Coping Mechanism №2

How to find your voice

Eagle. Sketch by the author

I started writing when I stopped speaking.

Every time I came down with a cold (often!), my vocal chords shut down for a few days — sometimes for a whole week — and one unforgettable time, for two weeks straight.

Have you ever — you who love to talk — have you ever been gagged for two weeks?

I was on the windowsill. In fact, the experience was so depressing that it provided the catalyst for me to completely change my life.

I started writing in order to communicate during those frequent periods of enforced silence.

Hubby would ask a question — I would write down the answer.

At school (yes — I was a teacher!), I bashed a wooden mallet on the table to keep order and taught through a combination of mime and copious notes on the whiteboard. It was exhausting.

I saw speech therapists and dutifully practised vocal exercises on my way to work. School provided me with a microphone — which helped a little — and for a few years, I got through by treating some of the experience as an Art Project (because, when I was creative with it, it was funny too!)

I was living a half life.

I couldn’t speak to my children, my family — and I hibernated from a social life during the…