Well, I deliberately stayed away from words like "anxious" and "judge", because I think we're quite capable of entering into relations where our performance is being somehow measures, and still be able to carry out what we mean to do in a satisfying manner, despite it being harder than just doing any old thing in our spare time or whatever, and despite the negative terms and the struggle that can be associated with it. - Speech _is_ performance. No reason to think otherwise. Some situations are even more tense than others, be it in formal or professional settings, but that doesn't stop us from wanting to carry out our function. We choose to do it because it makes sense to us. And speaking with a stutter is part of our choice as stutterers, specifically. We know it can happen but we do it anyway. That's because we want to carry out that function that we've arrived at. Stuttering doesn't mean it's suddenly lost its meaningfulness. _Anything_ might get in the way. This is true for everyone. And yet we do a lot of things all the time, because we want to. See what I mean, again? :)