This post is so incredible to me. I am 24 and in grad school, and my speech has gotten more disfluent over the past couple years. I've been so much more anxious about it. I've reached out to a person in my field who went through my program and he had a similar philosophy, the more he thought about his speech the more he stuttered. I am hopeful that I can think less about my speech and just speak more often. When I was little and I didn't think about how much I stuttered, I know I didn't stutter this much. I've also had thoughts that I stuttered too much if I did XYZ. Some of those tasks I debunked and said "smoking weed doesn't make me stutter more, I stutter more because I'm worried about it." Weed is not so strong that it affects my speech in that way. It is about my mind. I have also had the realization that in my 24 years, I still haven't accepted myself and the fact that I stutter. I am so concerned with the fact that I speak differently and it seems like people treat me differently because of it. But I will make it!