CHAPTER III
MY SEARCH CONTINUES
My parents' efforts to have me cured, however, did not cease with my visit to the medicine man. We were still looking for something that would bring relief. My teacher, Miss Cora Critchlow, handed me an advertisement one day, telling me of a man who claimed to be able to cure stammering by mail. In the hope that I would get some good from the treatment, my parents sent this mail order man a large sum of money. In return for this I was furnished with instructions to do a number of useless things, such as holding toothpicks between my teeth, talking through my nose, whistling before I spoke a word, and many other foolish things. It was at this time that I learned once and for all, the imprudence of throwing money away on these mail order "cures," so-called, and I made up my mind to bother no more with this man and his kind.
So far as the mail order instructions were concerned, they were crude and unscientific—merely a hodge-podge of pseudo-technical phraseology and crass ignorance—a meaningless jargon scarcely intelligible to the most highly educated, and practically impossible of interpretation by the average stammerer who was supposed to follow the course. Even after I had, by persistent effort, interpreted the instructions and followed them closely for many months, there was not a sign of the slightest relief from my trouble. It was evident to me even then that I could never cure myself by following a mail cure.
Today, after twenty-eight years of experience in the cure of stammering, I can say with full authority, that stammering cannot be successfully treated by mail. The very nature of the difficulty, as well as the method of treatment, make it impossible to put the instructions into print or to have the stammerer follow out the method from a printed sheet.
As I approached manhood, my impediment began to get worse. My stuttering changed to stammering. Instead of rapidly repeating syllables or words, I was unable to begin a word. I stood transfixed, my limbs drawing themselves into all kinds of unnatural positions. There were violent spasmodic movements of the head, and contractions of my whole body. The muscles of my throat would swell, affecting the respiratory organs, and causing a curious barking sound. When I finally got started, I would utter the first part of the sentence slowly, gradually increase the speed, and make a rush toward the end.
At other times, when attempting to speak, my lips would pucker up, firmly set together, and I would be unable to separate them, until my breath was exhausted. Then I would gasp for more breath, struggling with the words I desired to speak, until the veins of my forehead would swell, my face would become red, and I would sink back, wholly unable to express myself, and usually being obliged to resort to writing.
These paroxysms left me extremely nervous and in a seriously weakened condition. After one of these attacks, the cold perspiration would break out on my forehead in great beads and I would sink into the nearest chair, where I would be compelled to remain until I had regained my strength.
My affliction was taking all my energy, sapping my strength, deadening my mental faculties, and placing me at a hopeless disadvantage in every way. I could do nothing that other people did. I appeared unnatural. I was nervous, irritable, despondent. This despondency now brought about a peculiar condition. I began to believe that everyone was more or less an enemy of mine. And still worse, I came to believe that I was an enemy of myself, which feeling threw me into despair, the depths of which I do not wish to recall, even now.