First of all - any sort of communicating and talking about your problem is a ~~good~~ great thing. Even this could be the first step to make your life better. Stuttering is horrible, but isolation it puts you into is even more bad. I stuttered since I was seven and I can say that now (23 years old) I am almost okay (with few bad days or occasions after some stress etc.). But I know precisely what you're talking about - I couldn't not to care what people think of me and how they perceive me as a person. Stuttering always changes how people see you and I couldn't bare with it, mostly because I always was very sensitive person. Every stutterer knows the feeling when you are stuck in block and more you try to say something, more you are blocking yourself... It just makes a barrier between you and other people and if you want to make a relationship with someone it just sticks out there. Maybe those things drived you to this state of mind and maybe because of those experiences you locked yourself in your house. I remember it was always more comfortable not to pick up the phone, not to try communicate in a shop with the salesperson or just give them one-word answers. The point is - you're not alone, people experienced it and some people even succesfully dealt with it. The key is communication. Do not try to skip right to the end, just make small steps. First you must find someone to talk to about your problems. Someone you're comfortable with. I always tried to deal with it myself, but having someone to talk to is *really* important. Being able to fully talk about my problems with someone really helped me a lot. This is the biggest and probably hardest step if you don't have friends, but if you do, try that. Stuttering is mostly about psychological state of mind for me, but it is also physical problem - after you are comfortable in psychical way it is time to take next step and train speaking. This is also extremely important and maybe difficult. You have to find an activity that you enjoy and that encourages you to speak a lot. Depends on your hobbies and what you like, but the problem is thanks to stuttering you probably do not like those things anymore. But you have to try, you have to try different things, and you mustn't stop if it would fail occasionaly. I am special case, because I am extrovert stutterer. I love presence of other people, but stutter at the same time so I found it difficult to maintain normal relationship with them (yeah, pretty schizofrenic, I know). The key thing for me was tutoring people. I've always been good at school and I found passion in teaching people and explaining them things. So after some hesitation I started tutoring for money. After a while I myself created an environment where I can improve my speaking abilities and generally feel better about my speaking. It took very long time before I figured it out, but you have to find something enjoyable you can do with other people that involves talking (money is great too, by the way). After that it just speeds things up, you feel better, you're able to communicate people without fuckung bullshit, make "normal" relationships and so on. It doesn't matter if it will be today or in a year. Don't rush things up, but do the first step. Communicating on the internet is good, but personal communication with someone is essential about helping you. Find your passion and improve your speaking through it. Find a way to enjoy communicating with people even when stuttering at first and improvement will come by itself. If you are interested I wrote something similar in this thread here, so check it out to better understand what I'm talking about http://www.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/1ob9mu/stuttering_linked_to_trauma/