My best experience with my stutter was the first time I had to speak in front of people in College. One of those “everyone takes part in reading a book” kinds of situations (Don’t ask me why we had to read out things loud in college). Unfortunately I didn’t realize it until it was too late because I missed the first part of the lecture. It took me probably about a minute to read the whole sentence. I was sitting next to my best College mate and I think he didn’t even know that I have a stutter up to this point (my stutter is horrible when talking to my parents but almost none existent when talking to friends). I was actually about to avoid this situation by simply leaving the classroom, but some girl reminded the teacher that I joined late and didn’t read yet. Here comes the part why this is actually my best stuttering experience. As I mentioned I did’nt manage to get a word out for what felt like a whole minute, but not a single student cared. No one laughed, it did’nt feel awkward and my teacher told me to take my time. Afterwards the teacher finished the whole thing himself, probably because he felt kind of embarrassed. It was at this moment, after a whole life of avoiding situations, getting laughed at and being afraid of the fact that I might stutter, that i realized that no one actually gives a shit about my stutter. All the bad memories I have about people laughing about me are from my childhood, but now that they are grown ups they don’t really care anymore. They realized that everyone has problems and they probably have a few experiences about talking to people who stutter, as well. This is important, because the reason people laugh about you when you stutter is usually not because they want to but because they are surprised. Kind of similar to when you laugh about someone slipping on a banana peal. Don’t get me wrong, I still tend to avoid situation and I am most certainly still afraid of my stutter, but it still changed my mindset and my point of view.