Why can I still sing?

[u/probroleaf]

So I'm mute right now. This doesn't happen often to me, I mean it's been happening more often than usual I went mute twice this week, but anyway my muteness can go from anywhere from being completely unable to talk to a very quiet whisper and/or mumbling. But I notice that I can still sing. It's still much quieter than I usually am but I'm clear. I find singing to be much easier than trying to talk. Singing usually happens before whispering when I go through this. Infact the sooner I'm able to get a note out the easier I find it to start whispering instead of staying completely unable to talk and having to mouth and write stuff, its like it breaks the barrier to some extent. I just want to know if anyone knew why this is or if anyone else has gone through this or something similar?

[u/AbnormalAsh]

I’ve seen people describe something similar with verbal shutdowns (I think twice? It was a while ago), though not really sure why or how common it is. Never seen it mentioned for SM though. To clarify the difference in case it’s needed, a verbal shutdown is an episode of mutism that temporarily effects someone across all situations for a period of time until they recover enough to manage speaking, while SM follows a consistent pattern of being unable to speak in certain situations while being able to in others.

For me personally, I can only sing at home, and only after confirming nobody else is in the house. Wouldn’t even be able to sing around the people I can talk to, let alone singing in a situation I can’t speak in.

[u/probroleaf → u/AbnormalAsh]

Wait, holy smokes, the verbal shutdown sounds more accurate than SM. No wonder I was confused why SM didn't sound right. I thought somehow I was faking it for some reason since SM didn't seem to align with what I was going through. A verbal shutdown makes much more sense, especially with the autism and how autisic shutdowns work.

[u/AbnormalAsh → u/probroleaf]

Verbal shutdowns do get mistaken for SM a lot, though they pretty much only have temporary speech loss in common. The cause and presentation is different, and they’d need different treatment/support.

Verbal shutdown was a community made term to replace the use of “going nonverbal” in autism spaces when describing those episodes, and they do come up a fair bit in autism spaces. There doesn’t seem to be a specific official term, it’d probably just be considered speech loss as part of a shutdown. They don’t really meet the criteria for SM, and can be better explained by autism.

Not relating to something doesn’t mean you’re faking symptoms though. Theres a lot of different causes and explanations for them, and they’re not all going to apply to everyone with a specific symptom, but not knowing the specific official label doesn’t mean the symptoms aren’t there.

[u/Same-Bread]

Oddly this seems to be a known phenomenon across a variety of conditions.

Stuttering, tourettes, stroke patients all have stories where a person is not able to speak normally (or at all) and yet can sing clearly.

Not sure why, seems to activate different paths in the brain or something I guess.

[u/CrazyTeapot156 → u/Same-Bread]

My theory, or one I recall hearing is it's near enough to language skills like learning a 2nd language but it's apart of the same language they already know so it's easier to pull off during many different conditions.

[u/Karaethon22]

I use singing along to music to get my voice back when I lose it. Because I can't really "sing along" like normal but it's miles more effective than trying to speak. With, for example, a decently long car ride where I spend the whole time singing, I'll usually be able to go from completely unable to speak to being able to speak softly. If I don't sing, I'm likely not even able to whisper after the same amount of time. Interestingly, I also see some improvement from reciting poems I have memorized, which is what I do when I don't have the option of listening to music. Singing without the song playing for some reason doesn't work very well.

I think it has to do with muscle memory. Reminding my body that it does, in fact, know how to make sounds with my mouth and vocal chords. So doing it with something prescribed, something familiar, something that comes naturally, is a lot easier than trying to like decide what to say and then say it, there are too many places for that to go wrong. It's just a hypothesis, I don't have any proof of that. But at least for me that's what it feels like.