I'm in Year 8 in secondary school with a stutter/stammer. I've had it since forever, I don't remember the last time I've been able to talk "normally". Stuttering has really effected me as a person, from the amount of friends I have, to the amount of opportunities I've let slip through my fingers, to my mental health, to my confidence, it's a lot really. It's made me feel like a burden to everyone.. it makes me question my future. Will anyone want to hire a stuttering girl who takes 40 seconds to say her name, will a guy ever date me without getting annoyed at my stutter?, Will I be able to communicate properly with my future children (if i have any), will I be able to pursue my dream job?. A bunch of stuff.  What really eats at me is the fact its never going to go away. It's just something I have to learn to live with no matter how much I hate it. Even If you get speech therapy or whatever, that doesn't mean your stuttering is going to be completely gone and it's so hard for me to be able to accept that.  Call me horrible but whenever I see something like me who stutters, I'm honestly ashamed. In my mind I'm like "why do I have to be apart of them?" Its just just embarrassing. To even say the word stuttering or stammering/ to be even typing it just makes me cringe. I'm just so ashamed of it.  Being the only one who stutters in my family or in my year group doesn't make anything better because no one is able to understand me. I'm so desperate for comfort I know I'll never get.. and even if I do get comfort, what's an "I'm so sorry you're going through this, it's going to be okay" going to do for me? Its not going to take it away. I know that yet I still crave it. I crave it but I'm not ready to open up about it to anyone because it's just so embarrassing and i just can't bring myself to speak up about it.  And I know I should be more confident but I can't. When people say "stuttering doesn't define you" I think their lying.. because it does define me. It makes me such a burden to everyone. In presentations, In basically every subject. It makes me feel useless to he honest. Almost like I want to disappear and I can't seen to shake this feeling off. That's some of my experience.