My mom's in denial of my stutter after 15 years. I need to remember what she won't.

My mom's in denial of my stutter after 15 years. I need to remember what she won't. I (23F) was shocked when my mom said "you never stuttered" after I told her I was finally making progress with my speech. As if she wasn't the one who told 8-year-old me "don't stutter, just speak slowly and fluently" when my stutter first developed. As if she wasn't the one who suggested I “should get surgery on your tongue so you won't stutter.” I thought she understood my 15-year struggle that brought me endless torture and shaped my whole personality. So if she doesn't remember it, and nobody else remembers, then at least I have to remember my experience. I'm not a native English speaker, so forgive my language use. Also I know it's a bit long. —— —— —— I was taken to check my IQ when my stutter first developed. My brain works fine. I've also seen a therapist who taught me mindfulness. It didn't work. We just stopped seeking help after that. Other kids at school made fun of me so much that I thought I'd be better off shutting up. I had already been super introverted growing up, and stuttering made me even quieter. Instead, I grew to enjoy writing. Writing has always been my safe space. I have all the time and space in the world to capture every detail I've noticed, feeling I've experienced, and perspective I've formulated. No time ticking, no people judging me or rushing to finish my sentence. It had always been manageable, especially since being quiet and demure was valued in girls in China (at least back then). It got worse when I left the Chinese educational system and entered an international high school. There we were required to do verbal presentations and take oral exams, not only in Chinese but also in English, which was my second language. My English was quite poor back then. No matter how early I started preparing or how many times I practiced, my stutter always got worse when I was actually presenting. The more I stuttered, the more I forgot what I wanted to say, which made everything worse. Every time I prepared for a new presentation, I would always think back to what happened last time and fall into this vicious cycle that I thought I would never be able to escape from. But interestingly, high school was also where I discovered I could actually speak slightly slightly more fluently in certain situations. I found myself mainly comfortable in two specific scenarios. First, when I was replicating a psychology study for a paper, and had to say a pre-written protocol one-on-one with different classmates repeatedly. Second, when I worked as a student ambassador (cuz my teacher thought I looked affable for doing that lol), giving campus tours to prospective students' parents, I repeated the exact same presentation over and over again. That's when I realized I'm most comfortable talking when I'm in control of the situation. I need to be actively interacting with people for a very specific purpose, using a script I'm familiar with but ideally completely new to my audiences. And most importantly, I wasn't being graded on these interactions. And many times, even if I messed it up, I would never see those people again. Being able to talk comfortably and confidently, even only under certain circumstances, feels so thrilling that I cannot let it go. That's how I've done 10+ volunteers and jobs over the past 5 years since I moved to the US for college, almost all involving intensive talking with scripts. For example, I worked as a research assistant at a psychology lab doing street intercepts, asking parents in the park if their children would participate in our study. I usually felt more confident when I can use that script to get participants, which made later conversations easier, and that's how I gradually learned small talk and can now handle one-on-one conversations much better. —— —— —— I used to think I would live with my stutter forever, and had prolonged and very serious thoughts about quitting life for that. Now I want to tell teenage me that nothing lasts forever, and it's okay to stutter. As I've grown older and entered a larger world, I notice there are more people willing to wait patiently for me to finish my sentence without making fun of my stutter. So even though I've become quite talkative now, when I meet people who stutter, I always do active listening. No rush, no judgement, trying my best to be patient and always there to listen so the person in front of me feels listened to and trusted. I wish to contribute to a stutter-friendly social environment, which I did not have as a stuttering kid. These 15 years have been hard for me and changed me significantly, and I think I should remember that and share it with people who might have similar experiences.