Don't take your stutter too seriously!

Don't take your stutter too seriously! First of all, I want to acknowledge that I'm a moderate to severe stutterer and a medical student. It appears that there are some stutterers who make stutter their identity, disclose it to every person they meet, and teach people what being a stutterer is. I respect their choice and way of being... And I've tried that option too but it didn't work for me. The people became more respectful but they seemed to be more nervous at the same time. So I didn't like that feeling of uneasiness... The thing that worked for me was getting lessons from both the Buddhist, CBT and ACT styles of therapy. These theories state the substantial self does not exist. This means 'the self' is just a context (look at the concept of self-as-context in ACT), so I have many selves in different contexts and there is not a solid self that I should protect from others' reactions, etc. You get the main idea. Suppose someone mocked and laughed at my stutter. Then I take this seriously and start to explain to him/her in a strict and rigid tone, this doesn't feel better. At least for me. If a child mocked me, then, he/she is just a child and found my appearance funny at that moment. That's all about it. This doesn't say anything, I mean *literally anything,* about myself, my personality or my competence in my professional life. So my suggestion is to try not to be so rigid, not too strict or reactionary. One possible objection to my thought: But shouldn't we define or protect our boundaries? My answer is: Yes, of course! But if you perpetuate the cycle of action and reaction, you will get more and more rigid, more and more bitter about your stuttering, especially if your profession requires a lot of talking to people, you will eventually get burned out. Why? Because there are too many inconsiderate and rude people and you can't explain to *all* of them, all day, every day. So my conclusion: We might get immense benefits from implementing some ideas from Buddhism, CBT and ACT in our daily lives.