Book Review: Speechless. My Recovery from Stroke

“When I read a new word-that is one I knew before the strokeI knew what it meant intuitively. But although the new word was not lost it was not available to me. Concepts... would fade away like moonshine the moment I tried to pin them down with speech. It was a sensation so fleeting that I hardly knew it was there. The lack of speech ate right into my dealings with the outside world. It made me vulnerable, timid, defensive and shy. I hated being like that. I used to have opinions and laugh. People would say to me “You must feel very frustrated.” No, “frustration” definitely is not the word. I was aware of the fragmentation of my brain-the emotions, the body language and thoughts that were all cut off and out of my reach. To paraphrase Wordsworth, mine was a grief “too deep for tears.”” (p. 53, 111, 144, 150).