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My experience with stuttering I am 20 years old and have had a small speech impediment since I was 4. I remember it being very bad when I was younger, but I saw a speech pathologist. One teacher would end up saying "hey, your stutter has gotten much better" in front of the entire class and even in grade 4 it was extremely embarrassing. My stutter gradually turned into what I will call speech-blocks. Either I have a block and do not say the sentence/word or I quickly abandon the sentence/word for a new one which may prevent the block/stutter or and more recently, I force myself to stutter through the block which sometimes makes me feel at peace but other times makes me frustrated and really sink into a shell of a human. But it does not fix the problem. I was always outgoing, relaxed and one of the cool guys in high school. I only really feared presentations which even then usually went well with the exception of one where I was sweating out of pure nervousness due to a few hot girls in the front row which petrified my stutter insecurity. I have found that as long as I know a lot about the topic I am presenting on, I will speak fluently and articulately. I have abused marijuana since grade 12 year which seemed to cure my inability to sleep due to anxiety, especially speech anxiety I would have at night. I went to University which scared me way too much. I moved two hours away from my house and had to rely on my own abilities to get over severe anxiety of meeting new people, doing large presentations, and completing seminars. I smoked marijuana during both years I was at school, binge drank socially and often, and also owned a vaporizer which provided the effects of nicotine - moment of relaxation of all muscles and sometimes could speak freely after vaping. I have been to the doctor for severe depression in first year which could have been amplified by my drinking and marijuana habits along with anticipatory anxiety for upcoming speaking situations in seminars. I had begun to meditate using Bodyscan by Jon Kabat-Zinn during that year which was a 45 minute session I used as a breathing exercise, as you come back to your breath often in diaphragmatic breathing in meditation, which really relaxed my mind and muscles before doing a presentation or seminar combined with stretching my abdomen and neck muscles. I also ran a lot and was in great physical shape but my body became a noodle just to speak freely. During my years in university, and for the first time in my life, I was stutter free. I attribute this success as to being so busy with fright and meeting new people and entertaining scary situations all the time that I didn't have time to stutter or think about it other than upcoming presentations and general anxiety I have. There was a downfall to this story though - I had ended up drinking way too much in my time at university, and even begun to smoke marijuana during the day for about a month. I drew a line here. I ended up getting a drug-induced psychosis episode which lasted a week or two. I decided to quit marijuana and move back home to go to a closer college. In the process, I learned I can sleep without marijuana and I can sleep well. I learned to use it once a month. I also quit vaping which led to smoking cigarettes for a bit and sometimes still do. I had got my stutter back since being home and going to a new college. I have made it my duty to find out why and how to fix stuttering or speech blocks. I have learned that you can only accept it and control it through various techniques which do not work for me. Most recently, in my experience with stuttering I have found that stuttering will just happen, sometimes I think about what I'm going to say and a speech block for that word occurs. Sometimes I am mid sentence and block occurs. Sometimes I know I am going to stutter and avoid the whole sentence. Sometimes I am going to introduce myself and stutter, use the phone to book an appointment and stutter. Each time I stutter I try to do what books have taught me - figure out why you stutter and avoid it by mindfully noticing it will occur and avoiding it. I have signed up for another speech pathologist who I hope will not tell me to accept my stuttering and give me techniques on how to control it more. I have read two stuttering self help books so far, one was "Mindfulness and Stuttering" in which the author claims to mindfully understand how her speech muscle mechanisms fail her and so she releases this tension and begins to speak clear and concise. It has been very tough to understand how she manages this but is the closest thing I have found to making the most sense to curing a stutter. I had read a reddit thread that said to lose his stutter he just told himself he didn't have one. Seems very simple and did not help either. I have been stutter free one time in my life and was during a time of poor lifestyle choices such as marijuana and binge drinking, and since I am more sober I stutter more frequently, with or without meditation. I would love to hear if anyone else has had similar issues, experiences, or cures to their speech blocks and stuttering. For now I try to understand and prevent stuttering each day which possibly only amplifies it. I go to the gym often, meditate, and sleep well. I try to scare myself out of my stutter, force myself to stutter to analyze it, and am hoping to find an answer to these speech blocks that happen as if they're a phenomenon.