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Stuttering & Mental health TLDR; there is currently no cure for stuttering. If you are a stutterer and are having difficulty with: addiction, depression, social anxiety, general anxiety, or other toxic negative emotions such as anger, resentment, bitterness... the literature indicates for stutterers that they get better mentally, without speech therapy or medication necessarily, primarily by doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy specific for their type of illness they want to combat. For instance many stutterers become socially anxious - if this is you maybe try searching for CBT specific to social anxiety . **“He who is meek shall inherit the earth” -** Translated to “those who have swords, and know how to use them but keep them sheathed will inherit the earth”. In my life, this would be applied as “learn to think, write, and speak - in weeks, months, years, you will become deadly; a wielder of self-esteem and rational thinking. **The Case for Independence:** **The arrogance of the intellect:** You’ll notice in your life as you grow up that there are some stereotypes or truths or factoids about certain children and their academic progress and success. There’s a term known as “the arrogance of the intellect” which can be thought of as perceived by the other as “I know more than you” or “this person’s intelligence is greater than mine, they seem arrogant” it’s something like that. *The significance* & *importance* of this term is that when you begin to learn and piece together a coherent foundation to stand on as you go through life you begin to gain respect and attraction AND it dampens your inevitable dread about the future. I am making the case that there is absolutely nothing more powerful than reading, writing, learning, and continuously expanding your expertise. There is nothing more powerful than a person who stands on solid ground; it helps with your assertiveness too. **If you are insecure about your stutter, especially depending on the severity, a philosophy that helped me was “what if I learn and stand on rational moral and scientific truths/factoids so that no matter my message the content would be greater than the stutter - if it pops up” - hope that’s a bit motivational.** If you were like me you were born to naive parents who didn’t do any research on the psychological repercussions of growing up with a stutter - for instance 60% of stutterers become ‘socially anxious’ or many clinical papers I read start with “typically, stutterer’s have a lower quality of life”. With this knowledge in hand, my parents as well as those around me could have been made aware of the possible psychological ramifications of being born with a disease on social display; as a result, the cliche’s of “Don’t let stuttering affect your life!” from doctors, teachers, and authority figures cut deep and I think it is a representation of the lack of knowledge in the community of stuttering and mental illness. **Sliver of non-naive hope for stutterer’s well-being:** There’s an individual in this thread who posts ‘motivational’ videos where he films himself going up to strangers and intentionally (very awkwardly) randomly approaching strangers and then intentionally but genuinely stuttering; his philosophy is that if you do it enough you desensitize yourself to stuttering (and these types also make a large stretch that the more you stutter the more fluent you become because you become more relaxed socially about your stutter). Now, I will explain how to actually do this so you don’t naively approach people and get terribly hurt from humiliation, rejection, etc. Over and over. **Overcoming what you’re afraid of: (Funny analogy but bear with me ;))** Having a stutter is like having a penis. There are times it doesn’t perform especially when we most absolutely want it to. When it doesn’t perform, we feel a bit ashamed no matter the frequency at which it occurs. The same is relatively true for stuttering so, what do you about it? **Exposure therapy:** When you’re *afraid of something* the clinical literature indicates that if you break down what you are afraid of into very small chunks then learn to master each small chunk (until you’re bored with it) the idea is that eventually you can reach your ultimate goal; but, you will become BRAVER not necessarily less afraid. The major thing to stress is that when you do exposure therapy **you must go in prepared**. What I mean by that is when you approach something you approach it in two ways (which are crucial): either with a system of *approach and challenge* or a system of *fear and anxiety*. When you approach something you are ‘prepared’ to face so to speak and face it with challenge, you turn on an entirely different neurophysiological system that interacts with the situation differently; for instance if something abruptly frightens you it can lead to PTSD or trauma in general - this is important for stutterers especially because all throughout life there is MANDATED speaking meaning we actually have no choice to perform AND the stakes are much much greater being that our disease is psychosocial and can be socially humiliating. I am completely empathic for stutterers who suffer. If you think you have social anxiety or poor self-esteem I would highly recommend you try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Social Anxiety. **Future medicinal implications I know of:** ​ 1. There is currently a trial being done for a drug called ecopipam that has shown reduction in severity of stuttering in the past but now they are running a real clinical trial which will end I believe in March this year. So I would recommend tracking that 2. In the literature I was looking for ‘what to do with mentally ill stutterers’; they said that CBT specific for your issue, even without speech therapy or improvements in speech, show that people come out mentally healthier. The reason is because CBT teaches you OVER MONTHS to rationalize and balance your thinking. So for instance, people who are depressed and something ‘bad’ happens to them it looks like this: “I failed that test which means I’ll probably fail the course; If I fail the course I won’t be smart; If I’m not smart I won’t be successful; it’s just another reason I should jump off a bridge”. If this sounds even vaguely familiar it’s a cognitive distortion called “Catastrophizing”. As you do CBT, you will begin to recognize these emotions and combat them with logical and rational thinking. The idea is that if you become terribly anxious then complete a CBT worksheet, you often still feel a bit anxious but much much less and to a manageable degree. I hope this is helpful