I don’t think I was ever self conscious of having to use any walking aides, at least I don’t remember ever feeling that way. It took me a while to get used to relying on my cane – I remember this story when I handed a guy the cane to hold for me lol -I had to overcome a psychological hurdle to move from cane to walker and using the scooter has always been a breeze. Feeling self conscious or embarrassed about using any of them? Never. Feeling self conscious or embarrassed about having MS? Nope. That is…until now.
i hate public speaking of any kind. I’m not going to tell what I go thru whenever I have to make a presentation at work or make a speech of any kind but preparation involves developing the speech and practising a few times. Interestingly though, at the end, I’m almost always told that I did a great job/get kudos etc. Additionally, I’ve never really liked to hear my voice on a recording or hear myself speak. There have been times when I’d hear a tremor in my voice and my opinion is that it just makes me sound unsure of myself. Anyhoo. So remember I mentioned going to the support group meeting? The group leader told me that she would have guessed that I have MS had we been talking on the phone because of the tremor in my voice and when I think about it now, that’s moment that I started feeling weird/self conscious about having my wretched disease. Since that day, I’m so aware of what I’m saying, how I’m saying it and how I sound – I just can’t help it.
The other day I was talking to Dr. Pallo and frankly, I couldn’t tell u the last time we spoke. I’m not sure about what exactly MS related we were talking and he said,”is that why ur speech sounds so staccato?” Funny thing about his statement was that I was listening to myself during the conversation and I remember thinking “okay…u sound okay” and soon after, here he came with his observation. “Great” I told him what the lady had said and he pointed out that he probably picked up something because we hadn’t spoken in so long.
Between then and now I remembered what happens to me when I get hot. My voice goes down to the volume just above a whisper…no matter what I do, I cannot speak loudly when I get hot. And. It’s. So. Frigging. Annoying!!! I really cannot begin to explain to you how frustrating it is not being able to speak up. I’ve never actually told Gilbert about it (it happens so infrequently that it’s not top of mind when I see him) but I know it’s the MS because once I cool down, everything goes back to normal. 2 days ago I was scrolling thru my Facebook newsfeed and came upon the article below that, once I opened I was so excited to see. The very first line talks about speech difficulties such as loss of volume – it even has a name, Dysphonia. Who knew? Not this chick…it’s so good to see that it wasn’t in my head.
Who woulda thought that my speech would make me self conscious and not my various walking aides??? These days whether we just limin or I’m having a phone conversation, I think about how I’m coming across and if the other person is wondering what the hell might be going on with me…I just cyah help it.
Ah gone so…Stax
Well, I hear your clearly!