Who do I hold onto?

I live in a crazy house. If I could sum it up quickly, thats what it would be, a crazy house. I do not live in a home where reality exists. There is no logic, not forethought, nothing that sane human beings do. To be honest  I dint grow up in a house like that either, but this house is much more sinister. In this house the crazy changes frequently. It feels like they change daily, but that would be a slight exaggeration. Today I found out that my grandmother is hiding her food in her purse because she is afraid some men will come and take it from her. She literally takes her entire ceramic plate, shoves it in her purse and is then surprised when it makes a mess. She will pick up your keys, your phone, and hide it in her purse then act like you are wronging her for asking for them back. My mom on the other hand, roams. All day, and it drives me nuts. Im one of those snooty writers who needs everything to be still and silent when writing, hell, I hate her roaming even when Im watching trash tv, I'm like "can't you just sit your ass down please" But, I get it, kinda. She has so much mental energy, i do all her heavy lifting, anything she would use brain power for is now my responsibility, I read all the mail, I cook all the meals, I drive, I'm even the one who changes the channel on the remote, because that has become difficult for her as well, so I do it all. Ive given her, adult coloring books, and we've started crochet projects but all to no avail. She looses interest in everything very quickly, then decides to roam. If I ask her to walk the dog, she'll go outside then come right back in before he's had a chance to relieve himself. I do it all.

And its exhausting. There are so many things that I want to do, and to be honest it feels like I never will. Some days I want them to die, so I can have my life back, I know that harsh but, its how I feel. Before this, I revered life, and the opportunity to live it, and I filled each moment with strategic moves to get to the goals I set forth. Now, I take care of people who don't have much of a future ahead one them. One life for another. And I hate them for it. I don't actually hate them, but I do. i worked so hard to accomplish goals, make them proud, make me proud, and look where we are. Thoughts of death have become more and more prevalent over the past few months. I always shoo them away, but they're there. Times feel desperate, and at this moment I ask myself, who or what is there to hold onto?

I don't know who I am anymore.

I have now lived in Los Angeles for a total of almost 7 months, it still doesn't feel very much like home to me. I am struggling to find friends, I am struggling to find a community that I connect with, and I am struggling to not lose myself. I have a constant worry in the back of my mind whenever I go go out. Fear has been more prevalent in these last few months than it ever has in my life before. This is a new feeling, and all I want to do is recapture my old self again. 

I booked a flight to New York for that exact reason, to recapture myself, whatever parts of me I knew and loved are still there and I'm trying to find her desperately, whether I spend my time roaming the streets, hanging out with friends, or just walking in and out of bodegas, I need a new environment. Some place that will help me step out of where I am now. I've never been so unhappy and Im unsure of how to pull myself out of this funk. Im hoping that New York will ground me in ways I haven't been able to be grounded here in LA. It's crazy because some people wish to leave New York with such vigor, and I wish everyday to go back. I just can't step out of this depression that I'm in. I don't feel safe while in it, I don't feel like I value myself and I don't feel valued by other people, I have to find myself all over again, and that is partly what I'm hoping this trip with give me. There is a chance that I will leave unfulfilled, which is a frightful prospect but it will also let me know that my journey to my self, isn't based in some city or friends, but within myself...which lets be honest, I already knew that, I just want to get out of LA. It represents nothing good for me. Nothing

I've begun doing speech therapy weekly with Heather my speech pathologist in New York via Skype. She is always a nice reminder of the life I had before moving here. Of course we are focusing as always on Cognitive reshaping, but also delving a bit more into physical changes with my speech. So not only focusing on changing my thinking patterns where it pertains to my speech but also changing how I physically deal with tension in the moments of stuttering.  To work on my cognitive restructuring, I have begun making a list of positive thoughts to replace the negative thoughts that I often have when stuttering. 

During moments of stuttering, specially with people I do not know, my mind often goes to place like..."You sound so stupid, who is going to trust you when you can barely get your words out" I can then replace that thought with the thought "Stuttering and my intelligence do not correlate with each other" Now although my negative stuttering thought seems infinitely more personal and plain mean and my positive thought feels a bit more generic, I am assuming its a start. 

"Does it matter much, what this person thinks about my intelligence?"

"He isn't hiring me or paying my bills" This comment then gives people who do have the job of hiring me a little more power than I would like for them to have, but, baby steps I'm guessing. One of the most important things i have to remember is "My time is just as important. If I take a couple od extra seconds, so be it" This is difficult because I am super aware of time, always have been, and I'm most aware of time when I am speaking, always trying not to waste another persons time, because that is what I think stuttering is. A time waster, and I, deep down inside myself am not a time waster, I value time. 

A few tactics to fight these negative thoughts, I will be trying. One is to stutter so severely to make my listener walk away. Giving myself this experience will desensitize me the perceived feeling it will give me, and force me to actually experience this. Another one is to always stutter on the first word I say, this gets the fact that I stutter out there, so there isn't any hiding from that point on.

These are  few of the exercises that I will try this week. To be honest, I am not motivated to do any of it. Ive lost all motivation over the past few months. Im always exhausted, nothing seems to be going right, but I will try, because there is a little part of me left, that still has to try. Im just hoping that doesn't get stomped out in the process. 

My life has turned upside-down

I moved to Los Angeles. I never wanted to move back to Los Angeles, it wasn't the plan I had for my life and it definitely wasn't in my plan to move here in a moments notice, but life throws some crazy shit at you. Knives. I feel like knives are being thrown at me. Sharp butchering knives. And i don't feel like this all the time but I do go in and out of this daze, and by daze I mean crying episodes where i repeat "how did this become my life?"

I live in La, with my mother and grandmother, and I am now their caretaker. I can't really speak on their ailments, because we are still seeing doctors trying to figure out exactly what is going on, but I can say that my life has changed and the people that I once knew are no longer those same people and it hurts my heart to the core. So many emotions have risen for me, anger at my mom for letting it get this far, hopelessness for my life and what it will now become, fear that I will never be able to accomplish all of the goals I had set in my mind, fear that no man would ever want to be with a girl who is taking care of her family,uncertainty about the future our financial situations, I am an only child, there is only me, I am alone in this and i don't really know what to do. Im calling doctors all day, fighting with family who no longer know who I am, I don't even have the energy to think about planning something for myself or self care, or any of that, I feel like i have been placed in a steel box thats been chained shut.

Ive been forcing optimism out my ass for the past 4 weeks since my move, and Im nearly all out. I see no silver lining at this moment. And more importantly I'm tired of the "everything happens for a reason" speech. i don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear "God has big plans for you" or "when one door closes another opens" I don't want to hear it. I just left my friends, my job, the love interest, my 7 years of building relationships and a life in New York, a city I've wanted to move to since I was 13, to take care of one person who is completely evil to me and another who it breaks my heart to see in this condition.

I want more for myself than this. I need more, I won't be happy taking care of other people for the rest of my life, its some peoples calling but it isn't mines.
I also understand this feeling is just a moment, and I will adapt, but the shock of this situation has yet to sink in.

I feel so lost.

Im Going Going Back Back to Therapy

The email's been sent, the appointment is made, Im going back to speech therapy and I am beyond excited about it. Its been about a year since my last visit. Im combing over the past year trying to figure out why I left, and dig though what was going on with me that made me make the decision to leave. I think some of it was me wanting to see how far I could go on my own, if I could stick to my positive thinking and redirect myself whenever I fell off track, which i did for a good while, but then I veered left, then went off the road, drove into a lake, canoed back to shore, then for some reason took a helicopter far far away from where I initially began. And the whole stuttering on live tv thing just furthered it. (You can check my previous post for that juicy story.) But now Im back home. Not to mention my therapist is maybe one of my top ten favorite people in the world and I don't know why I would decide to go an entire year without seeing her face, it just doesn't make any sense.

If I force myself to do a little more self exploration, for me, returning to therapy was a sign of failure. I failed at curing myself, I failed at living my life without this extra bit of help. During this year I didn't go to a support group, I didnt see any of my friends who stutter, I completely left the stuttering world, (except for those of you who sent messages via youtube or Facebook, I still love talking people through their stuttering ups and downs, because that journey, is rough.) At the same time I joined the comedy world, met some invaluable people who are now important fixtures in my life, and now I believe I can merge the two. Maybe this is just how my brain works, I need immerse myself in one thing, step back then figure out how to fit it into my life. I do a lot, and know a lot of people and its the prioritizing of it that can get very difficult.

Im also, applying for new jobs in comedy writing, and video production and to be completely honest, the whole job interview process scares the shit out of me. Maybe because I've experienced enormous amounts of rejection in the past (as have everyone else applying for jobs, I'm aware of that) But nothing is more crushing that sitting down for an interview and barely being able to speak. Not being able to get any of your accomplishments or abilities out in a timely manner. Each moment of silence feels like a wall of doubt building up in the interviewers mind. But alas, this is the world I live in and this is the world I must succeed in, and this is the world that I will try my damnedest to conquer. So onward I go. Im working on a million and 1 projects at the moment, so I will update you when the time comes. I will update you on my return to my stutter goddess, I'm so excited to see her again.

That Shit Cray

I, Jacquelyn Revere am a severe stutterer. I forget what the percentage for the rank of stuttering is, but I do remember that severe stutterers, stutter on 60-80% of their words, those are a lot of words, and that is a lot of time spent stuttering, and I feel every second of it. I had to take a break from the blog, because stuttering was becoming everything I knew and thought about, and as positive as I try to be about it, stuttering is an up an up and down struggle. I want to continue to share the honesty of what that experience is, but sometimes, I just have to not think about it.

 And now somehow its 2016, I unexpectedly tried to spend 2 years not thinking about stuttering, and during that time I joined Toastmasters, where I thought about it constantly, I quit Toastmasters and I began doing stand up comedy and loved it. LOVED IT.

I know we've talked a bit about how Ive learned to be mostly fluent on stage, it comes with reciting my sets, or scripts, and laser focusing while in the moment on stage, and usually that works for the most part. But in November of 2015, I was asked to do a guest comedy spot on a public access live television show, I did it and stuttered through my entire set. Not one punchline made it out at the right timing, not one anecdote made its way clearly from my mind to my mouth to the mic. None of it. And  I stayed in that moment for a few minutes and my entire body was on fire, I felt flames circling every inch of myself,  Im sure its on youtube somewhere, I was even given a consolation prize of a horrid interview after I balled my eyes out for 20 minutes upstairs in the conference room corner, and I'm sure thats on the web somewhere too. So, I quit, I didn't wanna do stand up anymore, and decided o focus on comedic writing and video production. Youtube and video production peaked my interest and I have begun training and working at the same public access station that I bombed at, every time i see the couples who show I bombed I rush away as quickly as possible, completely embarrassed, and that how I know that my stutter work is not done, and will most likely never be done, and so I am back to document my experience, because 'that shit cray.'

March 8th I stepped back on stage to co-host/produce a comedy show with a friend (Chanel Ali). This was my first time back on stage since November 2015, it was fun, I didn't say much, I didn't tell any jokes, Chanel and I played off each other a bit (she is so supportive), but I'm getting my feet wet again. Hopefully I will be able to tell you about our next show coming up soon.

Update on life.

I know that I havnt updated this blog in 2 months or so, creating quality videos takes a lot of time, and Im really falling in love with the creative process, so Im so sorry for my neglect. However, a lot of things have been going on in my mind lately. There has been a change in my thinking and the way I am approaching things with myself. It seems to be more productive. I feel like this new place will help me find where i am suppose to be in this world. I am forcing myself to step out of my comfort zone without abandon, and i plan to get even better at it. I still have moments of shame but they are shorter lived and much easier to recover from. I recently joined Toastmasters, a group of people that meet up weekly or so, to become better at public speaking. I was really embraced when I walked in, A speech coach offered to mentor me. Its cool, so Im excited to begin that, and there are a lot of other things happening right now that excite me as well. Im feeling good, but making sure to maintain my spiritual practice. I now see how important consistency is. Not to say that I won't fall off the bandwagon again, but i will at least recognize my misplaced footing much sooner. The people in my life that are there to do good are becoming increasingly more recognizable, allowing me to release myself from those with ill intent. Its a new womanhood, I like it, its adult, its sensual, its confident, its very me. And I like her.

Quick update.

How, are you guys doing, I have been knee deep in a lot of things, work, future stutter girl projects, and taking a few endeavors to improve upon myself. One of my challenges this week was to attend a Toastmsters meeting and complete a table topic. For those of you who do not know, toastmasters is a public speaking group that meets to practice public speaking. I am really trying to overcome this fear, and I hear this is a supportive place to begin. I am also noticing that the daily challenge has become more of a chore than a task to test my fear and challenge it, so I am going to reprogram it for myself to make sure i get the most benefit from it and that it doesn't make speaking mundane chore for me, because Im trying to refine the joy that I had in speaking as a child. I will be beck with what I come up with for this. Oh btw I was nominated for a Supporting Actress award out here in NYC for a play that I did last year called IYOM. Its an honor. I hope all is well with you, and I will be back soon. Im also having horrible issues with a virus on my macbook which is like unheard of, so I have to take it to the store....golly gee

Day 52 Stuttering Awareness Day

So today is Stuttering Awareness Day, there seems to have been a lot of people very excited about it this year, thats good, I can see that the Stuttering Community is gaining more of a voice, and I appreciate that, I think its a beautiful thing. So today, i went to an event that AIS and the NSA were throwing. It was supposed to be a scavenger hunt that encouraged stutterers to talk to strangers and educate them about stuttering, however it rained and poured and we ended up staying inside, but we instead, made phone calls to five people in our phones to tell them its Stuttering Awareness Days and share one stuttering fact with them. It was fun, i chose to call a friend i haven't spoken to in a while, I still advertised, (ps, all my friends know that I stutter) and told him the fact, then the conversation just went somewhere else, this pretty much happened with all of my friends. But that was my challenge and I completed it...Boom

Day 51 #100TerrifyingDays

Yesterday was a telephone challenge, Im working on lessening my facial contortions when stuttering and exchanging them for more vocals stutters, so, yesterday I had a phone call, and really focused on relaxing my face during the call, it was a substation of sorts, went ok, Im not in love with working on my stutter at this moment, but it happens every time i talk so why not play around with it and figure it out. have a good day, I have another phone interview today, so I will most likely post back with my progress with substituting stuttering habit for more efficient ones..ttyl

Day 50 #100TerrifyingDays

Im proud to be kicking off my half way mark with this challenge. I had a meeting with a now friend, who was the producer for a show that I was cast in earlier this year called The Seven (by the way the number 7 has followed me my entire life, so much so that I have a tattoo of the number 7 on my wrist). The show was great, and he did a wonderful job producing it as well, so I knew I had to pick his brain about a few projects tha I would like to begin working on. We met in a cafe on Broadway and 49th street. I openly stuttered with people around us, asking for an open chair, and during our entire conversation, I made it my job to enjoy the moment, and the process of sharing my dreams and my thoughts, and to not worry about the stutter. I found that in the past, I was worrying so much about how long i kept my eyes open and how much tension i had that i stopped taking the time to understand why we talk in the first place and its to express ourselves. So, I focused on that. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to work on eye contact and what not, but for this second, i just want to have fun talking, because its been a labored process for so much of my life.

Day 49 #100TerrifyingDays

My thoughts flow up and down all of the time, and to tell you the truth I am getting a little tired of making challenges to do daily for my speech. It makes my speech a much bigger deal in my life for this moment than it ever has been, and to be completely honest, because my stutter is connected so deeply to me as a person, i think I want to change some of my challenges to be about making myself a better person. Ill give a little example...so today

As most of you know, I work in customer service. And one of the only things that I really do like about my job is my crew. Our job is difficult and demanding, and we all know the struggle and pull together to get things done. I like them a lot. However, everyone in every group can't be friends. So when I first began this job, I believe that I walked into the store my cheery self, ready to meet people, and almost immediately, I felt a non-friendly vibe from a few of the girls on the crew. I, instead of going against that vibe, and being friendly and putting myself a little bit on the limb, i automatically decided, "fine then i won't talk to them, whatever." So, since I've begun this job, 9 months ago, very few words have been exchanged, however many glances and looks and crossed eyes have been had. sooooooo

Today during lunch break a bunch of us were in the lunch room talking about...something..who knows. This one girl I hadn't gotten along with and I agreed on this one topic and had a really fun exchange during the conversation, it was nice, because I felt the weight of all the defensiveness that I was carrying melt off. Its a lot of weight to carry, even if its just the front..."Whatever, I don't care." Because I really did apparently. So before we both left work, I walked up to her and said, I know we've never had the time to talk, but the little exchange we had today felt good. I just wanted to say that. And her response was, yeah it did. She then she asked if I was working tomorrow.

 So, this is what I mean. I have good instincts and I can feel what is the best decision and sometimes I fight it because of my ego. Im looking to work on myself. Yes my stutter is apart of myself but it isn't all of it, and Id hate to minimize this challenge just to my speech. Ok so from here on out, things are changing a little, you ready?

Day 48 #100TerrifyingDays

Spoke on a mic today. Unexpectedly, but I guess thats the best time to do anything huh. So a wonderful friend of mines Cristina Pimentel who is a brilliant fashion stylist and a beautiful stutterer as well (shameless plus for her website The Fuschsia Files here) threw a fashion event here in NYC, it was beautiful, cocktails and women discussing what makes them feel authentic. SO while discussion was happening, the microphone was sneakily passed to me...The question was, "what make your style you? or something along those lines, and I answered, as I wore my purple MAC lipstick, "lipsticks make me feel like me, its authentic to who I am" and boy did I stutter, however I also advertised before giving my answer.

As of late I have been taking the time to feel what my first reactions to situations are, and my first instinct was the pass the mic to someone else, I decided to fight that and speak. Its one thing at a time that will help me overcome this fear, that is present within me when speaking. Im enjoying the learning process, but I have much further to go than I ever thought.

Day 47 #100TerrifyingDays

So, today, I took myself on an artist date, Its kind of just a date with myself where I go to a place that invigorates my senses, and makes me feel alive, and artsy, so todays artist date was at Pottery Barn, whats more fun than designing your home, life (well i could think of a million more fun things, but pottery barn is my jam too.) So I went ask the clerk my question, and i promised myself that I would get one word out today without losing eye contact while speaking. i did it. I'm feeling good. My spirits have been a little low but I have to lift them because, theres no church in the wild...drops mic

Day 46 #100TerrifyingDays

Todays was pretty low-key as well, I had a meeting with my website designer to work on creating my new website and learning how to run it on my own btw www.Stuttergirl.com will be up soon my loves, Im excited about that, I will be putting my blog post on there soon, and close my blogspot.com, I will let you know when all of that occurs.
Today, i did a phone call challenge,  advertised in the call, but that is no longer a challenge for me, in this phone call I did a lot of hard stuttering, its scary to show people that, but I think my challenge with that will be putting up the video and allowing people to see me in the insecure state. Stuttering sometimes feels like I'm naked, literally, and maybe sharing that with the world is what will help me to overcome it. I don't know, i still question even starting Stuttergirl because my insecurity tries to take over all of the time, but I fight it.....to post or not to post, that is the question.

Day 45 #100TerrifyingDays

Went to work today, I seem to be having a lot of heartfelt moments with my co-workers as of late, Im enjoying it, no complaints here, so Im strolling around my job, trying to look busy for a second or two, when I randomly got into this conversation with one of my co-workers about where I have been and what I've been up to. I recently took three weeks off work to travel a bit, and talk about stuttering in other countries. So i explained this, and that opened up the floodgates for him to share with me about his experience with being OCD, and how judgmental people can be without properly understand exactly what is going on. Its interesting, but I'm happy we had the talk. I had to monitor my tension during this talk a lot, some days are just easier than others. I also had this customer today who was really down on herself about being the Black Sheep in her family because she has a learning disability, she actually opened up the conversation by saying "my sisters a speech pathologist, you should just slow down" I responded with, well i can tell you that that is not the truth. I then told her about Stuttergirl and how I hope the videos i do help people. So, that was my day in a nutshell, with some voluntary stuttering thrown in there as well.

Day 44 #100TerrifyingDays

Had a meeting today...yes a 'Stuttergirl meeting' you guys have no idea how much I love Stuttergirl, its not where id like it to be yet, but i do put my heart into it, and I hope you guys can see that. So, I had a meeting, going over some ideas and I during the meeting I made sure to really work on releasing tension. When a block comes, I become a ball of tension, that is so difficult to let go of, so this was about an hours worth of monitoring. I think I did pretty good...always working on improving though.

Day 43 #100TerrifyingDays

Hey friends, well its back to work I go asking people if they'd like paper or plastic. Im excited for the day we start charging for bags when grocery shopping, so many other countries charge, and we do in some places in the States, but I'm tired of our entitled customer thinking that paper just grows on trees...that never have to get cut down and if they are, they regrow magically within seconds. Anyway todays challenge was with a co-worker of mines. Today was my first day back from work in almost 3 weeks, and of course everyone questions was, Where were you? I have a great story, obviously, but I had the chance to really challenge my patience with myself while talking to a co-worker about stuttering, and how people have a very difficult time understanding it, and how Id love to spread some awareness, so people can stop being such asses to people who do stutter. I talked to her about the psychological side that people can experience, and how years of not saying what you want to say for fear of being ridiculed can weigh on you mentally. Yes, I stuttered during this talk, however I was very aware with myself and made sure I stayed comfortable while speaking the entire time. Whats more important than my own comfort when sharing my story? Even when emotions got high, I had to re-find my cool calm place, it felt good to work on another aspect of stuttering that wasn't just a tool, or a goal. Talking is supposed to be fun, and enjoyable and I want to find the fun in it again.

Day 42 #100TerrifyingDays

Its really ugly outside so today was pretty low-key, nothing huge on my agenda except work on my computer, but I was a little lost on the subway in Brooklyn, there was couple in front of me being super cute, they were the only people around so i had to disturb them, I felt kind of bad, but I asked which train I could take to get back to Manhattan, Manhattan was a huge stutter, I kept it audible, I'm working on feeling whats going on inside my body as well when stuttering, so I can feel more comfortable focusing on what going on, on the inside of me, instead of worrying about the thoughts of the people I am talking to, so I can gain control better. man, this is a like a full 12 step program for me...well, its my way of learning and I'm actually enjoying the process. Hope everyone else is doing well, luv ya

Day 41 #100TerrifyingDays

Ok, so today was a little different, today I decided to work on keeping my stutter audible....Im what you call a silent blocker, and in order get rid of the block I'm working on making my stutters include more sound, so i can then control my vocal cords more as well...while out with my roommate, order food, i did a very audible stutter, it was loud too, all in a days work of reducing fear.

Day 40 #100TerrifyingDays

So, I went to my first Toastmasters meeting today. Well, I tried to go, turns out this week/weekend is a holy holiday in the Jewish community, which caught me off guard because the exact same thing was happening a week ago when I was in Israel. Oh, my toastmasters meeting was at The Jewish Center in Manhattan, I've been courting this group for a while, receiving emails from them for about a year now and today was the day that i had decided to go. Luckily the church was open and I was able to talk to a few people who confirmed that the meeting would not be held this week, and maybe not next week as well. I can give myself an A for effort, however I will go to a Toastmasters by the end of this month.