I’d 13 years to think about where I’d be if I hadn’t lost my voice. For the sake of hypotheticals and for those who feel it isn’t a waste to delve into hypotheticals, I believe it has finally dawned on me: It’s really quite better this way… in a rather obvious way. Let’s go over the reasons briefly: (I spent all of a minute gathering my thoughts on this list!)
• Terrified of losing my voice
• Didn’t understand voice’s reversing behavior
• Not smart enough to understand voice’s reversing behavior on own
• You don’t understand just how terrified of losing my voice I was.
Points one and four mean to emphasize that I was terrified of losing my voice. By this notion, it can be inferred that this would have continued into the future, and not just gone away, leading to more psychopathologies along the way. I already suffered from burning in the throat, lips, and eyes with and without speaking. I had never told anyone that it would happen even when not engaged in conversation; primarily, I am sure, because I was in denial of how bad it was. Listening to music and ‘working away’ was my only refuge.
Point two and point three can be lumped together as well. As stated before, somewhere along the way, I’d lost my way. Understanding how to speak normally as everyone else does was outside the scope of my abilities. ‘Taking on water’ is a good way of putting it, and for this reason alone, two and three, here, would have ensured the mystery would baffle me forever.
There is some closure in knowing roughly what you have to do to reverse course. The knowing-this-much has been so unsettling to me in the past, but I think I am, finally, seeing another image in the distance, revealing itself to me. Suspect is the reality ‘One needs to prepare the voice to lose it so swiftly’; however, have no doubt, someone will seek out to discover the validity of such a proposal… no doubt because of these writings.
I would beg you not to toy with the reversing of VE! It is a terrible place to be. No, you don’t understand what it’s like to not be able to be heard in a crowded room, talkers a’talkin’ away… How about not being able to project your voice across a street unless it’s purely quiet? Then, keep in mind, this speaks of nothing of the torture the first year or so is. It does grow back, yes, yet those first trying months are tirelessly brutal because you will not be heard without yelling as hard as you can manage! But the loss of the feeling of your own voice will deal the greatest damage!
Here I am, rather lucky in that I didn’t have to work until four years later. And somehow I managed that, with great patience for the new person I had to become and accept, hiding the pain I felt from everyone I came into contact with. The sick irony of it all is, no one will realize something of such gravity befell you! The only person who’d notice is someone who’d heard you sing before and after, and then, they’d even say ‘Why aren’t you singing the way you know how?’ And I didn’t have this luxury.
I think I’ll just publish this as is. I have been thinking of more these past few weeks, but the immediacy isn’t striking just yet!
Now, let’s all have a good ‘ha-ha’! One, two, ha-ha!