Your 100% right brother. Everybody should ask for help and accept themselves. But for me & the masculinity thing it doesn't make sense ill admit. But it's still another thing that makes me feel innept like I can't do a simple thing that a 15 year old can easily do..its a immature thing but it's ingrained in me from when I was a kid I guess. Your right I wouldn't normally care if I never saw those people again but unfortunately they work in the same building as me but I don't actually work with them. I see them in passing everyday. But yeah I care too much about that..the severe anxiety comes from when I embarrassed myself as a kid around people I would see everyday in school and I was horribly messed with and beaten up badly even because of the overt stuttering. If I have to see people everyday who I know will try to abuse me over stuttering then that's my real problem. And what you said about the rehearsing, yes that does help slightly for me. But my problem is sometimes I get so blocked I can't get words out at all and sometimes I'll actually start to spit if I can't relax my vocal cords. It doesn't happen all the time, but I can't predict it. It's almost like some bizarre engrained ptsd response that's useless & makes things worse. People have literally though I was having a stroke, on drugs or I was loosing my mind in the past. Needless to say I don't have any shred of dignity left from those experiences 😂.. But do you think trying to talk to the instructor if he's there before hand is a good idea?..I know you said I shouldn't worry about the Pride aspect of it. But judging how the guy was 2 yrs ago he seems to get awkward about things lol.