Going mute - How anxiety stole my voice

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    Last night it all started like every other panic attack I have had since developing anxiety problems about two years ago; feelings of dread, knowing something was horribly wrong but not why, followed by crushing sadness, hyperventilation, and tears.  This time however, when my fiancée asked me what was wrong I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

    The harder I tried the worse the anxiety got.  I had lost the ability to form words, the coordination between moving my tongue, pushing air out of my lungs, and shaping my mouth became a foreign concept.  My mouth moved in strange ways, trying to force itself to remember what to do, and the more it tried the worse the panic attack got.  I couldn't communicate to my fiancée who was extremely worried and asking me what was wrong that I was unable to speak no matter how hard I tried.  So buried my head in her shoulder and I lay there for almost fifteen minutes dealing with the deluge of emotions until I thought to grab my phone and see if I could type it.

    The look of concern she gave me upon reading the few words set off another wave of panic as I felt immeasurably guilty for what was happening and how I was ruining our night together.  With more effort than I felt like I had done anything else I forced through the growing panic "what is wrong with me?" only it came out broken and disjointed, the words barely audible and with such strained pronunciation I was unsure if she even understood me. This sentence would turn out to be the longest I was able to speak all night.

    Every time I tried to say something I would flounder for minutes, fighting both my voice which refused to do what I wanted, and the increasing levels of anxiety and fear which grew the more I tried, possibly getting out a strained word or two before being overcome by the anxiety and tears. This wound up being the pattern for our night for the next three hours as I struggled with what was going on and why.

    What was happening was affecting my ability to speak but not my ability to think, I was trapped inside my own head unable to communicate but at least I could try and figure it out on my own. With thoughts racing through my head, analyzing what was going on, why was I unable to speak, how it could be happening, and what was I going to do about it fighting for dominance over the thoughts that something was horribly wrong with me, that speaking is easy and shouldn't be such a problem, and the thoughts of guilt for ruining what was a wonderful night spent with the woman I love I realized that I wasn't able to talk because I was too conscious of it. Much like when you become aware of your own breathing and have to breath manually, I had become too much aware of my own speaking and was trying to speak manually for the first time in my life and it was terrifying. Only being able to respond with jerky nods or shakes of my head to yes or no questions, I was finally able to ask "how? why?" while handing the phone to my fiancée. She found this page and showed it to me which helped tremendously in showing me that it wasn't something to be afraid of and that I would be okay.

    Even feeling better knowing this was something other people had experienced and deal with, and that I would be fine I still couldn't talk. But it turns out I could laugh. Real laughter being an involuntary event apparently was unaffected by my anxiety muteness and I found this out when our seven month old puppy was absolutely determined to get onto the bed with a bone that was as big as she is.

Watching her pace across the hallway before turning around, bounding forward, and leaping into the air in an attempt to get on the bed like an Olympic athlete competing in the long jump had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. The more attempts she made the more I laughed, and when she finally succeeded only to have my fiancée place the bone on the ground because she wasn't allowed to have it in bed, and the hurt look she gave us before jumping down after the bone and repeating her escapades turned the laughs into unstoppable giggles. After almost three hours of panic, tears, and struggling to make any sort of noise our sweet little puppy was unknowingly helping me to feel right again.

    Even with the laughter I still could not get myself to speak. I felt enormously better but it just would not come. Exhausted and upset, we finally went to sleep with the hope that I would feel better in the morning. Not being able to say "I love you" before closing my eyes was one of the hardest things I have ever done. She had consoled me, held me, and told me everything would be alright but I just couldn't form the words. But she knew anyway and as we turned out the lights she said "I love you too" and squeezed my hand.

    Waking up this morning I was terrified that I still would be unable to speak, extremely reluctant to try for fear of failing; but when I went to ask the dogs if they needed to go outside, it flowed no differently than any other day of my life making the events of last night seem oddly strange.