> Don't avoid anything. That's the key. Own your speech and don't let the anxiety ruin your life. You will stutter. You are a stutterer. But how you live with it is up to you. This is an interesting one. Thanks for the reply btw. You see, I guess I'm sort of in denial about this. No one would really know I was a stutterer if I came out and told people, and I've managed to avoid situations via word substitution for years now. And I probably don't realise I'm substituting sometimes because it's just part of who I am. But there are times when I feel like I'm not a stutterer, or not a real stutterer (as stupid as that sounds), that I've got an anxiety from a previous experience and I can't shake the fear of MAYBE stuttering. But I guess that is still a stutter too. Coming out with this probably would help and I need to consider it. For years I've thought that just doing more phone calls, more interactions etc would help me get over it and that I'd build up an experience and/or a kind of outer barrier where I stop worrying about it. But that's not happened. I'm still the same as I was five years ago and I do significantly more talking now I'm employed and an adult, and not a kid in school.