WELLBEING
FINDING MY VOICE AGAIN
When a voice disorder meant that writer Currie Engel was unable to sing or talk properly, she realised just how much her own ‘music’ was connected to who she was
“I've been a singer my entire life. Music has always been personal, creative and self-generated. For a long time, I was, in a sense, my own source of the ‘music’ in my life. It was how I identified with memories, other people and my family.
But when I was in college, I developed painful nodules on my vocal folds from overuse (singing and socialising took a toll) that turned my voice into a whisper. For three years, I couldn't really sing. Doctors said they could operate, but it was a last resort and might not fix the problem. I didn't want to risk it. So, my music – and a big part of myself – was lost.
Music isn't just instruments and headphones. Our voices are our music, the melody we listen to most often – at the gym duringWhat experts do know for sure: “When we're born, one of the first things that happens to us is identifying our mother's voice,” says Dr Robert Sataloff, chair of the department of otolaryngology at Drexel University College of Medicine. “The notion of associating voice with identity is innate.” It makes sense, then, that our voice plays a big role in forming our individuality as we grow up. And without it, there can be a sense of loss and ‘otherness’.
