That’s awfully nice of you to reach out to help your boyfriend. The support and understanding you show will go a long way. Im sorry that he, or anyone else gets picked on, people can be terrible. I’m 50, started stuttering when I was 5. By my mid to late teens, there were periods of time I could barely get words out. I had few friends and basically stopped talking. Stuttering and the associated anxiety/depression really can be debilitating, it’s awful. I developed some rather unhealthy habits to deal with my feelings as well. While stuttering didn’t ruin my early life, it sure made things a lot more difficult. It really can be overwhelming to have to deal with it every single day. I’ve become much more fluent as I’ve gotten older, but that anxiety has never left me. I still dread certain speaking situations but I just accept it now and do the best I can.