 1970s 60s, or 70s. That was kind of interesting, because that character, played by Leonardo had a stutter. But it just wasn't really a part of the story. It was refreshing to see that.

Dana:

Speaking of film, and, you know, kind of pulling on that thread of, you know, writing and sort of the arts. But you're also involved in trying to create some an art space program for some young people in Adelaide. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Cameron:

Yeah, sure. So for a couple of years, I've been since about 2018, I've been giving a talk for speech pathology students at Flinders University. And through that, one of the one of the speech and language pathologist, Julia, and I struck up a friendship, because we realized we had very similar insights and attitudes towards stuttering, and perhaps what you can do in order to find a way through it. So we started talking about developing an art space program, and then say, Australia, was set up. Last year I ran, I developed and red ran a workshop for young people who stutter, to write about their stutter. And oh, look, I have to acknowledge Katherine Preston, who the author of out with it who works with, say, New York, and has developed a writing program for say, new New York, she was very, very kind and giving me all of the materials that she she, she, she, she had developed for that program. And we're having a workshop here in Adelaide in September, that's going to arts based experience for young people who stutter, not only the connections between writing and stuttering, but acting and stuttering. And I've come across some an academic article very recently that used brain imaging technology with actors to look at parts of their brains that light up and don't light up when they're delivering lines. One of the takeaways from this research was that there seems to be a diminution of self when a When and when an actor acts. So the brain the part of the brain that, you know, is really absorbed in the self and self consciousness and how do I look to people? And all that sort of stuff, which you might think might be heightened in the acting experience actually decreases in in activity. And that's really interesting in terms of stuttering, because stuttering is all such a big part of it is about self consciousness. How do I, how do people perceive me? What do I look like? Can they bear to look at me when I'm stuttering? Is my is my face contouring, all that sort of stuff? So there's some really interesting stuff around the whole therapy based art therapy based approach. 

Dana:

And I think that's really fascinating in the sense that, you know, it's not just giving someone like an outlet to really like, you know, to, to manage what and come to terms with, you know, how they deal with their stutter, but also to, like, deal with their, their sense of self as to how they see themselves with their stutter through through the arts, whether that's writing or acting. I find that really, really interesting.

Cameron:

Yeah, look, it's fascinating that this there's blood, a lot of actors from Bruce Willis to Emily Blunt, stutter. And almost all of them has said that acting was a crucial part in finding a way through this journey of stuttering. So you've got you've got that thing where people who act tend to find a way to deal with their stutter. You've also got it's quite common, that person who stutters who adopts an accent, finds that there's a fluency shift. So you know, I've heard that I've heard stories from people who say, look, I, I worked it in a barber shop, and I faked a French accent. And I was fluent. I was fluent 95% of the time when I was faking this French accent. So there's some really interesting stuff around identity, and stuttering and authenticity. And this is an authenticity is is one of the keys I think it's one of the fundamental things that's going on when you stutter, and I think it's one of the fundamental pathways to explore stuttering Find. Find your voice.

Maya:

Yeah, when I speak in an accent, I don't stutter. So there were times in my life, like when I was studying abroad, and I just didn't want to deal with stuttering. I just I just have a British accent for like, a night just so I can like get through the night and not have to worry about stuttering.

Cameron:

Can we hear your your British accent?

Maya:

Oh, oh my god, I'm so nervous. It's so it's not good. But when I'm a little tipsy, it's better. Okay, so this is a phrase. I remember from the Great British baking show, which is one of my favorite shows. Oh, the terror of a soggy bottom. Keeping me up all night. My bottom is dry today. All will be well. I know that's like very cliche. So I'm sorry about that. You're Australian, so it's not selling? Yeah, so I don't even want to show you my Australian. That's even harder. That's even harder to do than an English accent.

Dana:

Oh, no, you don't want to throw some shrimps on the barbie. No, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad.

Well, look, I'm not very good with accidents. 

When I go home to Florida, which you know is the South but not the South. I kind of fall into you know, more of the y'all the drawl the whatever, and it makes me feel, you know, the sense of I don't know, being more my authentic self, my, you know, more being my home self. But then I feel like I have to like switch back. It's this weird I you know, kind of like code switching back and forth. I feel like I have to do that in so many parts of my life, especially as a black woman, you know, for professionalism sake or for to be taken seriously or to whatever, as you're, you know, learning to you know, work with your stutter. 

Is there any sort of mindset you have to turn it off and you can't, you know, just be yourself?

Cameron:

Yeah, look, so certainly they were in my, my 20s and 30s. My 20s and 30s were an early 40s Even were dogged by the idea that I had to present myself as fluent in as many situations as possible. I was always at pains to not to not to not stutter. I felt like if I started, people would think that I wasn't smart, or they would think that I was nervous or cowardly or something else. So it was, yeah, it was, was a constant refrain in my life, that, that I had to manage my fluency in just about every situation I was in,

Dana:

I can definitely relate to that. I don't personally have a stutter, but I do have a disability, but it feels like you know, sort of sometimes that being tamped down for other people's comfort and for other people per, you know, feel like they don't have to deal with it, because they're more than mainstream. And I know that that's something that's happened throughout history where you know, people's languages and their identities have been lost. 

Do you feel like you've ever been or you feel like, in the stuttering community, people are pressured to conform to what is quote, unquote, normal? Or is there an increased push to like normalize the fact that you can just be yourself.

Cameron:

There’s a concept of internalized racism, I don't know how much currency that idea has. I think something similar happens with people who stutter, we, we get very down on ourselves, we internalize our condition. And we can also easily come to a point of view that our voice isn't worthy of being heard. So that can certainly happen.

Dana:

There's something that really stuck out to me as you were, you're talking stuttering is a very cruel condition like many other things, and I think one of the things that's so difficult to deal with, but also manageable is the fact that it's, it's an unseen thing. It's something that you have to that people can't outwardly. See, at first, it manifest after you open your mouth, like the disability that I have, you can't outward like see it until I start to try and do something until I try and put forth effort to do something, it makes you it comes back to that, you know, power and control. So it makes you feel more powerless. Because it's like, okay, if I put forth the effort, then you know, I'm going to be I can be judged for that. If I forced the thing that I do the thing that I know I can do, and I can do it well, even though it's not the thing I really want to do. It's it's passable, but it's limiting, because it's not really what I want, but it's the thing that is acceptable to everybody else. And I know what I want, I know what I can do, but I don't want to be judged or blamed or made to feel ridiculed for trying to do it, I can so relate to that. 

Cameron:

So yeah, hiding anything that is such such a fundamental part of who you are, it's corrosive it, it corrodes your sense of self, it corrodes your sense of authenticity, hiding who you are is always a big mistake.

Dana:

It makes you hide who you are, but it also makes you blame who you are. It's like you blame the body that you have. And you blame the aspects of yourself that, you know, it's like, well, why am I broken? And, you know, this is something that you just have to learn to live with. It's like, you know, I can manage it. I can't cure it. But I have to, you know, why do I have to overcome this and other people don't? It's like, Why do I get to be, you know, the broken toy?

Maya:

Wow, I can totally relate to everything you just said, Dana. I always growing up, found my voice to be broken in some way. And it's taken me a long time to overcome that feeling about myself. And I was always just asking, Why me? Like, why am I the one with the broken voice? Like why? Why is this something that's happening to me? I think a lot of our listeners can relate to that to close. My last question is for you, Dana. So around Afro LA, what has been the most surprising thing that's come up for you after launching, Afro LA?

Dana:

Something that has surprised me, is the overwhelming response to Afro A, but one of the basis of me creating that and the basis of the coverage is trying to cover parts of the community and people that are marginalized people that we don't consider, you know, quote, unquote, normal people who have disabilities, people who have communication disorders, like you know, stuttering people who don't fit in the box that we try and put people into and society specifically looking at the black community, but I'm trying to widen the lens on who we consider fitting into that community at all. There's a lot of intersectionality with that we don't consider and it feels like you know, it's about time to try and normalize, who we consider as being a part of a conversation and the response To that has pleasantly been people are open minded, more open minded than you would think considering what's been going on in the world.

Maya:

Thank you so much, Dana. That was a great way to end the episode. And Cameron, thanks so much for being the first guest of season two. And we'll see you guys again in two weeks. And that's it for this episode of proud stutter. This episode of proud stutter was produced and edited by me, Maya Chupkov. Our music was composed by a gusto, Denise, and our artwork by Mara zekiel and Noa Chupkov. If you have an idea or want to be part of a future episode, visit us at www dot proud stutter.com And if you liked the show, you can leave us a review wherever you're listening to this podcast. Want to leave us a voicemail? Check out our show notes for that the number to call in more importantly, tell your friends to listen to until we meet again. Thanks for listening. Be proud and be you.