“There is no fix for stuttering” doesn’t mean “there’s no hope”.

“There is no fix for stuttering” doesn’t mean “there’s no hope”. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I think realizing that we may stutter forever is the beginning of a new kind of hope. Let me explain… Realizing your stutter probably won’t go away (apparently if you started stuttering young and continue to stutter past the age of 8, research shows you’ll almost certainly continue into adulthood. I did not know. I was 23 hoping I’d wake up and it’d be gone) is really, really hard. It doesn’t feel good. At all. But I don’t think it’s hopeless. I think you exchange hopes. It’s hard because your stutter disappearing is the hope you’ve held onto your entire life. Accepting the truth that it is most likely here to stay? That was one of the worst moments of my life. But when you do that, the goal changes. Now instead of waking up one day and being fluent (something you can’t control at all), you’re wondering how to navigate the world as a person who stutters. How do you still be YOU, especially if you like to talk, and still stutter at the same time? Now you have a new hope : you hope to live your life more fully, let’s say. Well, you can control that. It’s a much better hope then spontaneous fluency because it’s one you have a say over. Sure, the world will still bring us challenges. Some people will be rude, and sometimes you’ll be limited by people’s misunderstandings. But I’ve learned that most of the time, people actually don’t care. When I was in high school, we took a aptitude test. If you don’t know, aptitude measures your passion about something, not necessarily your skill. You can imagine how upsetting it was, somebody who is stuttered from the age of six, for my number one career path to be public speaker. I cried. I couldn’t do that with a stutter. It was so unfair. Well. I still stutter. And if I took an aptitude test again, I’d probably get the same results. But why would I want to spend the rest of my life trying to avoid the things that make me the most happy? It’s hard at first. It’s hard for awhile. But the more you practice putting yourself out there with a stutter, the easier it gets. You don’t have to walk up to strangers (some people do and they love it. I would never LOL), you can just find ways to respond a little more to cashiers. Over time, it stops feeling embarrassing. And it’s worth it. You don’t have to fall in love with your stutter, but you can learn to live the life you want to live with it.