You are not alone in feeling like this. Up to 60% of people who stutter suffer from social anxiety! Stuttering usually starts in childhood so by the time someone reaches high school they had thousands of opportunities to develop ingrained negative thought patterns and behaviours around stuttering. These negative thoughts can trigger extreme anxiety. Sometimes it feels like our brain is our own worst enemy and that's confusing because we ARE our brain, right? Wrong. Thoughts are just thoughts; they are not US. We learn thought patterns just like we learn any other habit and we can unlearn them, too. Unfortunately, our brains are wired to resist change. It is a lot more economical to stay the same rather than change. It all boils down to the Think-Feel-Act cycle. Negative thoughts lead to emotions (stress, anxiety, shame) which in turn lead to actions (avoidance, more stuttering). Changing your negative belief system isn’t simple but hugely important. It takes a lot of practice with the right techniques to change your thought patterns. A university in Sydney, Australia are just trialling an online CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) program for adults who stutter. It will be released this December. I will post the news once they are online.