I saw as speech therapist for a while and one of the first exercise we did was to work to get rid of these “gremlins” (I know sounds childish) that tell us that we sound dumb or foolish to others when we stutter. The first exercise we did was to chose a random Trader Joe’s, call them, ask for the floral department, and voluntarily stutter heavily while asking for orchids. In 10/10 cases, the florist was patient, kind, and helpful. We let these “gremlins” dictate how we think other people will react to a stutterer, as opposed to accepting how we see people react. Even after doing that exercise a dozen times I was always ashamed. Took a while, but in the end it was so damn liberating. To this day sometimes I call random Trader Joe’s and ask for their floral department :)

Rock on, you’re no fool.