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 )