100% agree, when I slip up in front of people I am hard on myself. I tend to double down and start talking excessively being extra careful to take no risks with works that contain letter combos I block on. Sometimes you have to say certain words at work that you know you’ll struggle with, but in casual conversation I can usually go undetected but have to be incredibly careful and keep jumping to new words when I feel a block coming. I don’t particularly feel like I’m wasting their time when I stutter, it’s more like I feel my secret is exposed and I’m embarrassed/ashamed which is silly because it’s not my fault but it’s how I feel. Childhood was a strong lesson in “if you speak be careful not to slip up or you’ll immediately be made fun of”, it’s interesting there are still people in their 20s and 30s who will immediately pounce on anyone who stutters “t-t-t-ttoday junior” and it’s that childhood fuckery all over again. I absolutely hate playing games when friends are over because I’m worried I’ll stutter because I’ll have to read something aloud (disfluency is high when reading aloud in front of people) or be forced to say a letter combo that is problematic for me (like any TR or DR or ST words etc). I love cooking and when we have people over I tend to occupy myself with cooking the whole night because I can chime in when I feel like it but also be distracted enough to not be thinking about stuttering in front of people who don’t know I stutter. Actually a lot of energy is spent trying to hide the fact that I stutter, it reminds me of that scene in X-Men First Class when mystique is struggling bench pressing and Magneto says that if she’s spending energy on looking normal she’s not using her full energy on the task at hand ie benching, and she turns blue and lifts the weight easily. I feel like I occupy a lot of bandwidth thinking about stuttering, my wife says she never notices and that I should think about it so much, guess I’m just hard on myself and have a long memory for stuttering slip ups and a short memory for successful speaking. I find if I don’t sleep well I am way more likely to stumble over my words and hit blocks. So sometimes I’m stressed about sleep, and when I have an interview I typically don’t sleep well because talking on the phone stresses me out, I’ve tried the aversion therapy route by working as a telemarketer (one of the worst experiences in my life but I was broke), and working in customer service where phoned people all day - when I have jobs like this there is a general sense of dread all the time, I hate talking on the phone because my disfluency is most pronounced. I don’t know why but I much prefer meeting someone in person than speaking on the phone, hands down much easier for me in person to be fluent - for whatever reason.