a success. a failure. a stutterer. not a I’m I’m I’m I’m stutterer. I'm good. I'm bad. It gradually dawned on me that I was creating my own stressful world by my habits of thought. General semantics gave me tools to circumvent these problems. I was encouraged to constantly challenge my own perceptions. If I blocked, and somebody smiled, I automatically assumed they were laughing at me. General semantics taught me to question things like that. It taught me that my of reality was not reality at perception all. It was only my perception. The person could be smiling for any number of reasons. Maybe I just said something that reminded them of a funny experience. Maybe their drawers were too tight, and that smile was a grimace of pain. Similarly, my beliefs were not reality. They were just a map of reality. I learned to question whether or not my maps were accurate and to not take anything I perceived on face value. Something I came to realize was that whenever someone was upset, I automatically thought it was because of something done. That created additional stress. I’d It also put me in a one-down position, and it created fertile ground for speech blocks. Once I got in the habit of challenging my perceptions, I started to see that most events had many possible explanations. Changing how I thought played a vital role in my recovery.
I’m a success. I’m a failure. I’m a stutterer. I’m not a stutterer. I'm good. I'm bad. It gradually dawned on me that I was creating my own stressful world by my habits of thought. General semantics gave me tools to circumvent these problems. I was encouraged to constantly challenge my own perceptions. If I blocked, and somebody smiled, I automatically assumed they were laughing at me. General semantics taught me to question things like that. It taught me that my perception of reality was not reality at all. It was only my perception. The person could be smiling for any number of reasons. Maybe I just said something that reminded them of a funny experience. Maybe their drawers were too tight, and that smile was a grimace of pain. Similarly, my beliefs were not reality. They were just a map of reality. I learned to question whether or not my maps were accurate and to not take anything I perceived on face value. Something I came to realize was that whenever someone was upset, I automatically thought it was because of something I’d done. That created additional stress. It also put me in a one-down position, and it created fertile ground for speech blocks. Once I got in the habit of challenging my perceptions, I started to see that most events had many possible explanations. Changing how I thought played a vital role in my recovery.
how_i_recovered_from.docx