There are lots of things that come to people’s minds when I tell them that I am an English major-- one being that I should be able to articulate the language clearly. Now, granted, I can do that through text or written words. However, the problem lies with my speech. Articulating spoken words has not been a simple feat for me the last six or so years due to Bell’s Palsy. Coupled with my anxieties, this made for an extremely volatile cocktail that led to my extreme reclusiveness, but it also stoked the dying fire that was my interest in English.
Developing the palsy was certainly a terrifying and unexpected turn of events, especially when the same signs that indicate a palsy are the signs that indicate that someone is having a stroke. This development came with a number of problems, such as the nerves and muscles in the left half of my face becoming damaged and weakened to the point where I was extremely afraid and reluctant to speak to anyone, my parents included. I took to writing more often, and found myself with about two dozen more unfinished stories. I loved English more and more, despite the fact that I might never be able to properly speak it again.
My inability to speak pushed me towards many things-- an initial major choice that was not centered around a spoken language, and an adamant refusal to participate in class or take classes that would have me speaking a lot in general. Speech and debate, theater, and public speaking were all subjects I would shy away from to keep people from questioning what was wrong with my speech. Everything was slurred, I could not produce “p” and “f” sounds, and when I could speak, it was often a slow and poorly composed sentence or a simple yes or no answer. Over time, my ability to speak continued to deteriorate.
Despite being a relatively educated person interested in English with a wide vocabulary at my disposal, my ability to process my own thoughts into spoken words became increasingly more difficult. I often find myself forgetting the most simple words or even the synonyms to those words. I cannot form thoughts fast enough to participate in class, and I have panic attacks on those days when I cannot think fast enough and get called upon to answer anyway. It has been a near never-ending struggle.
However, not everything about this is bad. It has given me ample opportunity to sharpen my writing skills, which helped me become a writer for Odyssey. It has also landed me in a creative fiction writing class, and in the National Novel Writing Month community. I have made numerous friends who have helped me open up and speak more, and even more people that supported my major switch from something I did not enjoy into something I enjoyed very much. My major may be one that would seem ironic, given all of my speech problems, but it has deterred me less and less as the years have gone by, and I have no doubt in my mind that I will eventually be able to overcome it completely.
