Magic made me realize other people don't care as much as you do

Magic made me realize other people don't care as much as you do Hello everyone, 23m here who has (like many of you) been stuttering for as long as I remember. I have only just found out about this sub, and I figured my experience of overcoming the fear of talking might be of help to some of you. ​ I started speech therapy at the age of 4. After going through about 7 years of speech therapy, it was clear to me that my stutter was here to stay forever. Sure, the stutter became less severe with the therapy but it was nowhere near being gone completely. I stopped with therapy at the age of 12. ​ At around the same age I discovered an interest in magic. I would be quietly practicing magic tricks in my bedroom and every time I thought something was good enough to perform (usually after 3 minutes of practice) I went downstairs and showed my parents my incredible new magic trick. As I got better with magic, I also started performing for friends and family - and they loved it! The self-confidence this gave me was surreal: not only did I learn that my magic tricks were good, it also showed me that I could stutter doing a magic trick and people would still enjoy it. Suddenly my **experiences with talking to others were being linked to the good emotions instead of angry ones**. ​ It was with these positive experiences that I slowly learned that **noone cared as much about my stutter as I did**. I had always hated my stutter and would get incredibly frustrated with it - certainly when I wanted to make a joke in a group conversation but the funny moment had already passed while I tried to get my first word out (this sucked especially because I think I'm very funny). ​ In the following years during high school I got many more positive experiences from performing magic tricks to groups of people (even a group of 600 people!) and to strangers. My self confidence with talking really grew a lot thanks to this, even though my stutter was still the same as it was before. Yes I still stuttered, but after every performance people would ask me about the magic tricks and not about the stutter. Everyone knew I stuttered, yet noone seemed to care. ​ I can honestly say that without magic tricks my life wouldn't be what it is now. It is thanks to magic that I realized that my stutter doesn't define what I can and can't do, and that I got enough self-confidence to even do the impossible and become lawyer. ​ **TLDR: Performing magic tricks made me link positive emotions to talking, and made me realize that I was the one who was keeping my stutter from achieving my dreams** ​ Should anyone have questions regarding my experience with stuttering and/or magic and/or what it's like being a stuttering lawyer, feel free to comment or send me a PM!