Great question. Yes, I've spent a great deal of my waking life thinking about traumatic roots that played a part in my burgeoning stutter and I have to sadly say that I had one helluva traumatic childhood rife with all kinds of abuse. I've come to terms with most of it, but yeah, as a kid dealing with abuse (physical, mental and sexual) it definitely is too much to handle for a young psyche and all that horrible shit manifests itself outwardly and definitely made my stutter worse. I had nothing to lean back on, so I just fell into the ever-expanding abyss of self constructed misery. I was six years old or something, in elementary school with a prominent stutter to where I would experience daily embarrassment for being unable to speak in class, answer questions, say my name, the usual. The teachers got together and enrolled me in speech therapy and it went swimmingly for awhile, until the speech therapist, in her infinite wisdom, decided to volunteer me for the school morning show - a daily platform where kids would get on closed circuit TV and recite what was for lunch, activities and the like. I would stutter on live TV in front of my whole elementary school. Like there would be awful stretches of televised radio silence of me staring at my sheet of paper, trying to read "tater tots." Everyone would wait until I could finish it. This happened every morning. Then face the shame when I went back to class. I remember crying a lot and hating myself and feeling like less than a human being. This trial by fire treatment really fucked me up. It must've been one of the worst experiences in my life because I can remember it with such clarity. The abuse in my life also made me hate my parents, to the point where I still have unresolved anger issues towards them to this day, but I can't get them to overtly apologize for beating the shit out of me, or not protecting me so I just have to forgive them internally and move on. I had enough problems as it was with my stutter and being unable to trust or love my parents really made me feel isolated and powerless and worthless. I had a few good friends but not very many. Always the outsider. I would have definitely been more sociable as I am a very sociable guy but I had a lot of distrust from abuse, kids making fun of me, remnant shame, that just felt like I was waking up every morning with a wet blanket of anxiety heavily weighing and suffocating me. Alternatively, I think if I had a healthy upbringing, I still would have stuttered (hereditary) but at least I would have had a support system that would've promoted inner confidence from an early age instead of growing up as a very, very sad, maladjusted kid. Then college came and it was my chance to break away and start anew. But like all kids who have an axe to grind with the world, I took things too far and got really into substance abuse because it gave me a little peace. The resulting chemical romance really led me astray and I spent many years trying to get back to where I was, but I didn't even know what that place was or if it existed. I never knew what to do with my life. I drank to ease pain. I tried almost every drug under the sun. I was impulsive. I was naive. I was lost. Actually, to be honest, the substance abuse stage wasn't all bad or else I wouldn't have done it for so long. It broke down a lot of barriers for me. Gave me a chance to address and talk about my issues with friends and gave me a lot of good times and showed me that there was a side to me that was outgoing, charismatic and loving albeit drug-fueled. I know now that I am all of those things without drugs, but in a twisted way, it showed me the light. I'm just lucky I didn't go too overboard. I stole from the devil and learned what I needed about myself and got the fuck away, if that makes any sense. I realized that I had to forget the past. It took a lot of counseling with a lot of shrinks to build back up my sense of worth. Writing about it helped a lot. It still does. Like I am doing right now. I still am a bit weak and depressed sometimes, but I hide it well and I have a better life now and it helps when one is older. But more than that, I try to always look forward. I still get down on myself but the now, the difference is that I know I've conquered obstacles in the past so whatever comes at me now pales in comparison to the demons of yesteryear. That whole "what doesn't kill you" saying kind of applied to me but I know that a lot of people don't make it out. And if you do make it out, you don't make it out unscathed. You just become this war-torn version of yourself, for better or worse. Hopefully better. I've always been a realist, so from time to time people get stuck in the quicksand of bad circumstance and self-defeating thoughts and the fact that I am not dead from an overdose or suicide or whatever, helps me tremendously with every new day as it comes. Because I found a reason, no, reasons to live again and really, that's all I ever wanted. That's all I was ever really looking for. **EDIT** Sorry, I realized I didn't really answer your questions. I suffered a lot of violent physical/mental abuse from my parents as a child up until I was a pre-teen. I was also abused by a family friend when I was around 10 or 11. That elementary incident scarred me pretty bad as well.