I mostly agree with you, but I mean, this is a stuttering support group so that's kinda what people are here for. Just to vent and get it out of our systems. I can't hide my stutter, and I can barely talk, so I don't think I'm just totally making excuses, but I know it's a real temptation. I feel like it's especially a pitfall in our culture right now, because people do this with everything not just stuttering... anxiety, their upbringing, some toxic relationship in the past, their parents, whatever. It's easy to blame circumstances and people, but ultimately we're hurting ourselves if we let these things keep us back from achieving what we want in life. Anyway, I'm still young, but I'm trying to work on it. I have a great example in my grandad who I try to emulate as much as I can. He's done so much in his life despite having a stutter just as bad as mine and having a lot of other hard things happen in his life. He still gets just as embarrassed, too, but he's really resilient in his own way and just keeps at things despite the humiliation. He even has to do a fair amount of public speaking, which he hates, but he never let his dislike of that hold him back from things he wanted to do in life. I think having a good role model makes all the difference in the world.