#communication disorders

I have a speech disorder called cluttering. I was diagnosed with it in college by a speech pathologist that my supervisor recommended for me. Basically cluttering is a speech disorder that causes your brain to struggle to process too much information at the same time and when you speak, your speech has a difficult time keeping up with your thoughts causing you to speak too rapidly and sometimes, wind up tripping over your own words. It’s often confused with stuttering. 

What having a cluttering disorder is like (or at least for me):

- When I speak, I have a very difficult time controlling the rate of my speech. I speak waaay too fast sometimes 90% of the time people can’t understand what I’m saying. So I often have to repeat myself several times. 

-I dread public speaking and speaking to people so badly that I often try to avoid having to speak to people in general unless I really have to. It also doesn’t help that I’m introverted. So I’m usually very quiet unless I’m around people who I feel comfortable being around or if I’m really happy. This is pretty bad because I started teaching an after-school illustration class to middle-school students this year and I always worry that the kids aren’t going to be able to understand me and they’ve already noticed that I speak very fast and they ask me about it. But I have a really hard time speaking the words “I have a speech disorder” so I don’t usually tell them about it. Which leads to my next point…

-There are so many words that I can’t say properly without tripping over my words. Like for example, here’s a list of some words and phrases that I have trouble saying:

1) What does it look like?

2) Particular

3) Participate 

4) Specific and other words that start with “sp” 

5) Comfortable 

6) Sometimes (when saying it at the end of a sentence)

7) Say that again

-Since I have so many things running through my mind at once, I often struggle with multitasking when I’m dealing with people. I have no problem writing, listening to a YouTube video and watching TV at the same time and being able to pay attention to everything I’m doing but if I have to perform a task while speaking to someone, my brain starts short-circuiting. I can’t comprehend what they are saying. I’ve noticed this for a while but just recalled while my girlfriend was speaking to me as I was writing this. 

-Whenever I speak, I wind up having to correct myself mid-sentence because I know that what I’m saying doesn’t sound right or that the person that I’m speaking to isn’t going to be able to understand me. 

-Whenever I’m angry or upset, my speech is at its worst. My speech becomes incoherent, I jumble my words too much and I have to wait until I calm down before I speak. 

-I say “um” way too much when I speak because I am trying to catch myself before my speech falters and to give myself time to process my thoughts before I speak. 

-I often slur my words together and when I hear what I say after I’ve said it, more than half the time, I ask myself “what the hell did I just say??”

-I have a problem breathing when I speak sometimes because speaking is physically and mentally draining for me. It’s really embarrassing because I’ll be trying to say one sentence and I can’t get out what I’m trying to say because I have to take a deep breath.

-I constantly dread going to my teaching job on Thursdays and Fridays because I have to get up in front of a group of kids, present a lesson, speak to them about their work, ask them questions and explain other things to them. I also have to communicate with my supervisors in person which is something I don’t do at my other job. We mainly communicate through email because my worksite is separate from the main site. But with my 2nd job, if I have to speak to my supervisors, I mostly have to speak to them in person. 

-Ihate speaking on the phone. The only people I feel comfortable speaking to on the phone are my mom, girlfriend and a few close friends. And this is terrible because I’ve missed networking events and opportunities to collaborate with people and have gallery shows because I was too afraid to call people. 

-Working retail was a nightmare because it involved so much speaking and communicating with people. I always volunteered to work on the register (even though I hated cashiering) so that I could avoid being on the sales floor longer than I needed to and have to help customers. Dealing with one person at a time at the register was a lot easier than dealing a million people coming up to me at once all asking for help. Since then, I’ve avoiding applying for retail/customer service related jobs like the plague. 

-I’m constantly angry and frustrated because I know that my speech disorder limits me from doing a lot of things like have a conversation with a person I’ve never met, public speaking and expressing my thoughts. It makes me feel as though I can’t function as a human being. 

I don’t know how common this speech disorder is now. I’ve seen some videos on YouTube and it made me feel a little better knowing that there are other people out there who have my speech disorder and that I’m not alone. So please, reblog this if you have a speech disorder and can relate. Also, below are videos of myself speaking about my disorder.