Building Confidence with Determination and Moving Forward

Hemchandra Shetty-actor-hemu-shetty-brazen-stammerer-dysfluency

Actor Hemu Shetty freed from stammering and perching high on unbridled and seamless thoughts

Hesitatingly at mid-afternoon, standing on the edge of the busy P.M Road in the Fort area of the Mumbai city, (I was unsure whether I would be able to finish this meeting within a hour) I peered uneasily at a pan-stall located on the side-entrance of a dimly-lit beer bar. The panwalla peered back me with a questioning look on his face, his eyebrows arched upwards, leaving me with no option but to say something to him.The Sun was too hot and I was standing under a tree which gave me some shelter from its intense heat and was feeling bit relieved, however the anxiety to get my task done as the scheduled time was getting closer and had no inkling of the location to the postal address I was looking for.

Hustling my collective confidence and inclined to be courageous, forcing to propose which I was hesitant due to inherent fear of dys-speech exposure, I once again gathered my courage and inquired to him with a wrinkled expression in my face "DDDDDDDDD DDhanur building kahan hai?" A sense of fear, dismay and general lack of confidence marked my behavior which amused the paanwalla as effortlessly selected few betel pieces to lay it on a fresh pan which was thinly layered with white chuna .A thin, mocking smile appeared on his face as he pointed his hand towards ( not even caring to guide properly) a dark , mud-colored building , before turning his attention towards an approaching customer.

You have guessed it......too many intervals, breaks, broken-words, repetitions, time-delay, dysfluency plus an imploring request for sympathy, kindness and tolerance on my face to give a benevolent attention. As quoted by many stutterers to whom I have spoken on great length in regards to this apathy "I am convulsed inside by negative emotions,want to break away from this curse". True as they suffer badly , emotionally pained and physically drained, stammering or stuttering is a curse. For a normal speaker or a person without any dysfluency, it may be difficult for them to believe but for a stutter this speech dysfluency, speech disability or stammering has shattered many people’s lives and careers. It has even driven many of the stammerers to the extreme step of being a recluse or non-committal to social gathering , keeping oneself away from social contacts leads to depression, which is a one-way towards the point no-returning-back and it this continues for longer time it leads to an ultimate consequence of committing suicide.

In India, no organized support system exists for stammerers unlike in the US and other the countries in the West. For example, many sufferers in the US, even as they recover or conquest this disability, immediately devote at least some of their time and resources to aid their fellow-sufferers. Some of them even take up jobs such as speech therapists or doctors or consultants to medical institutions which treat such sufferers.This, I think, is one of the best ways to help people in this predicament and should be strongly encouraged in India. For a stammerer who has either a secondary or an ultimate goal to become a speech coach is always a self-assistance as it helps in overcoming his own speech hurdle, continuing the same for longer time helps them evolve as a good speaker with complete confidence to be better communicator in the future.

A sense ridicule, shame, and even fear are the prime demotivating factors for a stammerer. The fear that he will end up a loser in life because of his disability leads many suffering from stammering to lose their nerve , confidence and inner drive. It makes them become aloof and distant from others and gradually they lock themselves up in a hard-shelled one-way cocoon, shying away from all social and emotional contact. There have been cases where such shying away from the social circles have made them move even from the cities and places their birth to far-off places into oblivion. In the current fast changing environment being among the social circle is of utmost importance, hence for a stammerer no-matter what their hurdles the face or the speech impediment they have, they have to ensure that they make themselves relevant to the current need and situation.

Trust me, battling this situation and then conquering it is very, very difficult. No other person, however close, can ever truly comprehend the pain, grief and mental tension that the sufferer undergoes. However, stammering can be gotten rid of and if possible can be eradicated completely from their system and can lead a very good life. I am one of those unfortunate beings who was afflicted by stammering in my childhood but through determination , confidence-building process, self-therapy with consistent regimen and continues years of struggle, I have conquered this disability. The struggle has been tedious and very challenging for me being a sentimental and a very sense of also being a low-worthy person, I still dread the fact that I was a stammerer, even though I have emerged out of this nightmare a few years ago.

It never is easy to overcome any malady and for me too, it wasn't easy as it took me nearly 17-years of hard struggle, of self-building and confidence-boosting exercises and through a self-developed exercise combined with time-tested methods and formulas to overcome my stammering. It was also filled with trial and error as I went about tackling my disability. It was a kind of self-experimentation, and reminiscing about those days, I sometimes feel that I was a living laboratory for my own hands-on experiment. I never knew a moment in school when I was not a target of fun and ridicule but now those days are far, far behind me, never to return again. Today, I don’t stammer at all and feel completely fluent.

My career choice and moves, mirrors my confidence following my victory over stammering. I began my career as a sales guy , who took this profession to my core, was confidently sure that this would be a turning point and to build up my career later moved to marketing, Both the choices were deliberate----I wanted to be in a profession where I had to be in the speakers groove, I used to engage myself mentally and physically by calling up prospective clients and briefing them about the utility and value of my products and services sales. Most of the time I used to seek for their views and feedback, query them for their need so that my conversation with them will never cease, always convincing them about my services so that he sets aside a little of his valuable time for me and my company and assuring him that both could strike a mutually-beneficial relationship was and is still is the mantra of my success.

Pouring out my thoughts in words, I am sure the cure I found for my problem can be a great help for all my brothers and sisters who also suffer from this disability. I want to tell you all that I am and was a brazen stammerer (a very shameless talker open to be a spectacle of my stammering skit), moving ahead and evolving at every stage this easily became a conquerable disability, true to its re bouncing nature, it takes time and great determination, but it can be conquered , trust me I have done it and you can too. Today I am a self-developed speech coach and an institution for speech institutes for people with speech disorders or stutterers. Speech hindrance and lack of confidence what I had in the form of stammering that led to building a cure for this malaise and love for my brethren to develop this tutorship can keep me going and burning with ambition alive.

Be in touch with me......you yourself will banish the stammering or dysfluency from your system.