Originally Posted by EsthersDoll

Hi Nick,

I have a lot of problems and issues with my speech, pronunciation, tone of voice and trouble trying to get the words that are in my head out of my mouth correctly. I will accidentally drop prepositions or say the wrong word completely, sometimes it's just a syllable that I mess up. When I'm tired, I will call myself "we" instead of "me". I sometimes reverse the order of the words I'm trying to say, so instead of asking someone if they will do something for me, I order them - "Will you get me a glass of water" in my head becomes, "You will get me a glass of water" out of my mouth. I can't even remember all the speech issues I've had in order to list them all here. I also forget words that I know well, like the word "phone". And I have trouble recalling words. I say "trash" when I meant to say "dishwasher". It's a totally absurd and surreal experience.

I know many technical words too - so sometimes I sound like an incompetent and complete idiot to people I speak to at work.

It's VERY frustrating. Sometimes the frustration comes out in my voice (accidentally) and whomever I'm speaking to thinks I'm frustrated with them and that only exacerbates my frustration!

I was very articulate and well spoken before the concussion I sustained - I was adept at communicating! I could easily help alleviate miscommunications among others - I could understand what each person was trying to say and be able to interpret it in a way in which the other person could understand too! I'm especially referring to communicating highly technical subjects to laymen (think about trying to explain routing audio paths to a manager who knows nothing about why we need to buy something expensive, or trying to teach a student about how a lightboard communicates with moving lights or something like that, because that's what I used to be able to do very well.)

And now just trying to say something simple, like "I need to rest" can cause a horrible miscommunication.

So, I totally understand what you're going through!!

I'm just very lucky that I've shown steady improvement over the last year. I'm hopeful that I continue to improve.

I'm also super lucky that the people I work with and live with, know me, they know who I was before the accident I was in and they know I'm struggling because they can see it and hear it when I speak. And they trust me. They know that when I say, oops, I made a mistake in saying that or that's not the tone of voice I intended to say that in, they know I'm telling the truth about it.

If I showed signs that I was declining I'd be even more miserable. I'm so sorry that's happening to you.

The author of the book I'm reading, Brainlash by Gail Denton PHD, thinks that there should be a very different approach to treating MTBI/STBI and mTBI. I agree with her. It looks like you're experience at the program you're currently enrolled in is evidence of that too.