An English woman who woke up with a Welsh accent despite never visiting the country said she wants her old voice back.
Zoe Coles, 36, developed the new accent overnight in June 2023, but thought it would eventually wear off.
However it still hasn't and the mum-of-two is often asked if she's from Cardiff - when she actually lives in Stamford, Lincs,.
Zoe has also said that she's never been able to do a Welsh accent or roll her R's - until now.
Zoe Coles, 36, developed the new accent overnight in June 2023, but thought it would eventually wear off.
However it still hasn't and the mum-of-two is often asked if she's from Cardiff - when she actually lives in Stamford, Lincs,.
Zoe has also said that she's never been able to do a Welsh accent or roll her R's - until now.
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FunTranscript
00:00 Nine months ago today I woke up speaking with a Welsh accent. Nine months ago today
00:06 I lost my identity. I lost part of who I am. And how have I coped? Not very well.
00:14 I'm not gonna lie. It's been the longest, hardest nine months ever. I mean no one
00:20 knows how long I'm gonna have this accent for. It could go, it could stay, it
00:26 could change. Anything could happen. That's foreign accent syndrome for you.
00:31 And yes I'm all over social media and yes I share my journey and I share my
00:38 story and for good reason. I feel like I want people to know that this is real
00:47 life. This has happened to me. I have woke up speaking with a Welsh accent and it's
00:55 bloody difficult. It's so hard because you do get questioned everywhere you go
01:03 or if you bump into someone that's Welsh. "Oh where you from?" Oh it's so
01:11 difficult and it's actually quite stressful. I talk for England and I don't
01:18 mind speaking about it all. I love to tell people I woke up speaking with a
01:25 Welsh accent and you know this has happened to me because I have functional
01:29 neurological disorder and then people are aware. So it does help spread the
01:33 awareness. However I need people to understand how real this is and how I've
01:41 lost my identity. I've lost part of who I am and I'm just trying to figure out
01:48 the new me. And even though it's been nine months I still haven't adapted
01:54 because I still miss my old voice. I still miss who I used to be, what I used
02:00 to do, how I used to go about my life and it's all different. It's all changed and
02:06 I'm still figuring out life and how to do life now I'm so unable to do so much.
02:15 And just like that the Welsh accent is back. It does just come back on its own.
02:23 It does just appear randomly and the same way the English and the slurred
02:29 and stuttered speech just appears naturally. It just comes and goes when it
02:34 pleases. There is no pattern. I've tried to figure out if
02:42 there's a reason it happens or I just I don't know why. I don't know why.
02:52 It's like the English speaking me is slurred and stuttered and it's like a
03:00 flare-up and it's part of my FND and then it's like the Welsh is normal
03:06 to me now and that doesn't make sense. I can't get it to make sense in my
03:12 head. I can't get over that one minute I'm English one minute I'm
03:19 Welsh. It is really hard for me because I was English I woke up Welsh and now I'm
03:27 a bit of both and it just depends on what kind of day I'm having. It's
03:31 actually harder than you can imagine. How do you cope with that? How do you
03:38 cope with your accent being different and keep coming and going and then when
03:44 it's English it's slurred and stuttered. Your voice is who you are. Your
03:52 voice is your identity and mine keeps changing and I have no idea why it keeps
03:59 changing. So I'm always asked how or why I've woken up with a Welsh accent and I
04:07 don't know the answer to give to these people. I was told by a neurologist that
04:13 the word why doesn't matter. The reason why doesn't matter. Why isn't important?
04:20 Well actually I disagree because I've been asked to accept that I've got
04:27 foreign accent syndrome and FND and I'm finding it really difficult to accept
04:33 because I don't know the reason why I've got it. So it's making it harder to
04:39 accept without the reason and it's not like I can ask Joe Bloggs around the
04:46 corner because he's got it or Sally up the road because she's got it. It doesn't
04:51 happen to everyone. It's really rare. Foreign accent syndrome is really rare
04:57 to me but to the neurologist apparently it's not rare. He sees this all the time
05:03 but I'm struggling here. I'm struggling with why this has happened to me. Why me?
05:11 There's got to be a reason and I can't move forward. My mental health is
05:18 suffering because I don't know the reason why and it's easier for you guys
05:24 to say why does it matter because it matters a lot because my whole life has
05:29 been turned upside down. I've cried for the last week because I can't I can't do
05:35 the physical things that I want to do. I can't do the... I just there's so much I
05:40 can't do that it's breaking me down bit by bit and I want to know the reason why
05:46 I've got this so I can try and fix it and then other people can find out why
05:52 they've got it and they can fix themselves because we are all suffering
05:57 and it really isn't fair.