Stuttering is insidious. It not only obstructs our speech, it does much worse. It crushes our confidence. It dictates our choices. It colors how we look at things. Much as you described. Speech therapy can help people achieve fluency. But you can start taking actions today. You can decide that you're not going to let your stutter direct your actions. It's not an easy thing to do. Start by doing it once or twice a day. When you feel yourself shy away from a situation, stop yourself. Recognize the opportunity and seize it. It's going to be hard. You might feel drained afterwards. But make a promise to yourself that you'll do this at least twice a day. Journal it. When you have a free moment, write down what happened, how you faced it, and the outcome. You'll have successes and failures. Build on the successes. Learn from the failures. Increase it to four times a day. But just start seizing the opportunities as they occur. Or turning around and running after them when they might be slipping by. Taking your life back from your stutter will help. It's OK to be scared. It's not OK to submit to the fear. ​ >How do I simply get the confidence to not overthink and just be relaxed when i talk to somebody? That sounds ideal, but I don't know if that's a near term goal. Sounds like a long term goal.