Caitlin Lost the Voice in Her Head

[intro music] Pushkin. [singing] Hey, everyone. It's me, Maya. Today, we're bringing you an episode from Proxy, hosted by Yowei Shaw, who you might already know from NPR's Invisibilia. Proxy is built around a simple idea: whatever you might be going through, no matter how specific or hard to explain, you're not alone. There is someone else out there somewhere who truly gets it. In each episode, Yowei connects her guest with someone they may have never met otherwise, but who understands something essential about their experience. The intimate, searching conversations that follow feel right at home here on A Slight Change of Plans. The episode you're about to hear, Caitlin Lost the Voice in Her Head, is about something I know all too well. What happens when you can't do the thing you love the most anymore, the thing you've built your whole life and identity around? I hope you enjoy it. If you had to vocalize the sound of this conundrum, what would it sound like?

It's that wind. [laughs]

Hmm. The wind outside your window?

Yeah.

Why wind?

It's not silence, but it's, it's not saying anything. [upbeat music]

Hello, Proxy listeners. We are back. I'm Yowei Shaw. On Proxy, we believe no one is ever alone with their problem, no matter how niche, no matter how weird, because statistically, somewhere out there is someone who gets it, and through the powers of reporting, we find them. In case you haven't heard the show, what we do is put these two people in conversation to see what they can learn from each other, and hopefully, so we can have a good, but also awkward, but also beautiful time together. Today's case, the writer who woke up one day with no words in her head. What do you do when the thing that gives your life meaning disappears? That's after the break. [upbeat music] This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

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