I know I’m one of those who has set a new year’s resolutions and not kept them… so for the last four years I didn’t set any… but this year… I want to focus on learning to speak better and work with my speech therapist… I’ve already talked (yes talked out loud) with her about this… I realize this is not going to be a 100%, perfect sounding kind of thing for me… simply because of how things are medically… but I know I can to better…. I know I can work harder and without letting ‘my fears’ or emotions get in the way…

Also all of this is written while having some not so pleasant side effects due to the changes of my medication… so this may get out of context, or seem disorganized… or all over the place…. and I have a feeling that I may have the urge of rewriting this at a later date…

I’ve had a stutter since… well… forever… or most of my life… It was a little better when I was kid… at least as far as I remember… but as I grew older it got worse… At least that’s how I remember it… I did have times where it wasn’t too bad… but it defiantly got worse if I was stressed or something going on in my life (which was quite often actually)…

In spite of the stuttering I was able to teach for a few years… what I’d like to call my ‘almost normal’ period… where I had work, no drugs or drinking or other self-destructiveness going on…

Today, and especially when I am anxious… which by the way… is quite often… and especially when it is required of me to speak to someone other than close family… I type a lot faster on my computer keyboard than I speak… and I don’t think I type fast…

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The suicide attempt… left marks on the inside of my mouth… and all the way down to my stomach…. It affected my vocal cords and tissue of my mouth and my throat… the soft tissue at the back of my mouth… like the uvula and surrounding tissue… which is pretty much nonexistent…. That pretty much leaves an opening up to my nose but when I eat I sometimes have problems with food going up there…

Almost nonworking saliva glands are a pain in the ass (or mouth) as it leaves me with dry mouth and when it’s really bad it comes with pain or even bleeding sores…

My vocal cords are also partly paralyzed… not too bad though… but I do have some movement… more in one of them than the other… that and the soft tissue/uvula thing… makes my voice sound somewhat nasally and bit weak and breathy if that makes sense…. however the movement problems of my tongue also do that… breathy… blowy pronunciation thing… sometimes anyway…. (I’m still working on that)

After the suicide attempt I was sent to a speech therapist… but it wasn’t too helpful… maybe because at the time I was very uncooperative and didn’t really see the point… I didn’t really want to speak anyway at that point… and I wasn’t even supposed to be alive… or that’s how I felt at the time…

Before… I had fantasized for a while on how to shut myself up somehow…I didn’t realize it at the time…but I was very sick… and what went through my head back then was not rational…. I did fantasies about cutting out my tongue…. but somehow I never did… until that night…. I felt as I had to do it… That way …at least… I would be able to proof to myself that I could… or that was the reason I made myself believe at the time…

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I have been seeing a speech therapist… at first we focused more on the problem I have with swallowing than anything else… but we´ve also been working on my speech… I have some psychological issues with speaking out loud…. a truck load of anxiety being one of them… you can call it social phobia or whatever… At 13 I stopped speaking at all and didn’t speak a word for about a year at least… and in the past… if I can avoid speaking I will…. I still find myself doing that and I guess a part of me does that out of an old habit…. but I really want to get better at speaking… I guess… I little bit closer to feeling normal….

Lately, in speech therapy I have been doing exercises where I mostly read something out loud… It takes a while just to get through a few lines so we don’t go through a lot each session… but then we brake what I read down to smaller bits and work on that… I know my stuttering is somewhat getting better… at least during the sessions…. I’ve learned to use new techniques on how to… at least… minimize it… and I can as long as I’m not stressed… (which again… is quite often)…. However with tongue mobility problems and muscle spasms …as well as it missing a piece I also have problems with certain sounds…. more with some sounds than others though…

I cannot really taste anything unless I swallow it… but according to my doc we have taste buds in our throat. I have very little feeling in my mouth… on some places like on the top of my tongue…. I have no feeling at all… I can sometimes lose bits of food somewhere inside my mouth and without really knowing it’s there… I don’t always know where it goes when it moves around while I’m chewing it.

Sometimes I accidentally swallow bits that have ended up un-chewed but that’s a pretty bad choking hazard especially since I already have problems swallowing fully chewed food… This is one of the reasons why I don’t like the thought of eating food in a public place or where there are lots of people…. or even just when I am around people… other than my wife or my kids… At least they don’t mind me sticking my fingers in my mouth when I eat… as using your finger makes it a lot easier knowing/feeling where the food is, if it’s chewed properly yet, how much you have left, etc.

…and as I said… I will probably be reorganizing this entry at a later date or rewriting it… but if you have a question or two (or more)…. don’t be shy…