OP, god evening. My name is David O'Brien and I like yourself have also a extremely severe sutter. According to my parents I was late to the game of speaking as child. Medical doctors thought I would be a mute human. It wasn't until I started to talk around the age of four is when my parents noticed I had a major issue with my speech. I reside in San Francisco. My doctor referred me to the Speech and Language Pathology Department at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Generally a child will begin to speak at around two years of age. But that was not the case for me. My parents immediately started me seeing a SLP three days a week with two hour sessions, six hours per week. It was that way up until the age of 18. As I grew older my stutter became more dysfluent. I have and to this day have the tics, and sometimes minutes to get a single word out. OP, I am happy to here that you are depression free. For me I was diagnosed with severe depression. It has not been a good life as a person who stutters. I am in my late 40's never been married, never dated, do not like going outside into the world and dealing with it. I have to go out for work puroses, but that is the only reason, and I like yourself try to avoid as much interaction with the public, and back home as quickly as I can. I feel extremely safe when I am home. If I need items I will have it delivered to my home. I wish every single day that I was not a person who speaks WORSE than Piglet in the "Winne The Pooh" children's book. OP, I take each day in one hour segments. Try to build to the I can handle one single day. GOOD LUCK OP!!!! :-)