Vocal Attacker by Susan Reagan

Having what I thought to be a non-curable and in my case non treatable case of spasmodic dysphonia was like having a terminal illness without the luxury of actually dying and being put out of my misery.

For five long years almost every word except for intermittent breaks in voicing, speaking was like regurgitating broken glass feeling pain with every word. With those blades of unforgiving deadly glass; cutting, severing and destroying my past.

The anxiety, the anguish, the madness, the pain, every word, every sentence and every hour of every day. Retreating, falling, recoiling back trying to ease away from my vocal attacker.

The more I wanted to speak the harder I tried the more I tightened up constricting my natural voice and keeping my words locked deep inside. Literally like being bound and gagged frozen in time and frightened to death. Hands choking me and fingers squeezing tight around my neck.

 Too much to comprehend and too much destruction to cope wondering why my voice shut down and was literally broken