Struggling With Speech Blocks and Self-Confidence – Is It Stuttering or Anxiety?

Struggling With Speech Blocks and Self-Confidence – Is It Stuttering or Anxiety? I’m a 30-year-old guy from India, and I’ve dealt with stuttering and speech blocks for as long as I can remember. Oddly, I can speak fluidly to myself or with people I genuinely feel safe with. For example, the blocks appear frequently when I talk to my father, but never with my mum. My father, I feel, perceives me as a bit of a failure, and that triggers hesitation and blocks when speaking with him. There’s some rough childhood history – money problems, parental fights, bullying by peers, teachers humiliating me in class, poor study performance – mainly until I was around 13. Things changed academically from grade 8 onwards, but the social anxiety lingered. I remember feeling dread even in small daily interactions, like taking phone calls from our family auto driver, or calling to ask about arrival times. Talking to strangers, ordering food, or even making inquiry calls was a nightmare. In restaurants, I’d have friends order for me. My main fear has always been: “What will people think of me if I get stuck or blocked?” I know confidence is a big part of this. Career-wise, I’m pretty ambitious – aiming for high finance roles, like investment banking. I did some internships, and also worked for nearly 5 years in my dad’s business, looking after the finance function. I have a master’s degree in finance from a top UK university, CFA Level 2 cleared, and a background in accounting and finance, but I feel like I haven’t achieved anything truly significant yet. My education journey was shaped by the same fears: I opted for a distance bachelor’s degree in accounting to avoid having to attend classes, and dropped out of a CA (Chartered Accountancy) professional course when it got too hard. After living and working abroad for a while, I moved back to India last year. Now, I’m job hunting, but interviews are tough. I struggle not just with answers, but with expressing my thoughts without blocks. Sometimes I wonder: Am I a real stutterer, or is it all just generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)? My blocks come without prolongations or repetitions – it’s just complete stoppage. And here’s the weirdest part: If I genuinely forget I have this issue, I can be totally fluent. It’s like my speech only blocks if I remember there’s something to block. Recent interviews illustrate this perfectly. In one, my interviewer seemed less polished and had average speaking skills – my brain didn’t feel "threatened," so I was almost 100% fluent. Their camera didn’t work, so it reduced the social pressure. In another (same field, similar questions), the interviewer was super well-spoken and made strong eye contact. I stuttered badly and could barely get my thoughts out. Both times, I got rejected. Recently, I have been to a psychologist and a psychiatrist, where the latter put me on meds – Tofisopam 50mg and Sertraline 100mg and named it GAD(Generalised Anxiety Disorder). If anyone's experienced something similar, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is this anxiety-driven disfluency, real stuttering, or something else entirely? And if you’ve overcome it – especially in professional interviews and social situations – how did you do it? I think this is more likely related to Social Anxiety - Performance Anxiety - Situational Anxiety - Situational Stuttering - Anticipatory Anxiety – triggered speech blocks. Probably, a learned, anxiety-induced speech block pattern – likely developed from traumatic childhood communication environments. My next step: Going to see a hypnotherapist who’s a trained NLP practitioner for rewiring/reprogramming those triggers/memories that cause speech blocks.