I was sitting at the front desk, practically shaking in fear…of the phone.
“Please don’t ring. Please don’t ring,” I told myself repeatedly.
I’m normally not afraid of inanimate objects, but for as long as I can remember, I was scared of using the phone. I avoided making and answering phone calls. If anyone asked, I used every excuse in the book.
Sorry, I didn’t hear the phone ring.
Sorry, I was in a place with bad reception.
Sorry, my phone grew arms and legs, and tried to attack me.
For people who live with disabilities — whether it is a communication disability such as stuttering or mental health struggles such as social anxiety — the fear of the phone (phonaphobia? telephobia?) can be a reality. In my case, I stutter and I have social anxiety (among other disabilities). Not everyone who stutters has social anxiety and vice-versa. But this nasty combination only intensifies my fear of using the phone.
In this case, it was August of 2009 and it was one of my first summer internships at a non-profit organization. I was eager and excited. The primary receptionist was on vacation and the interns had to fill in for her. There were four of us, each taking shifts on the front desk, answering any calls that came in. My shift was about to begin and I was nervous as hell. Sitting at the front desk and twirling a pen in my hand, I became overwhelmed with anxious thoughts. “What if someone calls and I have to talk?” What if I stutter?” What if the person on the other end reacts negatively?” “What if?”
During my shift, I picked up a call from a woman asking about donations. She had donated money to the organization and she wanted specifics about where her funds were going. I didn’t have all the answers that she was looking for and I started to get anxious, which made me stutter more. And I noticed she was starting to get impatient.
“Can you just transfer me to someone else?” she asked crudely.
“Okay,” I replied. I knew where this interaction was heading but because I was at work, I wanted to keep my emotions in check. I tried to maintain my composure.
“Who would you like me to transfer you to?” I asked her politely.
“Anyone but you,” she said.
I proceeded to transfer her to a colleague. Then, I immediately left my post at the front desk, went to the closest bathroom and broke down into tears. This faceless woman confirmed to me my worst fears about how people would perceive me and my stuttering.
I’ve had these fears ever since I was a kid. I never thought I was good enough. My history with disability traces back to my early years. I’ve had my stutter since I was about three years old. I don’t know if it’s due to my stuttering but I have also struggled with severe social anxiety as a child. I’m not sure which came first. Maybe my stuttering brought on social anxiety? But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it formed a nasty combination of avoidance and shame. I avoided many social situations in school. I avoided speaking up, even when I had something to say, over fears about being ridiculed or bullied by my peers in school, or looked at negatively by strangers such as the mean, faceless woman on the phone.
And when I was growing up, I couldn’t even say the word “stuttering” — like it was some taboo word that would draw negative attention to me.
However, over the years, my perspective has changed. Rather, my perspectives have changed — about myself, about my stuttering, and about disability in general and what it means to have a disability. Throughout the years of meeting other people who have a stutter, attending conferences (more on that later), I’ve started to accept my stuttering. Not only that, but I started to embrace it as something that has its benefits. You’ve heard me correctly: having a speech disability can be a good thing. But more on that later.
In a complete reversal to that dreadful phone call with the faceless woman asking about donations, I soon found myself making phone calls for a living…in both my careers. Yes, both, first as a freelance writer, where I constantly interviewed people on the phone and then writing stories about it, and then as an Accessibility and Accommodations Advisor at a private university, where I previously worked one-on-one with students with disabilities.
You might be asking why I would subject myself to this: having to talk to people for a living when I have a stutter, not to mention social anxiety. Because I love it! Despite the odd negative reaction, I love meeting new people. I love connecting with people. I love hearing people’s stories, sharing people’s voices and learning from their experiences. I especially love helping and supporting people.
And now, when I start stuttering on the phone, rather than internalize my beliefs or feel that I’m not good enough, I embrace it. I accept the stutter and, in many cases, I open up about it. Recently, during one of my daily calls with a student in crisis, I found myself stuttering more than usual while speaking with the student, so I disclosed my own speech disability. Not only did the student look past it (they didn’t care), but my disclosure allowed me to develop a rapport with the student, who further opened up about their struggles.
I also started to develop a thicker skin and a “so-what?” attitude before negative reactions still sometimes happen. Sometimes, people are assholes. A common occurrence for people who stutter is to stutter on their name. And a common response is, “Did you forget your name?” or “Did you just make up a fake name?” When this happens, I usually laugh and say, “No I stutter.”
Other times, they just don’t know any better. And when that happens, I don’t blame them for it. During my journalism days, I remember getting a call from an editor I was working with at the same time. I never met him in-person. In fact, this was the first time I was speaking with him on the phone. Up until this moment, all of our correspondence had been over email. So, of course, as soon as I picked up the phone, I started stuttering.
“Hi, this is S-S-S-S-Samuel,” I said, stuttering on my name as usual.
“Hey Samuel,” he replied. “Is everything okay? Did I wake you?”
I was caught off-guard by his response. Not because he asked me if I was okay (that’s actually a common response to stuttering), but because he asked me if he had woken me up. It was 3:00 in the afternoon. I proceeded to laugh it off and then I explained to him that I stutter. He quickly apologized and said that he didn’t know.
Reaching this point where I felt comfortable enough to open up about my stuttering, to talk about it, and to be accepting of it was a long process. Looking back at it all now, there was no single moment where suddenly I accepted my disability. Acceptance doesn’t happen overnight.
It takes work. A lot of work! With my stuttering, it took meeting other people who stutter and developing a sense of community to accept my stuttering. With my anxiety and mental health struggles, it took seeing a therapist and opening up about my struggles with my family members and friends. It also took a lot of putting myself out there and venturing out of my comfort zone.
While disability has historically been considered to be a weakness or a deficiency of some sort, it doesn’t have to be. Rather, disability is simply a different way in which we view and move through the world. It’s all about perspective.
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Previously Published on Medium
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