The truth is, I still stutter a lot around the people I know. But the people I surround myself love me and find adoration in my stuttering. Growing up, I invalided myself all the time, didn’t like myself, or was ridiculed often by others for the way I spoke. Being around my friends & my chosen family has shown me that stuttering can be a part of me, I can stutter and be vulnerable with them, and these people genuinely appreciate the very thing I didn’t like about myself because it’s my own special quirk, I guess. One of my friends perceives it as a sign of vulnerability. I stutter when I feel vulnerable in both positive and negative ways and he sees it as a token of me being real.