Yes. I used to get to the end of a day, review it in my head and decide whether it was good or bad according to how my speech had gone.
I explained this in the recording about choosing a phone number. A good day meant I'd struggled less. A bad day meant a bad fluency day. That was how I gauged it.
It was a lot to put on my speech. A difficult moment didn't necessarily end when the conversation ended. I could take it into the rest of the day, replay it at night and use it to worry about tomorrow.
What else was happening in those days?
I was trying. I wanted to talk. I wanted a life with school, work, friendships and ordinary things I could enjoy. But when I looked back, the speech could become the thing that stood for all of it.
That is why I talk about being kinder to yourself alongside working on your speech. In one video I said to make time for something that makes you smile. Go out, have some fun, do something for yourself.
I knew how much attention I could give stuttering. I also wanted to live.
Noticing something that actually went well
In my self-talk work, I began looking for a small speaking experience that had been better than I expected. I wanted to hear the quiet “Man, I nailed that” as well as the familiar criticism.
That didn't require inventing a perfect day. I was asking myself to remember something actual that I might otherwise overlook.
I'm sharing the connection because I remember how completely speech could occupy my view of a day. Working on my speech mattered enormously to me. So did learning how to treat myself while I was doing it.