when i was in school everyone wanted to do choir as a sort of blow off class , so it could get very loud and nobody would listen to the instructor , which freaked me out both for autism reasons and for trauma reasons . but i also really liked choir , and since music teachers tended to make me feel safe , i wouldnt feel the need to force myself to speak , so i would end up losing speech pretty often in those classes

but interestingly , when i experience speech loss i can still sing . i think it has to do with the fact that i dont have to really script when i already know the lyrics to something , and it doubles as a stim which helps me calm down . i used to really enjoy the feeling of the songs we did for choir in my throat , so using them as a stim was pretty great . but also , i think its akin to forcing myself to speak when ive lost speech , because it does always end up really hurting my throat afterward

it was always a weird experience in choir growing up when i would randomly go from ' i want to talk to my friends ' mode to ' i just want to sing the damn song i dont want to look at you or acknowledge your existance ' mode super fast . since i didnt know i was autistic at the time or what speech loss was , i would just assume i was getting upset for no reason lol

and that would always carry over to my next classes too , and i would force myself to speak because participation or whatever

nowadays i dont really have to force myself to talk nearly as much , but i do end up singing until i lose all energy to speak lol -- its sort of the opposite problem as what i used to have . i hyperfixate on a song or an artist or a playlist or something like that and i just sing it over and over until my throat starts to catch and my jaw feels heavy . and even then its really hard to force myself to stop , because i stim with music , and stimming is the natural way i regulate myself when ive lost speech !!! its an endless cycle