Ashamed of my voice.

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Anybody who has heard me speak can tell that I have a disorder immediately. My tonal inflections are completely abnormal, I have a severe lisp, my talk has been described as a "monotone", and I talk at a higher pitch than most people. I went through a few years of speech therapy when I was a child, and this was the best they could come up with when it came to me.

I am tired of people mocking my speech. My mother used to love to mock my speech when I was growing up, as well as many of the staff at the high school I went to. Every time I speak, I wonder if people think I am stupid because of the odd way I talk. I have had a few people tell me that they had no idea how intelligent I actually was until they read my writing. I express myself so much better when I am typing on a keyboard than when I am speaking.

I'm not sure how to handle this one. My job involves calling people up on the phone all day, and I dread picking up the phone and dialing the numbers every time.

Not to mention, I am also tired of people giving me Forrest Gump references on XBox Live when I schedule an achievement boosting session. That does not happen very often, but it does happen once in a while.

This is my cross to bear. Bloody hell. Why couldn't I be born with a suave and seductive voice that would be good enough to seduce a billionaire into marriage? (J/k on that account, but you get the picture.)

Maybe you should go some where like Mission Australia if you live in Australia. They are very good at working with individuals and developing confidence.

I used to be ashamed of my voice too. Too soft to hear half the time, and nasal with a pronounced lisp (yes, I had speech therapy as a child too). The good news is I grew out of being ashamed. I think it has something to do with living all over the country so I've met more people than usual, many of them with unusual speech patterns.

I used to work in call centers, and I hated it. I would never not hear it about how unemotional and monotone my voice sounded and my quality scoring always suffered. It took a bit, but I finally just had to make myself not care. When I quit the last job I had at the call center, I laughed the whole way home that I didn't have to deal with that anymore.

I used to amaze my friends and coworkers when I'd get online and chat/post stuff and it was nothing like what they heard out of my mouth.

As someone transitioning MTF, I can't get my voice to sound feminine. I watch others going through what I'm going through, ones who don't have AS, and they seem to have no problem changing their voice with practice. I just can't do things with my voice that others can.

The only thing I can suggest is finding a speech therapist or type of program that works. I'm looking for that myself, but it's down my list and I haven't gotten to it yet.

You might have a better phone voice than an in-person voice. I do.

I have a nasal voice which some people characterize as "gay." I think my voice is miles away from any kind of stereotypical "gay" voice, and so what if it was? These people are merely showing their own ignorance and prejudice. It is their loss. But I kind of lose out too as far as social inclusion.

The two speech therapists I saw as an adult in Texas were much better than the school speech therapists I had seen.

I also like the idea of acting coaches and voice coaches, who might be very comfortable with the idea that people just talk differently.

I am of mine too
I try to stay silent as much as possible
My mom tries to speak to me all the time but she's used to me staring at her and not saying anything, or giving one word answers
The only time when I feel slightly better about it is when I'm singing
I feel like someone else instead of me is singing, and then I don't feel so nervous about it anymore, even in front of people

I understand! I have a very high-pitched voice, unless I'm very stressed out or in shutdown, when it gets lower and more monotone. I also grew up with a very bad lisp, and had speech therapy as a kid. It's better now, but I still have it. I often wonder, "How could anyone, ever, take me seriously?" As a kid, if my grandmother would call and I would be put on the telephone, she would tell me, "Stop making that silly voice! Why are you talking in that voice?" as though it was something I was doing to be silly. It gave me a complex for a long time. Now, I mostly shrug, because, what am I supposed to do about it? But, if I'm trying to have a very important, serious conversation, and I suddenly think about or notice my voice, I still at times find myself cringing, because I can sound like a child.

i am very sorry I had speech therapy as well and it isnt fun so Im very sorry I there something i can do please say so

If you've had speech therapy then all that is in your brain somewhere, it might be possible to bring it out. To reprogram your mind to use it naturally and effortlessly.
I've developed a successful program for doing that kind of thing, though I've never done it for something as complicated and ubiquitous as speaking styles.
It "should" be very successful in resolving things like lisps or stuttering which are just one part of speech.

I'd estimate probably only a 30 to 40 % success (in a single effort of 3-5 sessions) of mostly resolving a full spread speech disorder.
This is very low expectation considering with most issues I have a 90%+ first try (one session) success rate.
Meaning I'm not confident of any guarantees.

I'd probably recommend breaking it up into bite size issues and resolving them independently.
I'd be interested to see how well PAR could permanently resolve speech issues.

It's easy and painless, at the worst you'll just think I'm a goofball.
StabilizingAutism/unsolicited-advice

I find voices of those who speak in a higher pitch to be calming.