Sharing of life by stutterers (1)

Hello..
I'm not very familiar with Yahoo groups, so I guess I need to
introduce myself with a post? I'm a male in my 30's living in the US.
I'd say I've been a moderate to severe stutterer most of my life, and
I guess I'm a covert stutterer as well. Sometimes I can hide it if
the conversation is very brief. Other times I'll open my mouth and
nothing comes out. Over the years the vocalized sounds have given way
to mainly silent blocks.
I'm not the happy bouncy stutterer who goes into the world with gusto
and stutters freely and tells everyone else how they can't let it
hold them back. In fact, I'm probably the example of all things not
to do. It has really controlled virtually every part of my life.
While I used to be afraid to stutter, over time I'd say I lost most
of that, and it has just changed to feeling very humiliated and
depressed about it. After I have a not so fun speaking encounter, I
usually just feel incredibly down and hopeless. Rather than going out
and conquering it, I've gradually shut the world out, or at least as
many of those speaking situations as possible. The alternative has
been a pretty dull life, but largely without the torment.
I'm not even sure what I'm hoping to find here. I've been part of in
person support groups before and usually get annoyed by all the
people who either barely stutter at all, or have careers as radio
DJ's and auctioneers and the like. I don't see why they need the
support, and honestly I sort of resent them. I feel like I don't
relate to them at all.
Anyway, I feel like my life came to a screeching halt after high
school. And I've been stagnating ever since. I'm rather bitter about
it, because I was a fairly intelligent, not so bad looking guy, and I
really believed I was going to go far in life. Instead, it feels like
my world has shrunk over time. Friends married and had families,
parents passed away, girlfriends became less and less frequent,
relatives lost hope and distanced themselves. And now recently the
only two things which kept me going are also gone. The little cousin
who thought I was the coolest thing in the world.. absent dad decided
I was taking over his job, and my dog of 11 years had to be put to
sleep shortly after that. So now my boring little world is even
smaller and more boring.
I've been through several of the top programs in the country, and
I've tried two different ear devices. None of it gives me any lasting
fluency beyond a short novelty period. When the stress really kicks
in, all of it flies out the window and I end up speaking worse than
before.
Well, I guess there's a dozen more downers I could give all of you,
but I won't. Despite all of what I've just said, I usually come off
as an upbeat guy with a good sense of humor. I just wanted people to
know the truth about what I deal with. I don't have any great
inspiring stories, but maybe I can be of some help anyway. Thanks..