Damn, sounds like a really rough time man. Ive stuttered openly all my life, but I have a lot of friends who are covert stutterers. Despite my severe disfluencies, I cant imagine having to deal with that AND the stress of staying covert. All the covert people I know sooner or later have moved to overt. I dont think there's any other option. It is the forward path imo. It may slow you down and you may even backtrack a few steps but you will never conquer this thing until you learn to accept it and face it. You've already done that and it certainly wasn't easy and for that you should be proud. The question now is how to move forward through this existence so dark and dreary. Well I have good news for you my friend, it is only as dim as how narrow your eyes. It's only as dark as how much you look at the shadows. The fact is this: Stuttering isn't such a terrible thing; you feeling that stuttering is this terrible thing is the terrible thing. Your effort is admirable, but we all know people who work hard and don't get rewarded. Hard work with the wrong strategy will get you closer to grief, not your destination. Perhaps the best thing you can do is change your focus. You claim you can't make sense of this curse. So instead make a quest of this challenge. A curse is something outside of you so obviously thinking of it as such will leave you feeling disempowered and dejected. I hope you know there are people out there who have stutters but learned to overcome and live their lives as fully as they wish. Here is a list of celebs to illustrate for example: http://www.stutteringhelp.org/famous-people-who-stutter If you live in America, I would definitely consider going to an NSA group meeting. It's a safe, slow pressure environment where you can meet other stutterers and talk about things with people who can relate. You dont have to go through this all alone. There are a lot of resources out there, it just takes a bit of looking. http://www.westutter.org/find-an-nsa-meeting-near-you/ Everyone goes to struggles, ours are just more overt. But there is no path other than forward. We're built to overcome adversity and grow. Like I said, the best part about all this is that stuttering isnt the problem, our attitudes about stuttering is. This is not easy to change to say the least. Im still working at this myself. The best news is this is not some unbreakable curse. We can get overcome this, but you don't have to do it alone. We're all here for you, man.