#dysphonia

DYSPHONIA for EDGEWAVE 2026 [hosted by @crazy-hazy-sims]

ᐁ band version ᐁ

Dysphonia (Physical Copies!)

Hi, friends. I know I've been really quiet lately. Things have been... A LOT... and I've been unable to participate in social media much.

I'm dealing with some really heavy medical stuff, most of which is due to the dysfunction of multiple cranial nerves simultaneously. My doctors don't know what's causing it yet. I'm losing my hearing (and getting hearing aids, wheee). I'm also losing my vision, and I don't even know what to do about that yet because it keeps fluctuating, which makes getting an accurate glasses prescription almost impossible. After losing my voice at the end of 2024 and spending most of last year in speech therapy, I'm fighting tooth and nail to hang onto the progress I made, as I still have an active vocal cord disorder. I've been in a massive trigeminal neuralgia + occipital neuralgia + migraine flare since November, and I am so fatigued and in so much pain that I spend most of my time in bed. I'm having episodes of vertigo that sometimes make it impossible to walk or even stand.

I can't do the things I love. I can't read a book or look at a screen for more than 10-15 minutes at a time without triggering severe eye muscle fatigue and headaches. I can't drive. I can't work. I'm losing everything, and I'm so scared.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this. It's just... too much, too fast, and I'm going out of my mind trying to process it while ALL OF THIS *gestures wildly at my dumpster fire of a country* is happening, no less. I'll survive this - I always do - but I feel like I've been fighting for my life on multiple fronts for so long, and I'm exhausted.

its surprisingly difficult to avoid cliche when interacting with the piano in this way, though in retrospect it makes perfect sense. 

this was just a spur of the moment thing when i had the action out to adjust something, so i had no real experience with it and i think what actually happened is i stumbled upon an obvious idiomatic way of playing. which you could argue looks like cliche when viewing it from a certain angle. 

Okay. So here's my understanding of the terminology:

Selective Mutism (Situational Mutism) This one seems to stem mostly from anxiety (maybe a little autism too). I don't experience that degree of anxiety often, but it has happened on rare occasions. Personally, I hate this term. It implies that not speaking is a conscious choice. I think situational is a more accurate word. "There are some situations in which my anxiety causes me to be unable to speak. This can be short term or long term. But it is by no means a deliberate, conscious decision on my part. It's more like my brain gets hyper-stimulated or something and just forgets how to make mouth noises."

Nonverbal This term appears to be specifically autism related mutism. I'm ADHD, not autistic, so I don't use this term for myself. And not being autistic, I can't really offer more information on the term.

Nonspeaking I guess this is an alternative to nonverbal that is less autism-specific. I guess. I don't actually know for sure. I'm not really sold on it, though, because kind of like "selective" mutism it kind of implies that a person can speak, but for whatever reason, chooses not to. Don't talk if you don't wanna talk. But I suppose people who are physically unable to talk might take umbrage with your conscious decision not to talk. I'm cool with it, though.

Dysphonia/Aphonia One means "messed up voice" and the other means "no voice at all". Aphonia is a neat word. Right up there with anhedonia. (Ahh, Greek!) I use the term spasmodic dysphonia because that's the official diagnosis I got from the ENT doctor. Apparently there's a more recent term laryngeal dystonia that seems to be preferred, but it doesn't seem to be taking root. So for now, I still have abductor spasmodic dysphonia that has rendered me aphonic. Whee!

Mute This word exists. I'm not sure if I like it, though. I don't have a good reason why I don't really vibe with it. Maybe it's because muting is something we can do to our television or computer or Zoom meeting, implying that it's reversible and temporary. Or maybe it's because in my ASL studies I've learned a little bit about deaf history and the connotations the word mute has.

There are other situations that can lead to loss of speech, like throat trauma, muscle tension dysphonia, aphasia, and probably a bunch more that I haven't even learned about yet.

Wild rose (composed by Werner)

When it comes to the song "Wild Rose", whether it is Schubert's or Werner's, the Vienna Boys' Choir sings the best. I did some research around the choir.

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The Vienna Boys' Choir (Wiener Sängerknaben) was a boys' choir founded in 1498 by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I as the Court Chapel Boys' Choir. It is based on the Wilten Boys Choir of Innsbruck, whose members were brought to Vienna by Emperor Maximilian I when he founded the New Court Chapel Boys Choir in Vienna.

The number of members is about 100. The orchestra members were divided into four groups of about 25 people each named after the orchestra and composers associated with Vienna: "Mozart", "Schubert", "Haydn" and "Bruckner". goes on a concert tour for 11 weeks a year, and one group performs about 80 performances in various parts of the world. One of the groups always goes on a concert tour, so three groups remain at school and take classes. One of these three groups is supposed to sing at Mass every Sunday in the Royal Chapel. Three groups will sing in turn every week, so one group will sing in the Royal Chapel every three weeks.

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Excerpt from Wiki "Vienna Boys Choir"

It's a group with a long history. Founded in 1498, it was a little earlier than Luther's Reformation (1517). (It is said that even before the birth of Christianity, even under Judaism, boys were hunted out to sing hymns.) , there was something that could not be replaced, whether it was a countertenor or a sopranist. Here, in the case of the Vienna Boys Choir, the voice quality is called boy soprano and boy alto.

"Therefore, a forbidden move was used." It is to castrate the boys before they reach the stage of dysphonia and to keep the quality of their voices in the state before the dysphonia. A person who has undergone this procedure is called a "castrato" in English. verb castrate: to castrate

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By castrating males, it suppresses the secretion of male hormones, artificially hinders the remarkable growth of the vocal cords during the male secondary sexual characteristics period, eliminates the dysphonia (so-called "voice change"), and improves the voice quality of boy soprano. An attempt to keep the range as long as possible. On the other hand, since growth hormone is secreted, the height and ribcage grow as normal, and the growth of the skeleton, including the ribcage, and lung capacity is almost the same as that of adult men, and the tone of voice and the sustaining power of singing voice are not different from those of minors. It is said that it cannot be reproduced by female singers. Their voices were said to be sweet, wild and yet very sensual.

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From Wiki (castrato)

Dysphonia Pride Flag

PT: Dysphonia Pride Flag /end PT

ID: a flag with seven stripes of the same size. Their colors are, from top to bottom, black, blue, cyan, saturated cyan, cyan, blue and black. end ID

Dysphonia, or voice disorder: any language dysfunction reflecting difficulties in producing speech sounds or other phonation disorders. Common types of dysphonia: organic dysphonia, functional dysphonia, puberphonia, puberum dysphonia, spasmodic dysphonia.

The colors I used are the colors of dysphonia awareness. Here are the stripes meanings:

Black stripes: fighting against ableism

Blue stripes: fighting for visibility

Light cyan stripes: community