My long stutter Story and how I overcame it

My long stutter Story and how I overcame it Hi Reddit, I'm 32 year old and for 25 years I had a stutter. I had periods (weeks) where I thought I got rid of it for it to only come back. I really hated it and would go into my shell and play the "Shy Guy" role when I was in a group. Like I always thought myself to be a witty, funny and smart guy but it always held me back, as an example I would be with a group and someone will ask a question that I knew the answer to but wouldn't be able to respond. I was confused and didn't know why my mouth couldn't finish the work of my brain, what was hard was the biggest word I was stuck on happened to be the name of my street. I always dreaded the question of where I live. My stutter was at a different level depending on who I was talking to, In my group of close friends I was able to talk stutter free with some and wouldn't be able to get a word out with others in which I just tried to avoid them. I was confused into why this was and pondered over it in my head daily. I felt it was an intimidation and pace issue, like if I was talking to someone chill that only asked a couple questions and they had a slow tone to their voice I would be stutter free but when I came across a well spoken, fast passed speaker I was at my worst. It's hard to explain but it's like I could hear them fire off their words, I would understand them but when it was my turn to speak I was intimidated that they were much better spoken then me that I would go into a panic mode and will have to fight for words to come out. Once I got stuck on 1 word, I will have thoughts in my head like this person knows I stutter, then I will panic more and start sinking.... it was truly a quick sand effect. Over time as I met new people I would be able to identity who I could and who I couldn't speak to right after I heard them speak. Before I felt it was a pace issue I tried a couple different things... like in my younger years I will speak in my head before I spoke with my mouth and If i knew I had to say a word I was going to get stuck on I would try and find another word to replace it with, like I could never say therefor so i replaced it in my vocabulary with thus. This helped from time to time but it wasn't good enough... it wasn't solving the issue of me not being able to say my street name. I reached a point where I had finished school, done my after school studies and needed to find a job. I was offered a job in a call center... not sure if I need to say this but I was so freaking nervous, I didn't want to do it at the start but I thought fuck it, I need the money and what's the worst that could happen I stutter myself out of a job (I dreaded this though :( ). So interview day comes, I've had it playing on my mind for weeks, thankfully the interviewers were cool, they were calm and all was going great until they told me about a call mock test... they had a sheet of paper which had questions and answers, they were going to read out the questions and i was to read back the answers. I stuttered, I stuttered bad... i started to sink but the look on the interviewers face saved me.... they didn't look disappointed, have a look of superiority or want to end it but just looked understanding, i still stuttered through reading it but I finished it and didn't sink. I wasn't confident at all in getting the job and was impartial either way, I really needed the money but I didn't like the idea of working a job where I had to speak for the bulk of it.... I ended up getting the job. So started off with training, it was good... I hit that period where I was confident and stutter free and hooked up with a girl in the training, It was good times. In saying that I had always dreaded the day the stutter came back, which it did on my 1st day of calls... it was a customer that was very pushy and depended answers quickly, I stuttered, he called me a stuttering c*unt and hung up in my face. I was in a corner away from other consultants so in my eyes it somewhat helped me save face as no one heard but I couldn't hide in the corner forever. I ended up back stuttering on say 2 or 3 calls a day (out of 50ish calls) but I was very proud of that as it was a consistent like that for a year.... in previous years I would have stuttered 45 of those calls. So i thought to myself why am I much better then I was before and I found it was because I was confident with my knowledge of what I was talking about only to stutter when the topic went away from the customers call issue to something I was less knowledgeable about, at this point I had really felt the issue was with confidence, like I had read up on this previously but without experiencing it first had it's hard to know for sure. In that job I had always had notpad open and started to note down the calls in which i began to stutter and put down notes when in the call it happened / how severe it was / if i sunk.... ect from there i felt like i was taking control of it and as time went of my number kept getting better. This might sounds weird but if I had a bad day I will look at other factors outside of the person I was talking to, like was I well dressed that day / did i do my hair that day.... I really felt the saying look good / feel good, it's all tied in with confidence. Overtime I owned my stutter and developed a confident speaking approach, I went from taking the phone calls to moving into a manager role within the company speaking with very confident people on a daily basis to running my own business. I'm mostly stutter free these day but get the bad day mainly when i'm tired in which a Red Bull sorts it out. I'll like to be able to say be confident and own your stutter but I know 1st hand how hard it is, what I'll suggest is to look to improve it day by day, work out what sends you to the sinking place and work on minimizing that... once your on the path of reducing your stutter I think you will gain confidence day by day and your confidence should only grow. I hope i could help someone... if you have any question please ask.