ZT 簡介：《OUT WITH IT: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice 》by Katherine Preston
Imagine waking up one day to find your words trapped inside your head, leaving you unable to say what you feel, think, want, or need. At the age of seven that happened to Katherine Preston. From that moment, she began battling her stutter and hiding her shame by denying there was anything wrong.
Seventeen years later, exhausted and humiliated, she made a life-changing decision: to leave her home in London and spend a year traveling around America meeting hundreds of stutterers, speech therapists, and researchers. What began as a vague search for a cure became a journey that debunked the misconceptions shrouding the condition, and a love story that transformed her conception of what it means to be normal.
OUT WITH IT: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice (1)
by Katherine Preston
PROLOGUE
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1994
I can taste the other side of my name, and yet it hangs resolutely
out of reach. The wall has come down. My name has been broken in
half. My tongue lies taut and heavy, the tip glued to the base of my
mouth.
"KKKKK KK K K K K K K. K K K K K KK kkkkkkk kaaa kaa."
I feel the familiar hand clench slowly around my throat. As the
seconds pass, my chest twists tighter. Panic winds its way through
my nervous system and holds my useless body hostage.
"KK kkkk kkk kaaa ka ka."
My fingernails dig into my palms in penance. My knees lock my legs
and freeze my body into position. My eyes widen desperately. I can
taste the stale air as it slips out of my mouth. I have no idea if I
will say the word or if I will be trapped here indefinitely.
Desperate, unfocused anger addles my brain and pricks at my pores. I
hate the boy's intrusion, I hate his c ocky swagger and his
half-cocked head. I hate the fact that my parents aren't here to
pick me up, I hate the stupid party and my stupid outfit. I hate
everything and nothing. Because I can't hate my stutter; I can't
shout at my stutter to vent my frustration.
As the sound of my name falters onwards, my thoughts wander further.
Why did I even answer him? Why did I not just plead temporary
deafness? I knew that I would stutter. I am ten years old and have
been doing it spectacularly for the past three years. My name is the
one word that never escapes my mouth unscathed.
But somehow I had lost my memory in the past couple of hours. I had
forgotten that I was a stutterer, or forgotten that I should be
scared of stuttering. We had been at a birthday party, and I was
leaving the house basking in the glow of a slightly nauseous sugar
rush. I was dragging a deflated balloon from my wrist, looking to
see where Claire had gone, when the boy called out to ask my name. I
recognized his face from the room and responded more out of
politeness than anything else.
Thirty seconds have ticked by and I'm tired. I'm tired at the
thought of speaking and tired by the breathless, unresolved end of
my past expulsion. I wish I was home, wish I was anywhere but here
on this stretch of endless gray pavement. My inquisitor is confused,
and I hope that I can still recover. I force myself to believe that
this time will be different. Like a madman, I pray for the same
action to have a new outcome. I take a deep breath and run up at the
word again.
"K K K K K K Kaaaa Kaaa..."
I watch confusion morph into mirth. I have really blown it now. I
can almost hear the question forming in his brain as he smirks at
me.
"What the h ell?" He says it slowly and then breaks into giggles,
"Did you forget your name?"
His face cracks open in glee. He waves at his friends dispersing out
down the road. They look bored, and his raucous laughter promises
its normal level of fabulous entertainment. They start wandering
back to him.
"Tell us all your name."
I am trapped and I know it. My options are: (a) refuse to say my
name and be forced to face clever insults like "retard," or (b)
stutter. Neither fills me with joy. I flick my head round quickly. I
can see Claire now. She's striding down the road, at least five cars
away. Her parents are waiting for us. I'm alone.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"
I imagine myself asking him what exactly that phrase means. I have
recently learnt the word "cliche" and picture myself silencing his
taunts and leading us all into a friendly discussion on some of the
crazier phrases we have heard people say. Sadly, my reality is a
little less rosy. His friends are gathering now, and all five
freshly scrubbed faces are staring at me.
"What are you looking at?" my bitter voice pipes up from nowhere. As
clearly as I knew I couldn't say my name, I knew that the nervous
energy would propel my voice, allow me to utter something. I have
learnt from bitter experience that anger makes me fluent, that I
could be just like the rest of the world if only I would shout every
question and swear my way through every answer.
Briefly, my question silences them. My accent is English, home
counties, girly, nothing fabulously interesting. They look up at
their ringleader. I suspect that they are wondering why he has
called them over. They clearly have more important business to
attend to, and two of them wander off, bored.
Imagine waking up one day to find your words trapped inside your head, leaving you unable to say what you feel, think, want, or need. At the age of seven that happened to Katherine Preston. From that moment, she began battling her stutter and hiding her shame by denying there was anything wrong.
Seventeen years later, exhausted and humiliated, she made a life-changing decision: to leave her home in London and spend a year traveling around America meeting hundreds of stutterers, speech therapists, and researchers. What began as a vague search for a cure became a journey that debunked the misconceptions shrouding the condition, and a love story that transformed her conception of what it means to be normal.
OUT WITH IT: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice (1)
by Katherine Preston
PROLOGUE
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1994
I can taste the other side of my name, and yet it hangs resolutely
out of reach. The wall has come down. My name has been broken in
half. My tongue lies taut and heavy, the tip glued to the base of my
mouth.
"KKKKK KK K K K K K K. K K K K K KK kkkkkkk kaaa kaa."
I feel the familiar hand clench slowly around my throat. As the
seconds pass, my chest twists tighter. Panic winds its way through
my nervous system and holds my useless body hostage.
"KK kkkk kkk kaaa ka ka."
My fingernails dig into my palms in penance. My knees lock my legs
and freeze my body into position. My eyes widen desperately. I can
taste the stale air as it slips out of my mouth. I have no idea if I
will say the word or if I will be trapped here indefinitely.
Desperate, unfocused anger addles my brain and pricks at my pores. I
hate the boy's intrusion, I hate his c ocky swagger and his
half-cocked head. I hate the fact that my parents aren't here to
pick me up, I hate the stupid party and my stupid outfit. I hate
everything and nothing. Because I can't hate my stutter; I can't
shout at my stutter to vent my frustration.
As the sound of my name falters onwards, my thoughts wander further.
Why did I even answer him? Why did I not just plead temporary
deafness? I knew that I would stutter. I am ten years old and have
been doing it spectacularly for the past three years. My name is the
one word that never escapes my mouth unscathed.
But somehow I had lost my memory in the past couple of hours. I had
forgotten that I was a stutterer, or forgotten that I should be
scared of stuttering. We had been at a birthday party, and I was
leaving the house basking in the glow of a slightly nauseous sugar
rush. I was dragging a deflated balloon from my wrist, looking to
see where Claire had gone, when the boy called out to ask my name. I
recognized his face from the room and responded more out of
politeness than anything else.
Thirty seconds have ticked by and I'm tired. I'm tired at the
thought of speaking and tired by the breathless, unresolved end of
my past expulsion. I wish I was home, wish I was anywhere but here
on this stretch of endless gray pavement. My inquisitor is confused,
and I hope that I can still recover. I force myself to believe that
this time will be different. Like a madman, I pray for the same
action to have a new outcome. I take a deep breath and run up at the
word again.
"K K K K K K Kaaaa Kaaa..."
I watch confusion morph into mirth. I have really blown it now. I
can almost hear the question forming in his brain as he smirks at
me.
"What the h ell?" He says it slowly and then breaks into giggles,
"Did you forget your name?"
His face cracks open in glee. He waves at his friends dispersing out
down the road. They look bored, and his raucous laughter promises
its normal level of fabulous entertainment. They start wandering
back to him.
"Tell us all your name."
I am trapped and I know it. My options are: (a) refuse to say my
name and be forced to face clever insults like "retard," or (b)
stutter. Neither fills me with joy. I flick my head round quickly. I
can see Claire now. She's striding down the road, at least five cars
away. Her parents are waiting for us. I'm alone.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"
I imagine myself asking him what exactly that phrase means. I have
recently learnt the word "cliche" and picture myself silencing his
taunts and leading us all into a friendly discussion on some of the
crazier phrases we have heard people say. Sadly, my reality is a
little less rosy. His friends are gathering now, and all five
freshly scrubbed faces are staring at me.
"What are you looking at?" my bitter voice pipes up from nowhere. As
clearly as I knew I couldn't say my name, I knew that the nervous
energy would propel my voice, allow me to utter something. I have
learnt from bitter experience that anger makes me fluent, that I
could be just like the rest of the world if only I would shout every
question and swear my way through every answer.
Briefly, my question silences them. My accent is English, home
counties, girly, nothing fabulously interesting. They look up at
their ringleader. I suspect that they are wondering why he has
called them over. They clearly have more important business to
attend to, and two of them wander off, bored.
選擇“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
選擇“don't run on pages on this domain”
