Well, I have been fatherless since the age of 1, but that has got nothing to do with my stutter. Here's my story. **TL;DR**: Focused too much on how the mouth moves to make a sound and then I couldn't get any words out. I think it was the time when I was in class 9th, so this triggered when I was about 15 years of age. In our school, we had a story in our English curriculum in class 7th about a girl with Cerebral Palsy. Her condition had left her unable to speak. So her parents got her a phonetician who would slowly teach her how to vocalize alphabets. I often find myself wondering about stuff, I am a bit philosophical. So 2 years forward, this story came to my mind and I wondered how the mouth actually moves to make a sound. Just the next thought was that if I can understand how to move my mouth to make a sound then I would be able to speak with confidence even when I am anxious, as I can just follow the steps to produce sound for the word, right(Lol, the irony!). So I went ahead to analyze my mouth movements for the word "Hello". I focused on my mouth, lips and throat in my mind's eye as I was about to speak. But, but nothing came out!!! I panicked, thought that I lost my voice. I had to force it out hard and out came a breaking, forced sounding voice with pitch all over the place. I forgot how to speak because I became conscious about it. I developed a kind of OCD for it and continued practicing 'Hello' but I always got the speech block as I was reminded of the 1st incident. At that time, my blocks were limited to this word. In just a few days I stopped experiencing these blocks when alone, but these were sure to occur in situations where I felt like I couldn't afford to mess up speech otherwise that would be embarrassing. So, mostly on the phone call. It made me avoid making phone calls or picking up the phone. Being the philosophical/analytical person I was, I thought to myself I am completely find with other words so I should take that as reference to improve my 'Hello'. But since I became conscious for those words as well, I started experiencing block for them as well. So, my blocked vocabulary expanded from just 'Hello' to also my name, saying 'yes/present' for attendance, any form of greetings on phone, 'Thank You', to then also calling out someone from a distance and interrupting someone in a meeting. I have also had a similar experience in the past when I was 6 or 7 years old. I became conscious of climbing down the stairs and noticed that the 1st step we take is only 1 step descent, but then in the 2nd step my other leg is descending 2 steps, so I became anxious that I might fall. It also lasted for a good few years but then went away because I didn't give it much attention. I used to walk by holding the railing or climbing 1 step down with each leg at a time and slowly I was able to graduate to normally stepping down the stairs. It did come back sometimes when I became conscious again but now I am fine in this regards.