Green and Growing

You might have heard the phrase, “You’re either green and growing or brown and dying.” Though it’s a slightly dark analogy, it couldn’t be more accurate for PWS (People Who Stutter) and PWSS (People Who Stopped Stuttering).

Every time a person falls off the stutterer’s cliff, they die a little inside and reinforce their status as a stutterer. But every time a person avoids a stutter, practices mind training, reads aloud, or successfully uses a crutch, they grow a little and become greener.

If you’ve ever tried to revive a plant that has been under-watered, you know the moment you give it water, nothing seems to happen—at least not immediately. The plant is still the same, only now it’s wet. And if you didn’t know it would take a day or two to show signs of recovery, you might give up, assuming it was dead. The same is true for speech progress: it takes time to see change, and the longer someone has been stuttering, the longer it may take to fully regain fluency.

Some people have been stuttering for 30 years and are looking for a quick fix, an instant cure, or a magic pill. The truth is, PWS have been reinforcing their stutter every single day since they first began. Becoming fully green again—stutter-free—will take time.

Be patient with yourself. Keep reading aloud, keep training your mind, and keep being the best speech cop you can be. This isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon.