From the memoir
“The limits I had placed on my voice mirrored the limits I had placed on my life.”
This is my account of what changing my voice felt like. I can describe the discomfort clearly, but I am less certain about why I felt it.
Something I’ve wondered about
My voice, my sense of myself.
From my perspective, my relationship with my dad wasn’t an easy one. Looking back, I wonder whether my familiar voice felt like something I could control: a way of feeling separate from my father and the idea of becoming like him.
Perhaps using a deeper voice felt uncomfortable partly because of what it represented to me, as well as how unfamiliar it sounded. I can only hypothesise about that connection. It may help me make sense of my discomfort, but it is not a confirmed explanation for why I had puberphonia.
Why I’ve put this online
The before and after leave a lot out.
Play my two voice samples and the difference is obvious. What you can’t hear in that comparison is how much thought went into using the lower one: who might notice, whether I sounded fake and why something that worked could feel so wrong.
I recorded the diary while I was still asking those questions. I want someone reading this to have words for the difficult parts, alongside clear information about the condition and proper help.
Before
At school camp, another child asked why I spoke ‘so weird’. I had no explanation, so I invented one: I said I had been stabbed in the neck. That never happened. I just wanted an answer that would end the conversation.
The breaking point
Years later, a comment at my brother-in-law’s 30th birthday triggered a spiral. My boss noticed something was wrong. I couldn’t keep pretending my voice was separate from the rest of my life.
Small steps
First I shared the word puberphonia. Then I spoke with a therapist, recorded both voices and tried using the lower one in different settings. I was making progress while still feeling very uncomfortable.
The stranger
The lower voice felt borrowed: louder, heavier and physically present in my chest. I could listen to a recording and hear an ordinary voice. Actually speaking with it was another matter.
Ordinary life
A conversation at the gym. Shouting across a paddock. Laughing in a café. Gradually, I spent less time calculating how to speak and more time just doing it.
Music by Leemus
The struggle, in a song.
I wrote this about the struggle before and during my voice transition. It belongs here alongside the diary and the longer story.
Open the song in Spotify