Speaker 1: I I think that that is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I love being different. It's because it's sort of
Speaker 1: disallows you from being able to pretend like everything is okay.
Speaker 1: I wanted to interview Kate because there's so many ways
Speaker 1: in which we can be invisible. Going into this conversation,
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about stuttering. What I did know
Speaker 1: is that my dad's stutters, and I didn't really even
Speaker 1: clock it as like a thing thing like that. There's
Speaker 1: a whole sector of the population that stutters, and there's
Speaker 1: like organizations that are catered to being a community because
Speaker 1: of how they're perceived. At the larger scale, you meet
Speaker 1: Kate through her voice, including her stutter, and I think
Speaker 1: what's absolutely beautiful about voices and about all of our
Speaker 1: identities and everything we bring to the table is that
Speaker 1: it's not just our vocal thing go print, but sometimes
Speaker 1: even like the little pieces of our soul being shared
Speaker 1: out loud. So I'm really honored to share the story
Speaker 1: and to share Kate with you. All. Welcome to when
Speaker 1: You're Invisible. My name is Maria Fernande, but I know
Speaker 1: not everyone can rule there are so it's also fine
Speaker 1: to call me Maria in today's world. We love to
Speaker 1: tell stories about people who have reached the top, like
Speaker 1: people who have achieved positions of cloud wealth power. On
Speaker 1: this show, I won't be doing that. When You're Invisible
Speaker 1: is my love letter to the working class and others
Speaker 1: who are seemingly invisible in our society. Helped to build
Speaker 1: a community here that will inspire you to have generous
Speaker 1: conversations with others that are different from you, conversations that
Speaker 1: might help you see life in an entirely different way.
Speaker 1: Kid is an incredible soul. You meet her and she
Speaker 1: is just this beautiful, like almost otherworldly warmth. And when
Speaker 1: I sat down to talk to her, I immediately like
Speaker 1: felt like I didn't have many walls, and I immediately
Speaker 1: wanted to be present because she was okay sitting listening
Speaker 1: and taking up a gentle space. Kate was like a
Speaker 1: beautiful way of reminding me that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to approach the world, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to approach each other, and there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of ways we can approach ourselves. I think it's helpful
Speaker 1: to break down that there are a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to hide the fact that you stutter. There are you
Speaker 1: know what what a lot of speech therapist teach you
Speaker 1: is falls under the umbrella fluency techniques. So there are
Speaker 1: are certain things that you can you can sort of
Speaker 1: do with your voice to sort of trick your vocal
Speaker 1: cords and your m neurology into being fluent quote unquote,
Speaker 1: which is hard and takes a lot of work. So
Speaker 1: it's things like talking like this, or it's things like
Speaker 1: making a small sound before the statement. It's called an
Speaker 1: easy onset. K articulates this ability to hide in this
Speaker 1: shifting that I really relate to because depending on the
Speaker 1: situation and what was happening around me, I would change
Speaker 1: colors a little bit. Something that's kind of interesting about
Speaker 1: people who satter is that a lot of us can
Speaker 1: tell the words that we're going to start around before
Speaker 1: we get there. So like a few words before, you'll
Speaker 1: sort of feel it and you'll you'll you'll know that
Speaker 1: that is going to be a word that's going to
Speaker 1: take a lot longer to say. You can change it.
Speaker 1: You can change that word and just completely avoid the stutter.
Speaker 1: So there's that, and then the third way that's super
Speaker 1: effective to not stutter is to not talk. So you know,
Speaker 1: all all three of those things are methods that I
Speaker 1: was really gung hole for as a young young person
Speaker 1: to sort of tie yourself into not to try to
Speaker 1: execute those three methods to not stutter and sound the
Speaker 1: same way as everybody else. I'm not gung hope for
Speaker 1: those things now. For me, the problem is that when
Speaker 1: I do those things, I feel like each time there
Speaker 1: is a little sliver of space between myself and my
Speaker 1: actual point, between myself and my like authentic energetic intent
Speaker 1: for common communication, and so each time it gets a
Speaker 1: little bit more and more and more and more, and
Speaker 1: so it just drives a wedge between what I mean
Speaker 1: and what I'm trying to serve up and what I'm
Speaker 1: actually saying, and that feels really bad for me. Authenticity
Speaker 1: is something that I'm always curious about. It's partially linked
Speaker 1: to the development of this podcast. I want to figure
Speaker 1: out how to live beautifully and truthfully and generously to
Speaker 1: recognize other people in our place in the world that
Speaker 1: we are all beautiful, special, complicated, fucked up, and we're
Speaker 1: all dealing with a million things at the same time.
Speaker 1: I think I got this from somebody else, but used
Speaker 1: to call myself a walking the saurus because that's what
Speaker 1: it is. Like you you have to be so smart
Speaker 1: and like no so many words and and then if
Speaker 1: you say a word that like sort of gets to
Speaker 1: your meaning but not fully, then you have to like
Speaker 1: you know, build that out on the back end and
Speaker 1: like try to like still go back to your point.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a like you said, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of gymnastics. I'm curious as to, like your experience growing up,
Speaker 1: what is the process as a family, because when you're
Speaker 1: a kid who stutters to how do the adults in
Speaker 1: your life react. I am more and more just so
Speaker 1: in awe of my family, and I had and have
Speaker 1: just such deep privilege in terms of how how how
Speaker 1: they see me and what they think about me. My
Speaker 1: mom especially, she is she's like a badass lady. And
Speaker 1: I never remember her being like, you know, well, you
Speaker 1: might not be able to do that because you stutter.
Speaker 1: Or more specifically, when I had moments of feeling just
Speaker 1: like destroyed or or ragged after a hard day or
Speaker 1: a hard experience, like her reaction was always just like
Speaker 1: I got you, and you're gonna You're gonna get through
Speaker 1: this because you are extraordinary. More when we come back
Speaker 1: from a break, Welcome back to our conversation. On this
Speaker 1: episode of When You're Invisible. There is this device called
Speaker 1: this speech Easy, and it's an inner ear device that
Speaker 1: fits into your ears sort of like a hearing aid.
Speaker 1: It's like an echo. It's like less than a second
Speaker 1: of delay per words. This device called speech Easy, which
Speaker 1: was created in two thousand and one. It's a fluency
Speaker 1: device for stutters. It basically creates a chral effect and
Speaker 1: so you're hearing your voice bounce back at you through
Speaker 1: your ear at a higher pitch in order to create
Speaker 1: like the confidence that you get from speaking in a group,
Speaker 1: and also by trying to like take you out of
Speaker 1: that that space I guess of being in your head.
Speaker 1: There are different sounds of the voices that you can choose,
Speaker 1: but mine was like a chipmunk voice that was in
Speaker 1: my ear. The world doesn't really know anything at all,
Speaker 1: really about how the brain works and why we stutter,
Speaker 1: and what the brain is and what we are and
Speaker 1: what is happening inside of our heads. We know about
Speaker 1: space sort of, but we don't know very much about
Speaker 1: our own brains, which I think is a good like
Speaker 1: micro causum for just what we're doing right now is people.
Speaker 1: My mom paid the money and I got it, and
Speaker 1: it did work for a period, but then generally the
Speaker 1: effects where off as the brain sort of adjust. The
Speaker 1: brain is not going to transform itself based on the
Speaker 1: input of this brand new thing that you're trying. It's
Speaker 1: going to find a way to default back to its
Speaker 1: natural state, which is like very broken brain science. But
Speaker 1: it's fine. I think it was probably about two or
Speaker 1: three weeks and then it stopped working, And that felt
Speaker 1: like a really important moment for me because I sort
Speaker 1: of had to I had to had to look into
Speaker 1: this black hole of truth that this was my identity,
Speaker 1: this is who I am, this is how it is
Speaker 1: going to be. And for the first time I started
Speaker 1: to consider, like, Okay, Kate, how are you going to
Speaker 1: work this into who you are as a person? Like
Speaker 1: how are you going to look at this with love
Speaker 1: and with care and tenderness and acceptance. It's funny that
Speaker 1: you bring up the idea of feeling broken and how
Speaker 1: we're all broken, because I think it's something like that
Speaker 1: we deemed taboo that by being broken it's bad, when
Speaker 1: in fact, where we ever perfect holes, but rather just
Speaker 1: like pieces that are meant to be beautifully put together,
Speaker 1: and that like, they're meant to look different. Why are
Speaker 1: we trying to be a full sheet of glass when
Speaker 1: we're meant to be stained glass? Gone bye? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's like the most beautiful things to me
Speaker 1: are never perfect. We are duped to believe the system
Speaker 1: is there to help us, even if the system is
Speaker 1: as small as like a medical device that we've created
Speaker 1: to like somehow help cure this disability or disorder, versus
Speaker 1: being like all our brains are wired differently. As long
Speaker 1: as it's not hurting her, why should it be fixed?
Speaker 1: Only one percent of the population stutters, So to be
Speaker 1: someone who has to be like, oh, there's everything I
Speaker 1: deal with that you deal with, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that, here's this other thing thinking about that. Does
Speaker 1: it affect the way you date or do talk about
Speaker 1: it or anything like that? Dating dating, dating dating. I
Speaker 1: think that there's some some super buzzy intersectional identity stuff
Speaker 1: with being a person who stutters and being a woman
Speaker 1: or being a girl. Yeah. I have recently learned as
Speaker 1: I have approached thirty and been examineing what the fact
Speaker 1: happened in the last twenty nine years. I've sort of
Speaker 1: come come to understand the intersection of stuttering in like
Speaker 1: romance and intimacy in a in a way that feels
Speaker 1: really deep and really like It's just very embedded in
Speaker 1: my psyche, and I think that in general, the way
Speaker 1: that it has impacted is I have looked to the
Speaker 1: partners that I've had for so much more than just love.
Speaker 1: I've looked to them essentially to sort of be up
Speaker 1: a buffer between myself and the outside world. As I
Speaker 1: have sought that I have molded myself up around what
Speaker 1: they thought was really good and what they thought was
Speaker 1: really beautiful and sexy, as opposed to what felt authentic
Speaker 1: and beautiful and sexy to to myself as a woman.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel some of that pressure. What was like
Speaker 1: a big turning point for you? The biggest one was
Speaker 1: when I learned about SAY and got involved in SAY.
Speaker 1: Saying That the Stuttering Association for the Young, which is
Speaker 1: where I work. SAY was founded in two thousand one
Speaker 1: and has a two week summer sleepaway camp, speech therapy
Speaker 1: with a license speech therapist, and after school and weekend
Speaker 1: arts classes. I was not finding great success when I
Speaker 1: first moved to the city with finding work. I was
Speaker 1: going out on all these interviews at these sort of
Speaker 1: like random ish places, and I was just not getting
Speaker 1: these jobs. I was. I was working at a bakery
Speaker 1: and so that was like my my day, my day job.
Speaker 1: Then I had to decide me over. But I was
Speaker 1: contacted on LinkedIn by the biggest heads fund in the country,
Speaker 1: I think, or it might be the world. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't work this, so I don't know what all
Speaker 1: the details. Sorry. I went for this interview, and because
Speaker 1: it was a group interview, you had to prepare and
Speaker 1: open ended discussion, question question. I was to the group too,
Speaker 1: then like potentially leaded a discussion and I learned about say.
Speaker 1: I Like, I was really really stressed out and absolutely
Speaker 1: freaking out that I was going to have to go
Speaker 1: do this group interview and stutter or not stutter and
Speaker 1: word switched and just is gonna just be so much?
Speaker 1: And so I reached out to say and I was like,
Speaker 1: can you help me? I need something? I need help.
Speaker 1: And the speech therapist at the time, his name is
Speaker 1: Ryan Milliger, and he's now a very dear, dear friend
Speaker 1: of mine, so it's fun to think about that. He
Speaker 1: wrote right back to me, like within a few hours
Speaker 1: and was like, yes, absolutely, come on in and we
Speaker 1: can we can talk about it and like see what
Speaker 1: you want to do. So I was then going into
Speaker 1: this interview with like the knowledge that there was an
Speaker 1: outlet somewhere, that there was like a glimmer of of
Speaker 1: kindness and of self love and of just love in general.
Speaker 1: And so I didn't get the job, which is great,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that I didn't, But I did
Speaker 1: go into Say and I met I met Ryan, and
Speaker 1: I started with a speech internship with him because I
Speaker 1: was thinking for a while about being a speech therapist.
Speaker 1: And then I went and I worked at our camp,
Speaker 1: Camp Say, and then on the last day of Camp Say,
Speaker 1: they offered me a full time job at Sunset by
Speaker 1: the Lake. So it was perfect. Community with like minded
Speaker 1: or like experienced people is really important because you get
Speaker 1: to see yourself mirrored back at you, whether it's through
Speaker 1: other peers or adults. If you're a kid, the world
Speaker 1: can look a million different ways and it can include me,
Speaker 1: and being able to take a look at that and
Speaker 1: develop the confidence and the vocabulary around your experience and
Speaker 1: what you're seeing in the world. I think he's super,
Speaker 1: super important. I love the strength that we can get
Speaker 1: from connecting to people who we consider our own. And
Speaker 1: then I'm really curious about, like, how do we expand
Speaker 1: that to include people who might not be the same
Speaker 1: as us. Stay tuned for more from one year Invisible
Speaker 1: after this break and we're back. What do you think
Speaker 1: young Kate would think now of Kate approaching thirty? Yea,
Speaker 1: it brings me so much joy to say that I
Speaker 1: think young Kate would would would be like, what Kate,
Speaker 1: you did this? This is awesome. So that's really fun
Speaker 1: to think about. But where I thought I would be was,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that I wouldn't stutter. I thought
Speaker 1: that I was going to grow out of it. I
Speaker 1: thought that until like fairly late in my in my
Speaker 1: life as a child. And I think that that is
Speaker 1: a lot of what young people who said. I think
Speaker 1: the reality is that a lot of people who stud
Speaker 1: are past I believe it's like age eight or maybe
Speaker 1: nine or ten will stutter for so the rest of
Speaker 1: our lives. And with that knowledge, speech therapists still preach
Speaker 1: these fluency techniques to us and hold up this heavenly
Speaker 1: body of fluency that we can just get to if
Speaker 1: we work hard enough, and that feels feels really really
Speaker 1: destructive to me. We have the research. You are the
Speaker 1: expert in this field. You know that there's there's a
Speaker 1: good chance that I'm going to stutter for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life and and this is going to be
Speaker 1: part of my experience, and you are reinforcing to me
Speaker 1: that that is bad and that that that is wrong.
Speaker 1: And if I work hard enough and am good enough,
Speaker 1: I can reach the level. And that is setting us
Speaker 1: up to fail. And it is I think the biggest
Speaker 1: micro aggression that sort of exists in the lives of
Speaker 1: people who who crews better is this idea that if
Speaker 1: you just you know, worked hard enough, you could be fun.
Speaker 1: It just feels like it's a it's a false God.
Speaker 1: I really truly believe that we all benefit from the
Speaker 1: widening of these standards of what is normal. Like that
Speaker 1: is truly good for us all because as we do that,
Speaker 1: like even for the person who is I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's say, the most normal like white, skinny, pretty fit,
Speaker 1: like smart, talks in a certain way, Like even for
Speaker 1: that person, they have parts about themselves that feel different
Speaker 1: and that they see is different. And so by by
Speaker 1: by widening the parameters of what is normal, everybody wins.
Speaker 1: I think we shift ourselves and our version of normal
Speaker 1: based on what is predominant around us, not just regionally,
Speaker 1: but also ethnically, racially, culturally, and also normal is based
Speaker 1: off of who you interact with and who you're around.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, having experienced so many different
Speaker 1: kinds of normal, I think that's where I would take
Speaker 1: on a little bit of what is the monolith around
Speaker 1: me and either learned something from it, take a step
Speaker 1: towards it, or not. Dealing with different kinds of normal
Speaker 1: made me more specific in myself, and it also made
Speaker 1: me highly aware of how people perceived me. And thinking
Speaker 1: about the normal that k brings up in a somewhat
Speaker 1: joking manner is kind of sad to think about how
Speaker 1: predominant that still is, that it's still a Eurocentric, skinny, blonde,
Speaker 1: blue eyed kind of thing that still is prevalent in
Speaker 1: a nation that's so diverse, And I would love to
Speaker 1: get to the point where the standard is actually something
Speaker 1: that has a wider range of possibility. As Kate was saying,
Speaker 1: my favorite places to be are with diverse people from
Speaker 1: all different kinds of backgrounds. As we say in Mexico
Speaker 1: that is all the colors and all the tastes and flavors.
Speaker 1: What do you wish people knew if you could have
Speaker 1: everybody knows something or be something, what would it be?
Speaker 1: The thing that I would love, love love love would
Speaker 1: be if people just sort of in general knew how
Speaker 1: to listen. And like, that's not just for stuttering, I'm
Speaker 1: in general. This thing that we're doing as a culture
Speaker 1: about starting to talk before the person is finished, which
Speaker 1: is like everywhere, every day, every second, that is the standard.
Speaker 1: It's just so tiresome. Why why are we doing this
Speaker 1: thing where like I am still actively speaking, I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten to the end of what I'm saying yet, and
Speaker 1: you are starting to talk before I'm finished responding to
Speaker 1: the thing that you think that I'm saying, but I
Speaker 1: might not be saying that thing because I'm not finished.
Speaker 1: That's a squarely baffling way to commmunicate. And I think
Speaker 1: that it's based in time is money, It's based in
Speaker 1: everybody being being fast faced. It's based in like this
Speaker 1: this need to get things finished quickly. But like it's
Speaker 1: not effective, and it makes the spaces between us wider,
Speaker 1: and it makes us miss understand each other, and I
Speaker 1: think we we we all lose in that way by
Speaker 1: by not allowing a person to be the full extent
Speaker 1: of themselves in that in that moment. I would really
Speaker 1: love for that to change, and I think that that
Speaker 1: would would really change the way that we relate to
Speaker 1: each other. I feel really fortunate to have had this
Speaker 1: conversation with Kate, who also gave me a window into
Speaker 1: understanding someone else. I love. It was just like a gentle,
Speaker 1: sweet revelation of like, oh huh, there might be more
Speaker 1: going on with my dad than I thought in terms
Speaker 1: of his experience. It felt like a genuine interaction and
Speaker 1: a genuine conversation. And I think to have learned so
Speaker 1: much about someone else and to witness their vulnerability and
Speaker 1: their willingness to share, is a gift that I will
Speaker 1: always be in awe of. I leave this conversation with
Speaker 1: a sense of hope and a sense of calm, content nous.
Speaker 1: Having talked to Kate, we are going to next chat
Speaker 1: with another woman who I find extraordinary and fascinating and
Speaker 1: ever evolving, the incredible Lonnie. She's worked as a photographer,
Speaker 1: as a sex worker, and had many other jobs and
Speaker 1: she's now a soon to be mom. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to share her strength, her curiosity, and her journey with
Speaker 1: you all on our next episode. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to When You're Invisible and for joining me
Speaker 1: on this journey. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can find this episode and future ones on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. I'm your host and creator Maria fernand with
Speaker 1: executive producers Anna Stump, Nikki Tore and ban producers Arlene
Speaker 1: Santana and Bablo Cabrera, with associate producer Claudia Martha Corena
Speaker 1: and post production producer Daisy James. Original theme music by
Speaker 1: Tony Bruno. When You're Invisible is an I Heart Podcast
Speaker 1: Network production in partnership with Michael Toura Podcast Network