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My story i guess Ive been lurking this subreddit for a while so i guess it’s time to post. Okay so i have stuttered since i was little but it hasn’t really been much of a problem until last year when i got to high school. I had to switch from a small K-8 school of like 300 kids, to a school of around 3,000 kids, so going from knowing everyone and being comfortable with everyone to not knowing anyone and being anxious the entire time was a giant leap. None of my friends were in any of my classes, and it seemed like all the other kids in said classes already had friends there. I never really spoke in class since I felt like they’d all just think I’m weird, since I normally speak quietly, slowly, and monotone to avoid stuttering. I’m pretty sure they all thought I was emo or something, so that didn’t help making friends either. The popular kids would always “make friends” with me, and it always felt like some kind of joke since they’d only talk to me in one class, and then never speak to me any other time even if we had other classes together. Anyways, that year i really because self-conscious about speaking and stuff. I took my first foreign language class that year and would try not to participate as much as possible since i’d always stutter while speaking that language (spanish) and those kids in there were brutal man. There was another kid who’d stuttered a couple times in that class and the kids would make fun of him, so i tried not to stutter/participate, but it was hard since the teacher forced you to say something in spanish at least once every class. She’d allow you to speak in spanish privately to her at the end of class to get the required credit, which i was SO thankful for. One time i went to do that, and stuttered like 10 times trying to say “hace frio” and all the surrounding kids looked at me as my face turned tomato red. It was so freaking embarrassing. Thank god the kids that would’ve made fun of me were on the other side of the room talking to their friends. Another time i had to give an answer to something in class and i was blocking, but thankfully a kid interrupted me just in time to ask the teacher something, which resulted in the teacher just changing the subject, and i ended up not even finishing the answer which i was so grateful for. That class was an absolute nightmare, but was felt even worse was how my friends would treat me. Like i’d be talking to this one friend and she’d always be like “omg you stutter so much haha” or ask “why do you stutter so much?” I spoke to her one time about it and how i can’t really help it too much, yet she continued to make fun of me for it. I mean, i didnt really care that much i guess since it wasn’t like maliciously bullying me or something, but what did hurt me is this. One time i was talking to my best friend i’d known since kindergarten, and she told me “I don’t mean to offend you, but you’re genuinely hard to listen to sometimes.” I just laughed it off but like, that kinda hurt though 😔. I’d trusted her for years and always supported her, so her opinion really matters to me. I kept thinking about that, and since then I’ve been more self-conscious about my stutter and even the things i talk about. I generally hate how i speak, and ridicule myself when i stutter, but sometimes i just think to myself “who cares? I can speak however i want, i don’t need to change for anyone! Stuttering is apart of me, having it gone would be like losing a limb.” I’ve made a new group of friends who i imagine i could spend at least the rest of high school with. I’ve asked them about the way i talk, and they told me that they don’t think it’s weird, since it’s just apart of me and even if it can be weird to other people, they accept me for who i am. I figured that the other voice in my head was right, i shouldn’t care about what other people think. Now, i generally don’t really care and just speak how i want, but there are times where i still do ridicule myself. This pandemic and staying at home thing has made my life a breeze. Online school was the biggest relief of my life; having to speak, participate, work in groups... all my problems were seemingly gone forever. I started stuttering less, i guess what really made me stutter a ton was the anxiety and stuff. Of course i still stutter frequently, but its not as bad as it was. I’m sure when school gets back in normal session, it’ll be worse but it just be like that i guess. I’m so grateful for the new friends i’ve made, and hope to see them soon when it’s safe to hang out with all of them. Without them, i’d probably still hate myself for stuttering and stay silent through every class. I’ve shared my story to show people that it doesn’t matter if you stutter or not, since your real friends will accept you for who you are. Wow this is super cliché. Anyways, just live your life without caring what other people think about you; don’t change for other people, change for yourself. If you want to get speech therapy for yourself, then do it, just remember that the real ones wouldn’t care whether you change such a minuscule part of yourself. I’m still just a teenager and i haven’t been through any sort of absolute worst case scenario, so maybe I’m wrong. Anyways yeah that was my story and the moral yadda yadda have a good day