A short while back, I lost all or nearly all of my speaking ability for two weeks, and it’s starting to come back to my usual range of intermittent speaking ability. It’s closer to what it’s like when it comes and goes throughout the day now, but also, I’m learning how to approach it from a place of more informed awareness. No more relying on “Well, I guess I’m pretending to be circumspect today”, or at least, I’m learning how to integrate that with other approaches.

A few days ago, I had full voice for a minute when I woke up.

My sense was to push on it, and see how far I could get, so I did.

All in all, it was about 20 words before it cut out again. It was full for about five words, then grew fainter, then started to (…) pause, then I started saying “word things” (words that aren’t what I’m trying to say). It was close to what I meant, but not there. Like saying “let’s see what done” instead of let’s see what this does”. After that, it went faint, and dropped out again.

My assumption over the past couple of the weeks has been not so much that this is new (I’ve been in situations where people expected me to speak and I couldn’t since grade school), but that it’s unusual to lose my voice, save for intermittent speaking ability. Not new, but not common, either.

The problem with this is that I’ve never measured my speaking ability on a daily basis. If I I was alone (including alone at my desk at work), and I got that “oops, can’t say words” feeling, I just wouldn’t speak. If someone tried to speak with me when I couldn’t say anything back, I’d just fake my way through it (says nothing, shrugs, smiles), or would grab whatever words I could, then if possible, throw the conversation back to them before my voice cut out again. Which is ok and all, but it’s definitely a form of masking, and is every bit as exhausting as all the other ways of doing that.

Yesterday, I went through these poems that I don’t have memorized, and was getting nowhere. So then, I started finding poems that I had cold at some point over the years. (I also keep my sets somewhat fresh – even older pieces get a read-through every once in a while, or if they’re really old, every few years. It’s in my head, regardless.)

The first one (more recently memorized) came out ok, but that’s one short piece.

Then I moved onto other ones.

It felt like I was turning a flywheel through molasses, but I was able to get it out, one after the other.

Once I did that several times, *then* I could read the unmemorized ones off the page, fairly well.

So then, I tried speaking again.

Nothing.

“Well, fuck it.” I typed “OK” in 72 point Helvetica, and just started at it.

That I could do. “OK.”

Turned my back to it, the ability to say it went away.

At 90 degrees, it’s sort of ok. It seems to scale, too – the closer I get, the more clearly I can pronounce “OK”.

It’s the same for saying “So then, I tried speaking again.”

“Well, holy fuck then, Batman. OK.”

My sense here, based on recent and past experience:

• I can read things off a page, especially if I’m rehearsed and warmed up.
• I can recite things if I’ve memorized them.
• How well I can read something depends on visual and possibly, spatial orientation.

I need to test this out a bit more, but I think part of this is that “verbal” thinking for me is essentially visual – I’m strong enough of a visual thinker that it translates words into 3D space. That’s why the closer I am to looking at something, the more clearly I read it. It’s almost like “mental peripheral vision”. I already knew that it works the other way around – my mind translates text into 3D film-like images.

So when I can’t speak at all (or when I can say things, but they’re not what I’m actually trying to say), my choices are:

• Memorize virtually everything (which is impossible).
• Memorize scripts (which i can do, but it’s exhausting).
• Read off of a page when I’m reading or presenting publicly, and use AAC the rest of the time — or alternately, use AAC as my voice.

I’ve decided on the latter. It’s far less energy consuming, and I can’t keep risking burning out just to say words because non-speech-impaired people prefer them.

Also, I know that masking having limited/non-fluid speech affects my mood fairly extensively. I’m a lot more clear-headed when I don’t have to be constantly translating words into speech.

Which in my case is probably more like “translating visual and/or auditory thinking into ??? (something) into verbal thinking into speech”.

Also, I don’t have a lot of these problems when I type, although that can cut out, too. I’ve experienced “linguistic burnout”; that’s what happens when I can’t write, either. Poetry especially, which is sort of like high-octane linguistic architecture, as opposed to essay writing, which is more compositional.

This is a lot like coming out – you’re the same, yet completely different. It’s challenging and transformative. I like it. 🙂

Conclusions, so far:

• My losing speech was triggered by exhaustion and stress.
• It’s not a linear recovery process – things don’t happen across a discrete series of step, more like “semi-random noise as it does what it does”.
• It’s definitely not non-fluid speech, it’s a form of being intermittently non-speaking. The closest description i’ve found yet of what this is like for me is “non-speaking (at times)“. For contrast, here’s non-fluid speech. I can use some of what she describes in response to having non-fluid speech as a compensation technique, but more commonly for me, it’s a form of camouflage, which is why i’m letting it go as a strategy. (More information about both can be found here.)
• With effort, I can read with some writings that i’ve memorized. Also, looking at printed words acts as a cue – it’s better than doing so from memory, even if it’s something that’s known by heart, like saying “OK”. That said, speaking from memory is still exhausting, reading from a page is much easier.

This is still in-process for me, but I think I’m getting closer to some conclusive answers. I’m definitely planning on using AAC a lot more!

One other thing: one of the reasons I’m posting all this in detail is that there’s very little in terms of support for non-speaking autistics, of all types.

It’s part of the social hierarchy that has been in place for decades based on functioning labels, which don’t represent the complex realities that many of us live and face.

Here’s Paula Durbin-Westby again:

“We need to change some of the ideas about “high functioning” and “low functioning” Autistics. Not being able to speak is equated with “low functioning”. A constellation of characteristics are said to be true of only “LF” people, such as self-injurious behavior, toileting difficulties, and not being able to speak or having limited speech, while “HF” people are said to have another set of characteristics, also fairly stereotypical, such as being “geniuses” who are good at computer programming and lack empathy. These binary divisions don’t address the wide variety and range of characteristics of Autistic people, and paint a limited picture of individual Autistics, many of whom defy (not necessarily on purpose!) the expectations surrounding their “end” of the autism spectrum.”

More on this (in relation to the divisions that functioning labels cause) can be found in this excellent piece by Amy Sequenzia.