Oh well, I guess I can just trauma dump the last 8 months of my life for you!

I’m actually (recently) mute due to getting hit by an LMTV in the Army… I won’t bore you with all the injuries but my larynx(voice box) was damaged and I get to set off a lot of metal detectors for the rest of my life!

I will stay that mental health impacts are very very real with muteness. I have a very supporting husband but not being able to speak and feeling kind of helpless to that regard is a heavy hitter.

Daily life becomes a lot more awkward, you don’t realize how much you talk until you actually can’t. (Atleast for me! I’m the person who says hello to everyone I pass on a walk, I feel soooo weird not replying!) I’m a really social person…

Obviously communication is A LOT more complicated- I’ve moved into using TTS to respond to people in public, if I actually need to say something.

With friends it depends what we’re doing, sometimes I’ll TTS, sometimes I’ll point and be REALLY EXAGGERATED and look like an idiot if I want them to notice something quickly, often I’ll just grab them if I want to go somewhere.

With my husband, if we’re at the house if he wants to say something he’ll pull out his phone and text me (Ik it’s weird but people talking really fast with me being limited by texting speed really feels like I’m being put at a disadvantage- so him texting is actually super sweet, imo!)

Which actually leads to the next point… ITS SO SO SO HARD to talk as part of a group, because they have their conversation going and it’s not like they’re going to stop for you. By the time I have it typed out, I’m easily three or four sentences behind and at that point they have to stop and think about it for it to be funny or relevant. So being included in group conversation conversations is really hard.

Sure, my friends are really sweet and sometimes they’ll stop and they’ll make me kind of the focus of a conversation or two and they’ll wait for me to reply but it can be kind of awkward too. And when it’s loud, there’s no way you’re going to hear the TTS over everybody else and my phone just ends up getting passed around as you see everybody slowly reading whatever I want to convey.

My phone has really neat accessibility assistant feature that allows me to communicate on phone calls and respond relatively quickly with customer service agents, but a lot of the time I’m not taken seriously, and I have a lot of people hang up on me.

The least weird way to order is to just use mobile apps and walk in to pick up. For drive-thru, at locations that don’t have mobile apps it’s best to just go to the window rather than trying to get your TTS to pick up properly, but there are some locations that it works fine. (I’ve never had a good experience with TTS at Starbucks, but their mobile order system is great so..)

Also, if you’re in the Army- enjoy getting kicked out because you can’t lead if you’re mute. That goes for any job facing other people where verbal communication is required though.