A British woman who developed an Italian accent — despite never visiting the country — has told how she feels she has ‘lost [her] identity’.
Althia Bryden, 58, fears her new distinctive accent is stuck after suffering a stroke in May that left her unable to feel the upper right side of her body.
After rushing to hospital, doctors diagnosed the retired customer service advisor with aphasia, when someone has difficulty with their language or speech and she later underwent surgery in August to remove the blockage to her brain.
But when she woke from this, she discovered she had a new accent, which medics suggested was the extraordinarily rare condition foreign accent syndrome (FAS).
The mother-of-two, from Highbury in north London, says she now slips Italian words and mannerisms including ‘mamma mia’ and ‘si’ into conversation without even realising.
It means she is just one of a handful of people to have ever experienced the speech disorder, which usually occurs as a complication from a stroke or head injury.
Recalling her ordeal, she said: ‘Even my laugh is not the same. I’m not me, it’s like someone is impersonating me.
‘I feel like a clown with an upside-down smile that people are watching perform.
‘They are laughing, but I still have an upside-down smile. It’s very sad — everything is different, even my body language is different.
‘People aren’t meeting the original me, I don’t know who I am.’
On May 4, Mrs Bryden’s husband Winston, 63, found her unresponsive in bed and her face visibly drooping on the right side.
After immediately calling for an ambulance she was rushed to hospital where she discovered she had also lost the ability to speak.
Doctors pinpointed the cause of her stroke as a carotid web — a rare shelf-like structure in the neck that can interrupt blood flow to the brain.
