Hey, I’m sorry to hear about your experience growing up in school...I do believe though, that working backwards and tackling anxiety and depression, and bringing peace to every traumatic experience with stuttering can really help. The stuttering may be predisposed at birth, but the only thing that makes it a downward spiral of more stuttering is hyper fixating and obsessing on it with a negative point of view. It’s like the difference between somebody that happens to take a lot of showers, and somebody that has OCD and takes a lot of showers because of an obsession with cleanliness. One has freedom, the other is in a mental loop. My assumption is that you don’t stutter when you’re alone or talking to a dog. So yes, we stutter because of the neurology of our brain, but receiving help to work out inner conflict and trauma surrounding stuttering, and releasing ourselves from idolizing other people’s opinion can really decrease stuttering. Also, I could be really wrong. But just food for thought...Your managers may not have totally been making fun of you for your stuttering. They may have been making fun of you because maybe you don’t value yourself enough and they want to take advantage of it. Enough to speak your mind with confidence no matter how long it takes to get the sentence out. If someone makes fun of you just know that their behavior is trash and their a person that isn’t living up to their own potential. It’s really difficult, but until we can disengage our attachment to bullies’ opinions, how will we reach our full potential? I really hope your new program goes well. I’m still in the journey of working on my stuttering, physically and mentally