I'm not interested in proving you wrong. I'll just hear you out instead. :) It's a complex affair, this thing we've got to carry around... It's already a complex affair simply being alive and making our way through life, but when you chuck in something like stutter, it messes with some of the basic stuff and potentially makes it worse. - I'd like to focus on that later thing you said: >stutter still holds me back because I know the social consequences it will get me. Be it personal embassment or annoying others in some way shape or form. This is completely true. But I think there are two further points to be made here. - One is that everyone is faced with these concerns (in principle, if not in nuance). Doesn't make it easier, I know. But we should consider ourselves in the same basic boat as everyone else. I think that makes it easier for us to feel connected to a shared life. Stutter can make us feel isolated. This is something we must reverse. - The other point is that we often focus on the very near, because that's already too much of a struggle, distracting us from being able to see the far. What I mean is, stutter can make us feel singled out and put on the spot - in our difference. But we're also just _something that happens in this world_. There are others like us, and people in general know about something called stutter. They may not know exactly what the deal is, but they know it's there. Stutter can make us feel like we don't belong (when we attempt to belong). This is also something we must reverse. We must be willing to take up this spot of "someone who stutters", if that's what's going to happen. Because that's part of this world, and we can't deny ourselves. That's sort of existential: We must risk visibility because visibility is the way of life. And we must risk being visible in a certain way, because that's our way of life in particular. Not saying we're "ambassadors" for stuttering, but we're people who stutter, and that is what we will show. There are lots of things to show in this world. - It's probably a bit unfair for me at 41 to be talking to you at 17, because I've had a lot of time to process my life in all these years. But since a way of thinking is not ultimately dependent on age, I hope you can tell what I'm trying to say. :)