I feel like I’ve always talked about it with friends and family since it’s not something I can easily hide, but recently I’ve started doing it with strangers. I have a really great SLP that goes to a lot of conferences for speech disorders and she learned about self advertising your stutter. The thought was that it makes you less anxious when meeting new people, since I’m one of her more verbal patients (she’s my school SLP so she mainly works with kids on the spectrum) I’ve been testing it out with people and I think it really does clear the air and make me less anxious. Just getting the “big secret” out really takes a weight off of my chest because I get the chance to explain to them before they get the chance of judging me. I’m also a very deeply emotional person so I am very open on how growing up with a stutter affects the way I am today. I think some of my earlier SLP’s (who no fault to their own, that’s just what the were taught) did deep harm to the way I view my stutter as something that needs to be overcome. And now with my current SLP who has great new modern teaching helps me become more confident in my stutter and helps me see it as just a part of me, not something to be ashamed of.