Aphasia from the Inside
Sep. 3rd, 2023 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeRogan: I've had words back long enough that my aphasia periods might be coming to an end, and I want to write down notes of what it felt like from the inside before the memories fade.
Four Layers of Language
It turns out that I have at least four forms of verbalizing. At bottom, there's passive thoughtstream, the inner narrative that runs constantly through my head regardless of my volition. That was completely unaffected by my aphasia, which I'm glad about. (Other people with aphasia DO lose this as well.) Some headmates could communicate with me by listening to my passive thoughtleak, but it was really challenging for everyone. (Most of us plain can't do it, and even the ones who can... we've spent years trying not to eavesdrop on each other; it requires a lot of attention to forcibly monitor someone's quiet, passive, CONSTANT thoughtstream, and it can get overwhelming. There's a reason we filter that out!)
Then there's active thoughtstream: me purposely thinking about things. That was affected by the aphasia, especially the moment I'd realize I was doing it. Then I'd get tangled up by the words, trying to figure them out, find the correct ones, and it'd all fall through my fingers. Since passive thoughtstream worked fine, and since I was aware it worked fine, losing my active thoughtstream drove me fucking crazy. It felt like the whole machine only worked as long as I didn't think about it or try to do it. The moment I did, the whole structure had to warp around the aphasia.
I could sometimes do writing, but it tended to be stream-of-consciousness, required me be up late at night, and a lot of carefully NOT thinking about what I was doing. (I made Protection while aphasic.) If I was blending with other headmates, sometimes I could escape that way, but it's honestly not clear to me whether that truly worked or not. We vessel-natives have a lot of commonalities, and often we aren't paying a lot of attention to who exactly is saying or doing what. So what might've been blending might've just been Mori knowing what needing to be done and saying it similarly to how I would've.
I recovered my ability to purposely think in words faster and better than speaking.
You'd think conscious thoughtstream would be the same as talking to someone in headspace, but I learned while asphasic that NOPE! Apparently it is different, more refined and concrete than active thoughtstream, and thus, I couldn't do it, anymore than I could vessel-talk. It was the fucking pits. It seemed to be more or less the same level of impairment as verbalizing.
Then there was vessel-talking, which, unsurprisingly, I couldn't much do. My vocabulary was fairly intact, but fancier words required more brainwidth to ponder the correct usage of, so I didn't much use them. I could use nouns and verbs and adjectives, but stripped of tenses, number, and such--I'd basically be restricted to dictionary tenses. Pronouns especially made me miserable. At first, I could only string together one or two word-blocks at a time: "Go store," "Oh no," "Love" instead of "I love you." Over time, I was able to string more word-blocks together: "No want episode now bye." I was unable to use intensifiers, and would repeat as a form of emphasis: "Bad bad bad," "love love." I'd also sometimes treat all verbs as intransitive: "no thank" instead of "no thank you" or "yes want" instead of "yes, I want that."
I use the term "word-block" because my brain would sometimes lump multiple words together as one "block," thus allowing me to sometimes say them as one unit, rather than individual words. (Examples include "oh no" and book titles: I could say Danny Champion of the World as one title-block, but I was incapable of saying "Danny is the champion of the world." And even then, I would sometimes gut the block and say something like Danny Champion World instead.)
I was aware of the inconsistencies of my passive (grammatical) thoughtstream and my active, ungrammatical attempts to verbalize, and I'd easily get frustrated. (It did not help that my passive self-hate thoughtstream could rattle on with, "this is clearly proof that you're just doing it to yourself for [insert bullshit reason here]" but I couldn't actively think back, "No, that's stupid, why would I do this to myself for weeks on end?") I did not (and do not) understand why my passive thoughtstream could rattle on about the intricacies of plural racism, but the moment I tried to do it on purpose, I would break down to, "friend wrong."
Communicating with Other People
At first, I avoided communicating with much of anyone at all, out of embarrassment and just wanting to be on my own. Over time, though, I started reaching out more (in part because after a couple weeks, I was getting lonely). This also coincided with my verbalizing improving, though I'm not sure if it's a case of reaching out improving my communication, my improved communication making reaching out easier, or a mix of both.
My comprehension, thankfully, stayed pretty fine--and I was sensitive to being treated like I was stupid. Most of my headmates continued interacting with me much the way they had before, just simplifying their statements so I could respond more effectively. Mac, who's very attuned to my thoughtleak, would sometimes have brief, challenging-but-sweet interactions with me by using thoughtleak to visualize images, which I could interact with. It was fun, but really hard to do! I'm not a visual person at all. Mori would sometimes act as my interpreter, reading my thoughtleak and then verbalizing it, but I hated her doing it--it very much made me feel like I was a toddler being talked over.
Grace and Bob handled it very well, unsurprisingly. Bob was used to being around someone unable to speak in a usual way, so he just treated me the way he does Grace, paying attention to nonverbal communication. Grace and I would sit in peaceful, companionable silence together. My aphasia was probably least bothersome to me when I was around them.
It was also notable how different my aphasia was to Gigi's speech trouble or Grace's nonverbal stuff. For Gigi, speech is challenging because of an old headspace throat injury. The problem for her is physical effort, and her voice always comes out strained and raspy. Grace, in contrast, has issues with using her voice (possibly due to dysphoria), and she gets quickly socially overwhelmed so tends to keep her communications short and to-the-point, but she was never so telegraphic as me, she could still use correct grammar, and she had more stamina in writing or sign language than speaking. For me, all grammar (and thus all language) were equally difficult, and social anxiety or physical challenge had no part in it. It was GRAMMAR that was broken for me.
However, I did end up learning ASL for "thank you" and using that sign a lot. I was able to manage it more than "thank you" because my brain kept getting turned around by the pronouns and conjugations. Just having one fluid motion did help me avoid that.
Japanese
I also had an easier time with accessing Japanese, a language we studied for six years but were far from fluent in, even at the best of times. (And we are now very out of practice.) In the early, most intensely aphasic days, I had an easier time accessing kanji and kana than English words, to the point of sometimes putting Japanese on my communication cards. "Before" was a word completely beyond me; it fell through my fingers like sand. 前, however, I was able to comprehend. Kanji were always a challenge for me, so it wasn't a matter of ease; I think it's because the symbolic form of it, rather than phonetic, helped reroute around the neurological blocks. "Verb" totally stymied me in the depths of my aphasia, but I was able to use "する" as a workaround replacement. (Note: する just means "to do." It is NOT Japanese for "verb," merely the most common verb in the language.)
As my aphasia started loosening, I was able to use grammatical (or, well, as best my JSL ass could manage) Japanese before I could use grammatical English. I was able to state complete sentences in Japanese, though I definitely reverted to the "speaking to the Emperor" level of formality I learned in high school. Best I can figure, my brain stored Japanese learned in high school differently, in a way less incapacitated. (And we've managed to hang onto our high school Japanese way better than our college Japanese.) It was a surprise to discover this; I didn't even consider trying to speak Japanese until a new friend of ours, who speaks Japanese WAY better than we do, had a Japanese headmate come out who admitted he felt most comfortable speaking Japanese. So we did!
My Japanese statements still remained very simple: "this is very inconvenient!" "yes, that's fine," "my Japanese is poor," but it was still a far cry from my, "no thank" English.
Feel free to ask me what it felt like; I figure maybe this post would be a useful reference for writers or something. (With the usual caveats of I am only one person with one form of mercifully temporary aphasia.)
Four Layers of Language
It turns out that I have at least four forms of verbalizing. At bottom, there's passive thoughtstream, the inner narrative that runs constantly through my head regardless of my volition. That was completely unaffected by my aphasia, which I'm glad about. (Other people with aphasia DO lose this as well.) Some headmates could communicate with me by listening to my passive thoughtleak, but it was really challenging for everyone. (Most of us plain can't do it, and even the ones who can... we've spent years trying not to eavesdrop on each other; it requires a lot of attention to forcibly monitor someone's quiet, passive, CONSTANT thoughtstream, and it can get overwhelming. There's a reason we filter that out!)
Then there's active thoughtstream: me purposely thinking about things. That was affected by the aphasia, especially the moment I'd realize I was doing it. Then I'd get tangled up by the words, trying to figure them out, find the correct ones, and it'd all fall through my fingers. Since passive thoughtstream worked fine, and since I was aware it worked fine, losing my active thoughtstream drove me fucking crazy. It felt like the whole machine only worked as long as I didn't think about it or try to do it. The moment I did, the whole structure had to warp around the aphasia.
I could sometimes do writing, but it tended to be stream-of-consciousness, required me be up late at night, and a lot of carefully NOT thinking about what I was doing. (I made Protection while aphasic.) If I was blending with other headmates, sometimes I could escape that way, but it's honestly not clear to me whether that truly worked or not. We vessel-natives have a lot of commonalities, and often we aren't paying a lot of attention to who exactly is saying or doing what. So what might've been blending might've just been Mori knowing what needing to be done and saying it similarly to how I would've.
I recovered my ability to purposely think in words faster and better than speaking.
You'd think conscious thoughtstream would be the same as talking to someone in headspace, but I learned while asphasic that NOPE! Apparently it is different, more refined and concrete than active thoughtstream, and thus, I couldn't do it, anymore than I could vessel-talk. It was the fucking pits. It seemed to be more or less the same level of impairment as verbalizing.
Then there was vessel-talking, which, unsurprisingly, I couldn't much do. My vocabulary was fairly intact, but fancier words required more brainwidth to ponder the correct usage of, so I didn't much use them. I could use nouns and verbs and adjectives, but stripped of tenses, number, and such--I'd basically be restricted to dictionary tenses. Pronouns especially made me miserable. At first, I could only string together one or two word-blocks at a time: "Go store," "Oh no," "Love" instead of "I love you." Over time, I was able to string more word-blocks together: "No want episode now bye." I was unable to use intensifiers, and would repeat as a form of emphasis: "Bad bad bad," "love love." I'd also sometimes treat all verbs as intransitive: "no thank" instead of "no thank you" or "yes want" instead of "yes, I want that."
I use the term "word-block" because my brain would sometimes lump multiple words together as one "block," thus allowing me to sometimes say them as one unit, rather than individual words. (Examples include "oh no" and book titles: I could say Danny Champion of the World as one title-block, but I was incapable of saying "Danny is the champion of the world." And even then, I would sometimes gut the block and say something like Danny Champion World instead.)
I was aware of the inconsistencies of my passive (grammatical) thoughtstream and my active, ungrammatical attempts to verbalize, and I'd easily get frustrated. (It did not help that my passive self-hate thoughtstream could rattle on with, "this is clearly proof that you're just doing it to yourself for [insert bullshit reason here]" but I couldn't actively think back, "No, that's stupid, why would I do this to myself for weeks on end?") I did not (and do not) understand why my passive thoughtstream could rattle on about the intricacies of plural racism, but the moment I tried to do it on purpose, I would break down to, "friend wrong."
Communicating with Other People
At first, I avoided communicating with much of anyone at all, out of embarrassment and just wanting to be on my own. Over time, though, I started reaching out more (in part because after a couple weeks, I was getting lonely). This also coincided with my verbalizing improving, though I'm not sure if it's a case of reaching out improving my communication, my improved communication making reaching out easier, or a mix of both.
My comprehension, thankfully, stayed pretty fine--and I was sensitive to being treated like I was stupid. Most of my headmates continued interacting with me much the way they had before, just simplifying their statements so I could respond more effectively. Mac, who's very attuned to my thoughtleak, would sometimes have brief, challenging-but-sweet interactions with me by using thoughtleak to visualize images, which I could interact with. It was fun, but really hard to do! I'm not a visual person at all. Mori would sometimes act as my interpreter, reading my thoughtleak and then verbalizing it, but I hated her doing it--it very much made me feel like I was a toddler being talked over.
Grace and Bob handled it very well, unsurprisingly. Bob was used to being around someone unable to speak in a usual way, so he just treated me the way he does Grace, paying attention to nonverbal communication. Grace and I would sit in peaceful, companionable silence together. My aphasia was probably least bothersome to me when I was around them.
It was also notable how different my aphasia was to Gigi's speech trouble or Grace's nonverbal stuff. For Gigi, speech is challenging because of an old headspace throat injury. The problem for her is physical effort, and her voice always comes out strained and raspy. Grace, in contrast, has issues with using her voice (possibly due to dysphoria), and she gets quickly socially overwhelmed so tends to keep her communications short and to-the-point, but she was never so telegraphic as me, she could still use correct grammar, and she had more stamina in writing or sign language than speaking. For me, all grammar (and thus all language) were equally difficult, and social anxiety or physical challenge had no part in it. It was GRAMMAR that was broken for me.
However, I did end up learning ASL for "thank you" and using that sign a lot. I was able to manage it more than "thank you" because my brain kept getting turned around by the pronouns and conjugations. Just having one fluid motion did help me avoid that.
Japanese
I also had an easier time with accessing Japanese, a language we studied for six years but were far from fluent in, even at the best of times. (And we are now very out of practice.) In the early, most intensely aphasic days, I had an easier time accessing kanji and kana than English words, to the point of sometimes putting Japanese on my communication cards. "Before" was a word completely beyond me; it fell through my fingers like sand. 前, however, I was able to comprehend. Kanji were always a challenge for me, so it wasn't a matter of ease; I think it's because the symbolic form of it, rather than phonetic, helped reroute around the neurological blocks. "Verb" totally stymied me in the depths of my aphasia, but I was able to use "する" as a workaround replacement. (Note: する just means "to do." It is NOT Japanese for "verb," merely the most common verb in the language.)
As my aphasia started loosening, I was able to use grammatical (or, well, as best my JSL ass could manage) Japanese before I could use grammatical English. I was able to state complete sentences in Japanese, though I definitely reverted to the "speaking to the Emperor" level of formality I learned in high school. Best I can figure, my brain stored Japanese learned in high school differently, in a way less incapacitated. (And we've managed to hang onto our high school Japanese way better than our college Japanese.) It was a surprise to discover this; I didn't even consider trying to speak Japanese until a new friend of ours, who speaks Japanese WAY better than we do, had a Japanese headmate come out who admitted he felt most comfortable speaking Japanese. So we did!
My Japanese statements still remained very simple: "this is very inconvenient!" "yes, that's fine," "my Japanese is poor," but it was still a far cry from my, "no thank" English.
Feel free to ask me what it felt like; I figure maybe this post would be a useful reference for writers or something. (With the usual caveats of I am only one person with one form of mercifully temporary aphasia.)
