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.