Man, reading this has encouraged me to try to get away from writing things down so much. I get what you mean about it being so much less embarrassing than stuttering really badly in front of people, so it's really tempting to just do that. I absolutely hate the surprised and uncomfortable looks when I speak and people assuming I'm retarded, plus it's just physically exhausting trying to get the words out and struggling to breathe and having a ton of tension in my mouth and jaw. It's so much easier not to speak at all, but I totally get what people are saying about that probably making our stutters even worse.