This has always baffled me as a stutterer, particularly with blocking. I feel like it's a clue or some kind of insight into the mechanics of my how brain short circuits. Just can't figure it out tho. Goes like this for me: Im 100% alone. I decide I wanna update the voicemail msg on my phone. I think of a few phrases in my mind and can avoid certain words I know will give me trouble. I'll internally settle on something I like. Then I'll say it out loud to try it and practice once or twice. No problems! not even the sensation I usually get when speaking to someone and I feel a block coming. The words flow out fine. I can speak slowly and clearly. So I'll cue up the phone app to where it says " To record a new greeting, press 1 and begin after the tone" -beep- Instant block. Cannot even get the first "Hi, this is..." out. I'll restart again. Maybe this time I manage to begin but it's a trainwreck nevertheless. No matter how hard I try, I cannot speak slowly, cannot articulate, and I have blocks and stutters so bad that I even embarrass myself. Somehow. Even though I'm alone. smh. I'll stop. Take some breaths, do some mindfulness exercises. I say my tag line out loud again. 2 times, 3 times, perfectly. No issue. Effortless. -beep- Trainwreck. Even worse than I tend to be in public around other people! I literally CANNOT get this damn greeting onto my phone. As soon as that "red light" goes on, and I'm recording, my brain shifts into performance mode or something. Even though I know and it knows full well, no one is around, I've said it fine in practice, no one is listening. Don't matter. Hell, I'll even start saying the greeting in a loop as I'm getting cued up. Looping perfectly fine. But yo, the instant I know that it's "for real" my brain just goes and does its thing and routes my verbal process through the damage zone. And the moment I hit "cancel" I can then say the greeting perfect again! Brain reroutes differently. It feels like a parlor trick. Goes to show the inverse of mind over matter. I try all kinds of ways to psych myself out but no matter what IT KNOWS when it's go time. Bonus: This also happens when I'm alone and training a voice assistant like Foogle Assistant. I've (somehow) trained it before so I know the few phrases it needs. Can repeat them no problem on my own. But the moment that mic is on, waiting for my input, I block. Matter of fact, I stutter whenever I ask Moogle anything. It's a robot ffs! Very bizarre and very frustrating! Cheers PS - the way I eventually got around this was setting my computer to record continuously. Then I ignore it for a minute and do something else. Finally, I stick my fingers in my ears and close my eyes and just start saying the greeting over and over and for whatever reason, the fact that I can't hear myself out in the room and can only hear "internally" I manage to eek it out. Then I go edit it and play it back into my phone. The things we go through, no one knows!