I can go on and on about this, but I'll try to keep it short. Feel free to check out my other posts or dm me:) I started my "journey" at 24. I fluency chased my heart out. I always tried to be positive, but looking back I had so much fear and shame.. I am 38 now. It's been a long up and down road. The turning point for me, as someone else has mentioned was the NSA. I went to 9 straight conferences. It took me 3 conferences to not feel awkward. I thought I knew everything about stuttering. I only knew everything about MY stuttering. Even if you can't go to a conference, I suggest you get to know people on here. People who seem to have a good hold on it from a mental perspective. Get as many perspectives as you can. You will learn from them. You will experiment what works for you. Everyone is different. You will go through multiple levels of acceptance. I struggled to find what acceptance means to me for over a decade. You can also check out a pretty old resource: the stuttering homepage. Alot of self help ideas such as the iceberg analogy, changing the stuttering mindset, avoidance reduction can be found here. I am to the point where I reduced my mental gymnastics by atleast 95% percent. I don't word substitute, I don't fear any situation. I can confidently look at someone in the eye during a big block. A few things of note: Learn acceptance. This has different definitions to everyone. I went from it's OK to stutter; to im comfortable stuttering, but want to be more fluent; to I actually embrace the stuttering blocks now and I take peace in knowing they don't affect me anymore. Find your happy medium. And it may change. Avoidance reduction. Remember this: life begins at the end of you comfort zone. Fear predicts the future. We may have bad experience 5% of the time but our brain tricks us into thinking it will happen all of the time. Take risks and have faith the 95% result will happen. Do baby steps and work your way up. Try to reduce secondary behaviors as well. Word substitution, lack.of eye contact, finger tapping, etc. Changing the stuttering mindset. Maybe the most difficult to do. This is all we know! We don't know any other way to think. Fluent people don't approach conversations like we do. Try to focus on the moment as much as possible. When stuttering thoughts come through, recognize them and let them pass. Meditation and mindfulness will help with this. I am no longer a prisoner. I truly enjoy conversation now. I can meet new people and realize after, hey I didn't have any old stuttering thoughts! When you get down and depressed and question, what the hell am I doing, always self reflect. You made more progress than you realized. Good luck on your journey. You have nothing to lose! Edit: believe it or not, I don't do any fluency work now, or think about not stuttering, but I'm the most fluent I've ever been. Ironically it doesnt even excite me anymore. Fluency has been a byproduct.