Oh my god I hate it so much.
What am I, six? No, I'm thirty years old and I go to speech therapy. It's so embarrassing. I made an appointment with the ENT after having a breakdown during band practice. I was experiencing so much pain when I was singing that I was convinced I had throat cancer that was going to lead to the excision of both my vocal chords and epiglottis rendering me mute and forced to use a feeding tube for the rest of my life. You know, the kinds of conclusions that normal people have when they experience pain for a little while.
I arrived to my appointment mortified to the bottoms of my feet. I nearly cancelled the appointment about twenty times but what other option did I have? I didn't know what was wrong with me and I couldn't sing anymore without a week of pain to follow. I knew I had to do something. The doctors pushed and palpated and put a camera down my throat to watch my vocal chords as I spoke and sang (It would have been cool if it wasn't so traumatizing) and gave me my final diagnosis: I didn't know how to speak properly.
R E C O R D S C R A T C H
Exuse me? Me? And actor and a singer? A compulsive performer who never shuts up suddenly doesn't know how to speak properly? Preposterous!
Yeah, well apparently that's the deal. So now I go to speech therapy.
During my first session they asked me such questions as do you not speak properly because you're afraid to be heard? Seriously? Don't put that kind of shit in my head when I'm already humbled enough to be asking for help. I don't need further introspection and self doubt when I'm already on the brink of tears from embarrassment.
They also made me do such fun exercises as blowing bubbles into a cup with a straw, and blowing raspberries while singing a scale. Side note, have you ever seen a piano in an exam room? It's the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. And it wasn't like a sterile piano either it was just a regular old wooden upright you would find at your grandparents house. So bizarre to see it sitting next to a patient chair with paper covering it. On top of it were cups of pudding and some kind of cornstarch that I never asked about. I wonder what they did with those. Baking? Anyway, back to the story.
I was asked to read Shel Silverstein into a microphone and listen as they played it back to me. I had to describe to them what I might assume about my personality simply based on my voice as spoken normally and then as they trained me to use it. What the hell was with all this self-examination? They said based on my voice when I first came into their office they would assume I was a very flat and shy person and that they were surprised when I turned out to be animated and funny. That was shocking. Even today when I went in for my fourth appointment she remarked on my progress despite the fact that I was a "quiet person". What the fuck? Who was she talking about? I felt like I was on an alien planet for a second. I mean I guess that's the persona I give off when I'm in a doctor's office... It's better than the truth anyway; scared shitless and anxious as hell but trying to play it off like it ain't no thang.
So yeah now I'm learning how to breathe and speak at the same time. Apparently I need to learn how to breathe in general. Even when I wasn't doing an exercise, I was regularly reminded that I needed to breathe instead of just sitting there holding my breath. But it makes my voice sound so silly, you guys. I feel like I'm pretending to have a grown up voice every time I use the techniques she showed me. Like when you were a kid and would call the school pretending to be your mom and give them a reason for your absence that day. Not that I ever did that...
At least they said it was pretty common to see performers in there. When we are on stage we have all of these tools and techniques that we've spent years honing but once we we get offstage we're like, "uh quick, act natural!" Like if I'm onstage it's okay to be heard, but when I'm offstage I need to reel it in and maybe I over compensate a bit? I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well. I just wanted to say that I'm doing this thing and I'm embarrassed as hell about it but I'm doing it anyway because I know it is going to be good for me in the long run. And what is a few months of humiliation in exchange for a lifetime of improvement? Okay it's sucky, but whatever, I'm doing it anyway. Sock it to me, Karen! (My speech therapist, not my mom).
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