Hi gang,
i have a rather peculiar complaint -
despite its novelty, I assure you i'm not
making this up.
About 7 years ago (aged 1
, I slumped into a
rather severe depression, which brought
about an equally severe agoraphobia. For
almost a year, I severed contact with
almost everyone I knew, seeing few people
except a pout-faced convenience store
owner i'd buy groceries from once a week.
After coming out of the agoraphobia (and
depression) about 3 years ago, I noticed
that, unsurprisingly, my language skills
were shot. In high-school my
communication skills were exceptional -
state debating representative, won
numerous state & regional public
speaking competitions, etc. Ever since,
i've had a mild (though infuriating)
stutter and a constant inability to find
correct words, prompting me to pause
halfway through sentences as I search for
(often very simple) words.
The bizarre bit is this: about a month
ago, I realised that I can talk with
perfect fluency/articulation if, and only
if, I assume a fake accent. It doesn't
matter what the accent is (i usually go
with irish), or how convincing it is -
just so long as I mimic a voice other than
my own.
This is completely perplexing to me. The
obvious explanation would be that somehow
talking with a false accent lowered my
anxiety by stepping out of my 'genuine'
identity or something along those lines.
Although this could be the case, there are
two counter-points: (1) I no longer suffer
from any significant anxiety (2) for
obvious reasons, assuming a fake accent
(and seeming like a bit of an fool for
doing so) does, if anything, elevate my
anxiety due to the sheer farcical nature
of faking an accent.
Does anyone have any knowledge or stories
similar to this? I think I remember some
abstract stories from a 1st-year
psychology course of people who had
sustained some sort of (physiological)
damage to a part of their brain and had
similar problems, but I can't seem to
find/verify the anecdotes. If anyone
knows anything at all about this rather
bizarre (and embarrasing) phenomenon, i'd
be most appreciative.
Many thanks,
- john (or, until I figure out how to
recover articulation in my natural voice,
paddy o'patterson )
