Hello everyone again, I hope all of you are doing well! I want to post a rant about my second problem in my life: speech impediment. Before I go further, I have a hearing disability from which my speech pattern stemmed. In my childhood, I've spent six years in speech therapy, learning how to talk. It was the most intense experience I've ever had in my entire life. However over the past few years, I've noticed that my speech has deteriorated but never paid much attention to it anyways. Please note that I am not seeking advice. I just want to vent my frustrations that are unrelated to alopecia.

For my entire life, I've faced bullying, low self-esteem, mocking by others, rude comments, depression, and everything you name it, I've experienced this and that. It's so frustrating - I mean I am EXTREMELY beyond frustrated. This summer I was fortunate to receive two sessions from a speech-language pathologist for free and she said that I need to work on some certain letters. Before she left me to work on my speech on my own, she said to me, "I'm not too concerned about your speech. Your speech is understandable but you will need to work some few letters" But I AM!! I mean, c'mon. After I went through that bullshit in my life, I am definitely worried about my speech. Now that I am in university and out there in the "real world", it seems that I want to slap every single one of people that I've encountered who was rude toward me after talking to me. By that, I mean if they ask me questions and they don't understand me, they would go like, "HUH?" They would also make a rude face, like "WHAT?!?....Oh...okay." (walking away confused, still not understanding me) That makes me so angry. Incredibly angry that I want to punch their face.

I don't know what to say now. While coming to terms with my alopecia, I am also faced with this challenge of dealing with people who are rude to me. I'm fortunate, however, that I've met people at my school who are incredibly kind to me and PATIENT with me. Patience is so important to me as it shows that people are caring and that they show compassion for me. They understand what I go through as opposed to those bitches I have to encounter every single day. I am so thankful for these people. They were so kind and their kindness has deeply touched me because most of the people I meet are not so kind toward me ONLY about my speech impediment.

Someone even asked me if I am mentally retarded because of my speech! I was appalled and fought the urge to slap her face so hard! For your fucking information, I am not! Gosh, I wish people could be less judgmental and be more patient and compassionate to those who have to suffer this problem every day. Just recently, after the speech therapy ended, I went to ask someone to help me produce the certain letters and he ended up mocking my speech and laughing at me! I asked him, "Why are you doing that?" to which he replied, "at least you don't have to go out and talk like that." I was beyond shocked and of course, was hurt!

Some of you have seen my previous post about seeking mental help. I was so close to making an appointment to see a psychologist at my school, but after realizing the deterioration in my speech and that more and more people have difficulty understanding me, I don't want to waste my time facing the psychologist and being repeatedly asked, "HUH? Say that again! Um..oh okay...... (still confused)" I went to two different psychologists and that's what they did to me. So I am on my own to deal with myself.

I'm so frustrated. This is why I voluntarily withdrew myself from activities and the MAJOR reason why I am a huge introvert. So many people comment on how quiet I am. Well...if you don't want me to be quiet, then fucking quit being rude to me! In addition to that, I am a student nurse. I have no idea how I am going to manage the job of communicating with my patients every day. I just don't know. I have always wanted to be a nurse. I really do. But I just don't know. I'm thinking of investing in speech therapy (which is incredibly expensive) but if that's not an option for me, then I don't know how I'm going to deal with my life and my potential career (nursing). I know I could go into research that doesn't involve talking with people much but still I would like someday to be able to talk to a person (i mean ANYONE) without my face turning red and people turning around to look at me to see what's going on.

But...I've noticed a significant change within my character. As you may have seen my previous post about how alopecia changes you, I've changed as a person. I've actually become a mean person because after facing these horrible encounters from people regarding my speech, I ensure that if anyone is a bitch to me, I will be one to them. I was never like that. I was never a rude person at all. I used to take the blunt of the hurtful words and move on, oblivious to how hurt I was deep inside me. Now that I am acknowledging how impactful the words and actions are to me, I don't want to suck it up and move on. It's just that I am being protective of myself. I don't want to deal with it anymore because I am just tired and fed up and sick of it. I don't know how to explain. I have become more wary of people around me. I mean we all have to be kind to people because we don't know what they are going through, but after my own experiences of dealing with my speech problem, I realized that being kind is not necessarily enough. These people never knew what I am going through and still were rude to me anyways. There's no point. And no, I am not a bitchy person. It's just that IF a person becomes rude to me because of my speech, I will turn into a nasty person to THEM.

Thank you for listening.