Sunday, March 1, 2009

Talking on the phone

One of the strangest residuals from my stroke is having difficulty talking on the phone. The issue is the trouble connecting the voice with the person; unless I talk with them frequently. Maybe it is because I lack the visual cue of seeing the other party.

There was a commercial a while back about a lady that felt like her head was a balloon drifting away from her body with headache or cold. That is a good visual for how the voices sound - disconnected from an identifiable person and floating around without context.

It is so frustrating not be able to make routine business calls. I know what I want, and how to say it, but when I get on the phone and reach the endless options of push one if you have your account number, push 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc., I get so frustrated I am near tears. If I am successful in getting a real person, I am already so flustered, I have trouble articulating what I want to say. Plus, the voice on the other end is floating and doesn't seem real to me.

I have always been the one to make the phones calls and deal with the household business. But now I ask Jim to make calls and then tell him what I want him to say - because I usually have the background information. I know this makes him crazy as he knows it takes longer for me to give him the background information then to just make the call myself. But somehow, once I get on the phone, the floating voices makes my brain shut down.

Intellectually, this is all very stupid. I can sit here calmly and think about what goes on in my head during a phone call. It would be nice if I could transfer that and not sound like a babbling idiot on the phone.

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