I do improvisation and comedy. I've been working on an hour-long monologue that I'm trying to garner interest in as well. My hope had been that if the time came where I had to quit my demanding day job, I could bring in some income doing this.

I'm just so frustrated by these doors closing before they're even fully open. This is such a frustrating ailment, and god help you if you have any other disruptive issues. I also suffer from dry mouth caused by meds that I cannot change, so you can see, I have a few things to work out.

I'm glad you mentioned that most people are pretty decent. It's fear that's kept me from moving on with this since my dx and frankly, I'm just tired of being afraid of looking ridiculous in front of a bunch of strangers, when what I want to do is get on stage and BE deliberately ridiculous and make people laugh.

So you mentioned a therapist, and you keep water nearby. Well, that would be a given for me. I can't go 15 ft without water nearby. Is resting and slowing down the only help? Are there exercises to strengthen the mouth and tongue muscles?