Heya! I’m 26 years old and recently went through in-person speech therapy. Like you, I struggled to get the first word out in sentences, especially in class or during meetings/presentations. In fact, I took public-speaking as an elective in university to try and curb my stutter/put myself in those uncomfortable positions to eventually ‘get over’ stuttering. Needless to say, that didn’t work. It was initially frustrating to have a 2-minute timed presentation turn into 8+ minutes because of my stutter. I’ve had colleagues and classmates congratulate me on maintaining eye contact, posture, volume, and confidence. Thought the stutter was ALWAYS present. It didn’t seem to bother others, but it bothered me. A LOT. Like one person recommended, I tried substituting words, avoiding words, etc. In my honest opinion, based off my experience, I’d avoid substituting/avoiding/masking your stutter as much as possible. It may work for some and I’m not disenfranchising their experience, but personally those methods only made my anxiety worse and taught me to fear/hate my stutter. I’ve learned many techniques in speech therapy, which I’ll happily share more of if you’re interested. Though the technique I learned that helped the most was how to de-stigmatize stuttering for myself and others. Essentially, the goal is to openly stutter in public situation and to be comfortable with stuttering. By welcoming the stutter we get rid of the anxiety and fear that come along with it. To do this, I basically introduced myself as someone who stutters whenever I got the chance. Even in situations where I don’t normally stutter. For instance, I’d go to StarBucks (not sponsored) and say, “Hi, I have a stutter so it may take a moment for me to order.” And eventually would introduce myself in meeting with, “Hey all. Before we begin, I just want to let you know that I have a stutter. This can come in the form of repetitions or blocks. If at any point something is unclear or you have questions please ask and I’d be happy to go over it again!”. Just these techniques alone helped me transform my stutter in less than a year’s time. I’ve missed out on job opportunities because of my stutter, I’ve avoided important meetings and events because I was afraid I’d be ask to speak. It sucked. A lot. Now, I have nearly no anxiety when I’m asked to publicly present or introduce myself because I know that I can always prepare the audience if I think I’ll stutter and I’ll have the opportunity to clear up anything following. This was a bit long-winded, but basically the best advice I can give is to become comfortable with your stutter. You don’t need to overcome it entirely, you don’t need to hide it. If hiding it works for you, great! If hiding it adds more stress, anxiety, and pressure then lean into it and start nullifying the anxiety and pressure by acknowledging it head on and not letting it get the drop on you or others. More than happy to share more about my experience, so just leave a comment or message me if you have any questions! Have a neat metaphor I love to use to help put stuttering into perspective for people who don’t stutter (: