I think you’re right. Most of my life I blamed my stutter for everything. It was the cause of all the dysfunction and unhappiness I suffered. It’s only as I got older did I see that my basic negative self image was the root cause of many of my problems and made things worse. I am not saying it would have been fine with a better self image, only that it could have moderated things and allowed me to enjoy more of the good things that did come along in life. I made things much worse for myself than need be.