Sounds great about getting back into therapy. I hope you get some great assistance in managing things through that process. For what it's worth, I actually regularly go to talk therapy just for my general well-being and my speech does come up semi-regularly because I still deal with it from time to time. Rather, it ends up being on my mind from time to time and is still a source of frustration. I think overall it has become easier over the years for me because I've become more at peace with it and it's less of an obsession for me. Very cool to hear you're getting into self improvements stuff like NoFap and meditation. I personally think self improvement work is super useful to keep digging into over the course of your whole life. I dunno if you have a regular way to get physical activity in but that's a really great thing for mental health too (even just long walks can be great, but I personally really enjoy yoga, and basketball). Deep breathing exercises from meditation and yoga are super helpful for me when it comes to my anxiety, my speech, etc. Something to look into but it involves breathing deeply down essentially into your stomach / diaphragm. When it comes to regular speaking, what sometimes helps me is making my speech more breath-y. I often times find when I'm blocking that it's when I'm out of speaking breath or at the end of my breath or it's surrounding irregular breathing. Just something to maybe think about and help. As a kid I was worried about it holding me back from things like making friends, finding girlfriends, and things like that. I do think it has altered how social I am a bit. However, I am now very happily married to an amazingly awesome woman who loves me in and out. She's just wonderful, I can't over express just how wonderful she is. Dating's always hard, for everyone, not just us. My wife and I met through online dating back in 2013 and we just hit it off really well through messaging. We both wanted to meet in-person sooner rather than later because it was important to both of us - basically to see if the physical connection was just as strong, and it was. I'd dated several other women before with mixed results, but none of the negatives were every because of my speech. Dating's just hard - for everyone involved. I never really had a girlfriend going through school, just to be transparent. I really hated lunch in school because I just never made great friend connections until I joined the Journalism department in my high school, which then allowed me to work on and hang out with others on our school paper and yearbook over the lunch hour. I've been a professional game developer for 13 years and I think I've done pretty well with that line of work. It suits me well since it allows me to focus on tasks on my own more often than not, but I still regularly need to communicate with my co-workers and team. I'd actually say I'm a pretty social person who loves to connect with people, but I definitely prefer deeper conversations and less small-talk so I tend to latch onto a small set of close friends as opposed to a ton of loose acquaintances. I'm an introvert but can be a bit of a social butterfly. As a side note, I've always tried to be very transparent and open with people that I have a stutter and I will often just outright say something about it to some people that I meet that might be professional contacts, etc. I'm sure I told my wife early on in our online messaging that I have a stutter too. I personally think that just coming out and saying it right out of the gate can help alleviate some of the tension, at least for me. I actually just recently had to do a long series of interviews for a new job (there were 7 interviews in total!) and at the start of every interview, I would tell the people I was interviewing with that I had a stutter and explicitly said to them that I just wanted to let them know so that they didn't think I was more nervous than I should be, that it tends to get a little worse when I'm excited or nervous, and that it is no reflection on my mental abilities. Everyone was always super understanding and kind about it. And having just talked about it right out in the open at the front of the conversation, that then allows me to just stop worrying about it - that they'll figure me out or I'll fail or something. It's just more empowering for me. My speech is still regularly on my mind, but I've really just come to realize that it's really just a big deal to me and to no one else. I know that's a really difficult pill to swallow and to fully accept, but it's the truth. I still need to remind myself of that fact now and again. Sometimes I'll get down on myself about my speech and think about how much better my life would be if I were 100% fluent - that I could be a lot more social and friendly and charming and all that stuff... but it just is the way it is. I actually think that maybe because of the challenges I've had with my speech that maybe I've become better at other things - like writing. People actually do tell me that I have a really great way of explaining things clearly and that I'm very eloquent even just speaking, despite the stutter, which to me means a lot. Try not to be hard on yourself. As my therapist tells me - practice self love. I know that's difficult, but just know that everyone is their own worst critic. We're all dealing with our own personal challenges, even non-stutterers. I know what you mean about feeling like people look at you different when they find out you stutter, but I actually really do think that's a bit of projection on our part - that we're assuming people are thinking the worst possible things. They're really not though. Sorry for the long reply, but I hope you have a great rest of high school. I really do think life gets a whole lot better after high school because you can start really making your own way and life for yourself. Good luck and try to have some fun!