My stutter is, gratefully, pretty minor these days, but things like phone conversations just dial it up to 11. I think I notice it more than most people do. I've been a writer and editor in various capacities for the past 12 years, after falling in love with my college newspaper and letting it lead me to journalism. I gravitated to writing in the first place because the written language lets me have the voice (and control over it) I want. But working first in newspapers and now for a magazine means interviews. Lots and lots of interviews--and I've been an editor for a trade magazine for more than four years, which also means hosting two major industry events a year and representing my company at several more annually. I am constantly, constantly talking to people and it. Is. Exhausting. Both as a PWS and an introvert. Like... it suuuuuuuucks transcribing my interviews and having to confront a particularly nasty stutter all over again. There are times I will know it's coming, pause the recording, and go out for an hour lunch just to work up the bravery to hear myself stutter. It hurts... but it's also, more often than not, actually not as bad as I remembered. What's more, spending hours transcribing an interview has done wonders for my confidence because SO. MANY. FLUENT. PEOPLE. are absolute messes when they talk. Utter wrecks. They stutter, they sputter, they leave sentences unfinished, they veer off on tangents, they misspeak, they lose their trains of thought: In short, they sound just like me on recordings. The only difference is that I have a lifetime of feeling like I need to apologize for it while they barely even notice when they do it. And they certainly don't notice it when I do.