I like to think of my stutter as a relationship, sort of similar to one you might have with your pet. Depending on the day, your stutter can range from being bad to being unnoticeable depending on your mood/ how you are feeling and acting in that current scenario. You have to know how to control that stutter when it does get bad, and appreciate it when it lightens up, because it might not truly go away, but that’s ok. Your relationship with your stutter is really what creates the healthy or toxic responses you have after a stutter or stuttering experience. This is key. I used to replay bad stuttering scenarios in my head, always wishing I just wouldn’t stutter, and it not only made me TERRIFIED of my stutter, but it didn’t get me anywhere with it either. I would be constantly in my head about my stutter, just running circles around my stutter, but all the while it just engrained those false beliefs I had of my stutter even deeper into my brain. You have to train your brain to not react the way it does now to stuttering. Every stuttering experience I had was never even close to the nightmare scenarios I thought would play out in my head, every, single, time. But the pain didn’t come from those stuttering experiences or bad blocks I had In front of new people or when saying my name, it came from me knowing I wasn’t saying what I wanted to say, holding myself back from experiences or meeting amazing people, but most damaging was I wasn’t being my authentic self. I was so caught up in my head about how I hated my stutter that I wasn’t being myself, and as a result I stuttered even more. It’s an endless cycle of pain that leads to nowhere when you have a toxic relationship or try to avoid stuttering. Your stutter isn’t you, everyone around you knows and understands that but you feel as if it’s destroying you, and it’s taking over your life. This was me for 3 years trying to avoid it, and I even went to speech therapy. But it was only when I decided that it was ok to stutter, and that I wasn’t going to people please (care about people reacting to my stutter or me taking a little longer to say the things I want to etc..) and then my stutter got better. I forced myself to go out and meet people and, of course am still not perfect with my speech, but I’m not in the sad, depressed state that I was, because it’s ok to stutter. I restrained my brain to not react or get super anxious when I would feel a stutter coming. Anyone who tells you that you shouldn’t stutter or makes a rude comment probably isn’t doing it in malice, they may just have their own demons they can’t handle. In conclusion, know this. Your thoughts and beliefs about things can resonate and have real world affects, changing how you react and feel about your stutter can take you a long way. Be authentic, many stutters have personal issues that express itself in a stutter. But if you see people looking at you weird if you stutter, stop the conversation and say something along the lines of “I see you look confused, I have a stutter”, and continue with the conversation. They aren’t looking at you like you have 8 eyes, they are just confused or unclear about if you have a stutter, as most people don’t want to assume because it can be rude! Projecting (imagining your own conclusions or getting into other people’s head) doesn’t do anything but make you stutter, live in the present and appreciate everything even with your stutter. Hope this helps man