Judith Filc
 
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Muteness

10/4/2020

2 Comments

 
​I’ve told about the beginning of my convalescence and how I used my (entirely) free time to regain my ability to read, write, and translate – in short, my ability to think. I would sit in front of the computer screen and type on my keyboard, constantly looking up words in online dictionaries or consulting correct uses of the English language. I would sit on the deck, with my notebook on the table and pen in hand, jotting down ideas. I would write and rewrite and rewrite. I’ve told how, after much practice, I felt I was comfortable with a language that had become foreign to me after my injury.
But as comfortable as I am writing in English, I can’t finish a sentence I’ve started: I stop; I hesitate; I have to make great effort to come up with the right word. It takes me so long to utter a full sentence, that I’m afraid it’s the prelude to a seizure. I can’t even come up with the first word. I sound exactly as characters of movies that paint the common image of a ”mentally disabled” person. And perfectionist and self-demanding that I am when dealing with thoughts, trying to relate an event or voice the simplest request feels like a challenge – how can it be so hard for me, when I swim through the most intricate reasoning? If thinking is so easy, how come speaking is so arduous? And the more tired I am, the harder it is for me to say what I’m trying to say or fill the gap between words.
This particular type of disability is a (healthy) injury to a warped sense of self that I’d been carrying for many years until my hemangiomas started bleeding: that I’m very smart. And along with my sense of self came another erroneous conception (which still somewhat persists): that intelligence is a first-rate quality. It might be a heavy burden to carry and cause me no end of grief, but I think that this disability is a positive flip side to my injury – and, for this reason, one to remember when the endless journey I embarked on since my hemorrhage gets me down.
2 Comments
BRANDY BURRE
10/12/2020 09:05:26 am

How wonderful to see you Saturday! hard to speak with masks on and with all of the distractions, but our brief chat was the highlight of my evening. Love to you!

Reply
Judith Filc
10/12/2020 01:05:08 pm

Thanks, Brandy, I enjoyed it as well. Back at you!

Reply



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