Step 1: you sold your soul Step 2: stuttering spread out to more situations (even when speaking alone) despite therapy\[ Below is my own opinion, take it with a grain of salt: Your post reminds me of this [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/18mfgp3/comment/ke51jbo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from 1 month ago: >I think you gotta understand that because there was fear surrounding the word “deductible”, the unprocessed fear will eventually surround the word “theductible” too. > >I believe most people have a root cause to the first word they ever stuttered on, and lots of the words they stutter on now. That root cause I believe I spent up emotion/unprocessed conflict regarding somebody or something that starts with that letter. > >You have issues with d’s. I think you should think back to when this started. A very huge relationship we have in our life is our dad (dad starts with d). Do you have some sort of unresolved conflict with your dad?? > >I’ll tell you where my stuttering started. I began stuttering at around 20 so I guess in my case have the privilege of understanding how I was feeling emotionally during that time. At that time I was feeling very conflicted regarding what type of woman I wanted to find as a romantic partner. I was Christian and looking to only date a Christian woman, but for some reason could never seem to find a Christian woman I was attracted to. On top of that would question whether I was even a good enough man to date any other Christian women, or be enough for her parents. > >However there was this Christian woman in my Bible study at my college, and her name was Mallory. I got the inclination that she liked me romantically, but I didn’t like her. Because of her, my conflicting thoughts surrounding not being able to find a Christian partner I was attracted to sprung up. As well as this small experience opened the door to all sorts of other stress regarding my social life and self-image at that time. I guess it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back, so-to-speak. > >Anyways, I began stuttering on her name. Then it became all words that began with M. Then that tension provided a space for tension from other areas of my life to keep pouring in. > >Anyways, my point is thar maybe you have unresolved emotions and the avoidance is just leading to more suppression of those feelings. Look into ways to process that emotion, including journaling, therapy, etc. He began stuttering on her partner's name on the day that he first started stuttering. Then stuttering slowly gradually spread out to more situations and feared words. Then, it gradually spread out to words starting with an /M/. Then his stuttering spread out even further. But, the question is, why did he first start stuttering on the letter /M/ in his case? Because people who stutter are incorrectly relying on certain beliefs? (for example, needing to resolve unprocessed conflict for overt execution?) You said that you sold your soul.. is that comparable to below examples? **Example #1**: a young elephant with one leg tied up with a small rope to a pole, recognizes the futility of the struggle to get loose, and stops trying to fight the rope. A belief is now installed that “I can’t get loose when a rope is tied to my leg.” As an adult, the elephant continues to operate this way, even when the elephant is more than capable of taking down the pole \[programmed belief\]. This elephant will stop trying to get loose as soon as a rope is tied to a leg \[maladaptive action\], even when this concept or belief is clearly obsolete or in conflict with the intentions or perceptions of our conscious mind. **In my opinion**: It may be similar to you selling your soul resulting in developing heigtened fluency demands. I mean, for example, after you sold your soul, you started developing fluency demands to execute speech movements or initiate articulation, such as: * "As long as I don't have complete faith in my speech, executing speech movements becomes harder". * "As long as I immerse myself in negative experiences (such as, not being able to speak when knocking on the woman's door), executing speech motor plans becomes harder" * "As long as I'm convinced that it was too soon to enter medical school, executing speech motor plans becomes harder" * "As long as I'm convinced that I'm (socially) sensitive to environmental stimuli (which is in conflict with becoming a doctor), executing speech motor plans becomes harder" (in comparison to his dad as a doctor, or the other med-students) * "As long as I'm convinced that escape might be difficult or help wouldn't be readily available if things go wrong, executing speech motor plans becomes harder" * "As long as I'm convinced that other's lack of sensitivity prevents them from empathizing with and properly understanding my stutter experience, executing speech motor plans becomes harder" * "As long as I believe that my speech is good enough, and I do not care about how people react to my speech, executing speech motor plans becomes easier" * "As long as I believe that my secondary responses are not sufficient enough to keep the listener's attention, executing speech motor plans becomes harder" (to increase the likelihood of getting the message accross) * "The less abnormal my secondary behaviors become, the harder it becomes to execute speech motor plans." (Argument: Because, the less abnormal my secondary behaviors become, the less likely my listeners continue to pay attention to me while I am trying to speak) * "The more controlled a stutter becomes, the harder it is to execute speech motor plans" (Argument: Because the more it is likely to appear to listeners that I'm stuttering on purpose) * "The more I fear that my speech would let me down at the moments I needed it most (e.g., the motorbike crash), the harder it is to execute speech motor plans" * Similar to the young elephant **Example #2**: or, a hypnotist asks someone in a trance to lift a glass of water of the table after giving them the suggestion that the glass weighs a ton. You can see the person struggling and straining, attempting to lift the glass, but he cannot. While the mind of the hypnotized person is activating the muscles involved in lifting, it is also simultaneously activating muscles that resist the lift, which reflects his belief that the glass is extremely heavy. His subconscious mind is orchestrating this very complex set of activities that creates a reality coherent with his belief. Both sets of muscles are working all out to handle this glass, like an isometric exercise, so there is no net effect on the glass. In this way whatever beliefs we acquire will shape our biology. **In my opinion**: It's similar to you, in that, you blamed "selling your soul" which started a negative chain reaction, in which you started linking a belief to limit speech performance, so that everytime you immerse in the negative experience of selling your soul (i.e., blaming that situation), you develop or learn to struggle, strain or fully immerse in the block, much like the example of the hypnotist. For example, if you remind yourself that you sold your soul during speech, then you would likely activate muscles to initiate articulation while simultanously also activating muscles that resist executing speech movements, leading you to believe in this imaginary concept even more.. the more negative stutter experiences you encountered, the more you confirmed that this imaginary concept is real. "*See? I am tensing my muscles? And, see? I'm anticipating stuttering more and more now? See \[this\] and \[that\]?*" Followed by: "*So, that means I don't have the skill required to rely on automatic feedforward processes*", leading to excessively overrelying on the feedback system (such as, monitoring and adjusting speech to the imaginary concept, or the sensation of loss of control, or stuttering anticipation). This could lead us to kind-of hypnotizing ourselves: "*I'm triggered, so it must mean that I'm stuck on a word'*". If we perceive our imaginary concept or incorrect image, we simply tend to believe that it makes us error-prone or hypersensitive to executing speech motor programs. This is just my own take on it