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My Story Hey everyone, my name is Andy, I live in Oregon. I just joined the Discord server, I hope everyone is doing well, wherever you are in life. I’ve been going through some tough times for a while now. I have a very debilitating stutter and a secondary behavior with intense blocks where my head “flicks” backwards and my eyes close. I struggle to connect with anyone on a real level, even my immediate family who I live with. It’s gotten to a point where I suppress my words so much that I can’t even think of things to say to people sometimes. My passion in life is music; since a young age, I’ve loved to sing, play guitar, and listen to all genres and styles. It puts me in a different headspace that nothing else can. In high school, I was very involved in the choir program and some of my favorite moments in life were from those days. I had a close knit group of friends and we’d go everywhere together. My stutter was much less severe back then. I even wrote and recorded an album with my old friend Niko, which is probably the thing I’m most proud of in my life to date. Niko and I even performed a song in front of our high school peers with about 1000 people watching. I’m 26 now, and ever since I moved to a new town for college when I was 18, I’ve been anti-social. I haven’t made or had a real close friend since around that age. I have a buddy from my hometown who I message on occasion and we go to concerts together rarely, but I’m talking an everyday friend near where I live. My parents have smoked cannabis around me as long as I can remember, and I finally tried it when I was 18 during my first month of college while living in the dorms on campus. I told my dad, and he gave me a big jar to sell for some extra money. I was dumb enough to vape in my dorm room, and some hall monitors walked by and knocked on the door. They ended up calling the police and when the police arrived, I broke down and told them where the weed was under my bed and how much I had. Unfortunately I also ratted out a friend who I had sold a decent amount to for him to sell, and he and I were both kicked out of the dorms. This is my biggest regret in life. I had signed up to be in a dorm talent show just before it all happened too, it was going to take place a few days after I had to move out. I ended up dropping out of college about a year later. I was able to move into a studio apartment to finish out the school year, but living alone was not good for me. Maybe a month after this happened, I heard that my grandpa who lived with my family and I since I was very young had passed away, and I began to spiral and fell into addictions and isolation. My parents moved to live closer to me after he passed, and eventually I just moved in with them and have lived with them since. Just as an aside, I don’t blame my parents for anything, of course, they only have good intentions and I know that. I take full responsibility for my mistakes back then. Anytime opportunities to speak present themselves, I display the bare minimum. It’s such a weird dichotomy; to want to make friends, but also wanting to end every social interaction as quickly as possible due to not only the anxiety of talking, but also the sheer physical stress of the secondary behavior. I’ve worked as a lifeguard at my local YMCA for 4 years now. There are specific cases where my speech affects my work, but overall, it is a good job for me as it forces me to at least vocalize something on occasion. Usually it’s things like telling kids to “walk on the pool deck” or “keep your hands to yourself, please” when they’re playing in the water with their friends. There is a swim test that kids under 15 have to do to swim in the deeper pool, and I always stutter the most when explaining it to new people as there is a specific list of things they have to do in a certain way to pass it, and I always block when having to say specific words like that. I very rarely go out of my way to converse with any of my co workers or my bosses. No one really knows how to act around me due to my anti-social nature. I feel like they know me to be a certain way and it’s harder to talk to them. I’ve almost quit a few times, but the thought of looking for a new job scares me more, so I’ve just stuck with it. Turning 26 early last month, I finally had a realization that I’d wasted so much time in recent years just letting life roll by; I guess I had a quarter-life crisis, as John Mayer would put it. I’ve smoked marijuana since age 18, and I’ve had an unhealthy relationship with pornography since I was probably 12 or 13. I’ve quit weed in the past for maybe a month or two, but watching porn almost every night before bed has been a constant for me since starting at that young age. I’m proud to say I’ve gone 32 days without either of my vices and it has helped my mental health immensely. I’ve had no desire to relapse either; I think I’ve finally hit a point where I’d rather do anything than return to what I was doing, which I’m grateful for. I started swimming laps regularly, 3-4 times a week. I’ve gone out of my way to connect with members more often who come in to swim at the pool as well, which I’m proud of, too. I also recently bought a new guitar and microphone to get back into recording music again. A few weeks ago, I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for a physical check up for the first time since doing a physical for swim team at age 15 or so. I plan on bringing up my stutter and social anxiety and seeing what help I can get. I also want to pursue either speech therapy or regular therapy, possibly both. I haven’t really tried participating in support groups like this much for some reason, but I finally have a desire to meet people and hopefully make friends who I can at least communicate with over text. I’m not sure why I haven’t done this for so long, whether it’s laziness or anxiety or what. But I’m doing it now, I guess. My doctor’s appointment is on July 8th and I’m nervous but excited to see what the future holds for me. I know I’m a good person, I’ve just been so hard on myself for so long that I just kind of froze up. I want to move on in life, I want to fall in love, make new friends, and explore new opportunities for myself. Anyway, whoever reads this 40 page vent, thank you 😂 I hope to make some genuine friendships and connections here, I’d love to talk about music or video games and just life in general with somebody. But if I don’t find that here, I have hope for the future. Much love to everyone!