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Stutter comes and goes? Sometimes I think people were right that my stutter may diminish to the point of being unnoticeable or even disappear completely. Then I think “nope, they’re wrong”. For those who don’t know, because I haven’t posted here in a really long time (I'm virtually a stranger), my stutter came on full-blown about 2 1/2 years ago at age 63 after I had some stressful events in my life, all at the same time. The neurologist I saw said it could have been a slight stroke. Because I had no insurance at the time, I couldn’t follow up with tests. At any rate, as is common, I don’t stutter when I chant prayers, or sing (I play guitar). I seem to not stutter when I yell or talk loud. After losing my job in the lockdowns I worked in a busy supermarket deli, and now in retail, which can be noisy environments, needing to yell or talk loud over others, or at a distance. The past two weeks, being Christmas shopping season with a rapid-fire “next in line please, how can I help you, how are you paying for that? NEXT IN LINE PLEASE! Your total is … , would you like a bag, need a gift box?” I was all but fluent. Yet at other times words wouldn’t even come out. There are times, especially when I’m tired or frustrated I don’t even fight it and just let myself get stuck on a word, sound or syllable, or I just stop talking altogether and let people think I’m stupid. And when I have a difficult customer I wonder when and by whom and how I’ll be made fun of. So, I wonder sometimes wtf my brain is doing that the stutter goes away but sometimes comes back with a vengeance.