Thank you for the detailed response. Unfortunately, I'm not a stutterer at all; I only block. I haven't always blocked; I was completely fluent for my entire life and then unfortunately around 2 years ago, because of a medical issue, I started blocking. The best I can do is learn to accept my blocking. It's particularly hard for me to do so, because it's not something I had to deal with at all for most of my life. I'm never going to be able to convert it to stuttering and it's never going away. But the concept of not avoiding it and accepting it as part of me certainly still applies. I've been trying to do what you suggested; exposing my blocking to more and more people. Like you said, it's the only way for me to communicate properly. It's the only way to address the root of the problem. I don't have any experience with this, so I'm still trying to to figure out the best way to block in social situations. Right now, I feel the most comfortable when I explicitly tell the person that I have a speech impediment; letting the person know why I'm pausing allows me to block without worrying too much about what the person thinks. I'm not sure if explicitly telling them I have an impediment would make them more uncomfortable though (as opposed to just letting them think whatever they want when I block). So I guess my question is, do you you explicitly tell people that you block when you start a conversation? Do you find people are more comfortable when you do this or when you simply block without giving an explanation? Personally, I don't think I can ever be completely comfortable around someone without letting them know I have an impediment. If I don't, I'll always feel like I'm "hiding" something.