You are completely correct in worrying about anxiety. Anxiety and fear took me to the most depressed state I’ve ever experienced. What I realized, and of course everyone has their own insecurities that manifest into a stutter, was that I was afraid to be open and honest about my stutter. I did everything in my power (skip around words, stop sentences short) to hide that stutter from new people, and it snowballed into being even worse than just being afraid of stuttering. In skipping words and doing all the speech therapy tactics that supposedly help with fluency, I did find that at most times I was fluent, and was able to hide my stutter very well, but I wasn’t saying the things I wanted to say and wasn’t being my authentic self. That fear of not wanting people to know about my stutter turned into restless nights thinking to myself how I wish I would have said this or that in a conversation, even if I did block or stutter. Fear and anxiety manifest themselves into reality, so tread carefully. I started to be open about it with people. If I were talking to someone new, I would skip the bullshit “fluency tactics” and say what I wanted to say. Sure I would stutter, but the second the person got that confused look on their face, I would stop the conversation and briefly let them know that I stutter. I realized they weren’t looking at me funny, rather they were simply confused. Nobody wants to jump to conclusions or make assumptions, they were just a bit confused. The second I let them know about my stutter all the anxiety and fear started to go away. On top of that, I forced myself into uncomfortable situations. I made myself do things or go to places (usually social events) where my anxiety would normally try to tell me to just stay home, and I slowly retrained my brain to not react in the way that it does. It all comes down to psychology and reason. Your mind is a powerful thing, and science is yet to still fully understand it. Keep going brotha