There was the experience of using my voice to challenge my own therapy when it resulted in painful shame and confusion, and being sidelined by a clinical director who wouldn't take me seriously until others intervened. I also was candid about being openly concerned about another person within a leadership role of a non-profit organization ministering to emotionally/spiritually vulnerable women, which ultimately led to me voluntarily stepping down from leadership.
During this time period and shortly following it, I was receiving weekly one-hour speech therapy for a functional voice disorder MTD (Muscle Tension Dysphonia) at the University of Minnesota Lions Voice Clinic that had been formally treated and misdiagnosed as GERD, for nearly 8 years. The exact etiology? I may never know. Perhaps I had trauma at birth by having my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. I have no access to my medical birth records in Korea to find out. What I do know is that in my speech therapy, I learned that the way I've always functionally used my voice was in an overly strained manner. Structurally and organically, nothing was wrong with my voice, the cause was only how I used my voice muscles when I spoke or when I constricted them to contain words and/or emotions. The muscles surrounding my voice box had been overly strained by expelling too much energy/force, for too many years towards constricting the muscles when I was and wasn't using my voice, which led to random and sporadic strong prick sensations in my throat/voice area. It rendered me voiceless at times and caused me social anxiety because it would often result in uncontrollable coughs, then gagging and sometimes vomiting. It was awful.
Another likely cause of this repetitive strain injury to my voice muscles was overly using the muscles to get my epiglottis to hold back tears or strong emotions that would evoke certain muscle being relaxed in order to cry. In short: holding back my tears was a likely cause of the MTD. I had to re-learn how to breath and relax and trust my body. I had to learn how to relax my muscles when speaking, breath differently while speaking, and how to speak louder without overly constricting my voice muscles. I also learned how to relax my voice muscles should I ever have another episode of the throat pricks from hell.
It has been over 6 months since I had an episode. Even though I am using my voice to say what I wanna say, I am using a lot less force and a lot less restraint in order to not say what I want to say. Metaphorically and literally speaking (no pun intended), I've re-learned how to use my voice in ways that are healthy to my body, heart and soul.
In 2014, I hope to keep using what I've learned in using my voice so I don't find myself overly restrained by trying so hard to hold words and feelings in, and then forcing them out to get relief when the sum total is more than I can contain and also be healthy. A certain amount of emotional and verbal containment is healthy, but I was over and beyond that limit, for who knows how long. I also want to learn through practice, when to use my voice and when it's time to give my voice a rest, because no matter what I say, how many times I say it, or how loud I say it, I am not being heard and it has nothing to do with my voice. I am more open than ever in discovering other choices I have when this happens and then to make them accordingly.
A pivotal lesson I've learned in 2013 isn't how to just physically make my voice function better for me, but rather to see and acknowledge that my voice is a powerful yet delicate instrument (physically and emotionally) in displaying how I value my own self while in relationship with others, including my own self.
Welcome 2014, I am excited to see what you will bring forth out of me.
