I’ve had a stutter all my life and I’m 39 now. My childhood was awful and my stutter don’t get much better in my 20s. Now, I hardly stutter anymore and when I do there are ways I can mask it by swapping words or starting over, etc. Two things helped I realized: the first being the type of industry I chose for my career- hospitality & events. Lots of speaking and being around people…it took a lot of resilience because in the beginning (more times than not) my speech faltered especially under pressure and I felt like a failure most of the time. However, despite my stutter, I was persistent and stuck with it because I really love what I do. I get to work with incredible clients and plan some amazing events. Over time I gained more and more confidence until it became not only manageable but a non-issue (for 95% of the people I encounter, however there will always be that 5% that openly judge). The second thing that allowed for my “cure” was (no joke) reading aloud to my babies. I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old and when you’re a parent, not only is it recommended to read aloud every night to your kid but it’s necessary. I wasn’t used to reading out loud before kids and honestly it was a game changer when I noticed how fluent I became all of a sudden in the past couple of years. I still struggle in those rare, really stressful situations but I can honestly say it’s such a relief to not have to worry about my stutter daily, especially when I think about where I was at speech-wise even 5-10 years ago. TLDR: When you force yourself to talk then great things can happen.