Thanks for the uplifting post. I think being social is a really good strategy in gaining confidence in your speaking. I've dealt with social anxiety for much of my life, and I think my stutter has really contributed to that. Rather, I could say that the stuttering and social anxiety sort of feed off of each other. The way I see it, if I work on lessening my social anxiety, I'll be working on gaining confidence in my speech, and vice versa. You're right, it is not as bad as it seems. So often we're our own worst critics and the vast majority of people don't care at all if we stutter on a few words, or even most words. Will they notice it? Maybe. Does it matter? Not at all! Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. I'm in Canada too. May I ask what country you moved here from? How do you like Canada? I took advantage of some speech therapy under our "free" healthcare system, last year. I was only given about 10 sessions, based on how the SLP gauged my stutter to be. But she said I could apply to come back. Its a bit of a wait, but its better than paying $100/hour for private sessions.