Have you ever heard your voice on a recording and thought, “Is that what I really sound like?”
You rehearse exactly what you want to say, repetitively hitting the restart button to get it just right. The focus is usually to sound as professional as possible and leave the best possible impression. Unfortunately for people living with dystonia, the stress can be so much more.
In the blog, Chronicles Of A Dystonia Muse, the author describes just how difficult it can be for a dystonia patient to hear their own voice. For anyone who is close to the dystonia community, knowledge of the disease’s uncontrollable muscle spasms is fairly common. What some may not know, is that those contractions can develop in vocal chords resulting in difficult speech.
The blogger details the frustrations of hearing her own voice playing back on the answering machine, but does so with great humor also describes the knot she works herself into when it’s time to record a new outgoing message. She describes “accessing her inner thesaurus” in her search to find the perfect words, and discarding them faster than one can enunciate the words “Jiminy Cricket.” She finally settles on a bare bones recording, refusing to give in to the pre-recorded digitalized voice.
This is an excellent blog for people dealing with dystonia and other rare diseases. It provides inspiration, links to resources, and a first person perspective that’s conveyed with gentle humor.
So next time you are recording that “perfect” message on your answering machine, realize there are hundreds of dystonia patients who need your voice to speak when they can’t do the talking themselves.
Share this article to your social networks to help be the voice of awareness for the dystonia community.
