Foreign accent syndrome: This woman was left 'terrified' after waking up from a nap with a new accent

While we are learning more about conditions such as chronic fatigue or toxic shock syndrome, there are many other medical disorders which remain mysterious. For example, did you know that there is something called precordial catch syndrome, which might be affecting your health?

As reported by Mirror, in a very baffling case, a woman from Midlands woke up from her nap speaking in a completely different accent.

One of the most surprising part about it is that, it is caused by a lesser known medical syndrome. Here's what happened.

Woman starts speaking in a new accent

The incident came to light due to a TikTok shared by the woman in question, Verity Went, 26, from Midlands. In October last year, after suffering from a migraine, she decided to take a nap.

When she woke up from the nap, she found that she went from speaking in her usual Midlands accent, to speaking with a Geordie accent.

She describes taking the nap and what followed after, saying,

After a couple of hours I woke up and my speech was slurred, which I’m occasionally used to, but after five minutes it came back – and was Geordie.

At that point, she had already been diagnosed with functional neurologic disorder (FND), in 2022. It is the umbrella term for ‘medically unexplained’ symptoms in the body caused due to the nervous system.

Foreign accent syndrome or FAS

Verity continues,

I was terrified. I went to the doctors straight away and since they already knew about my FND, they kind of knew it was something to do with that rather than a stroke.

The doctor was so shocked and when I asked what do to, she said she’d heard about it before but never seen it, and to go to the hospital.

Though she does not have an official diagnosis, the doctor she consulted believes that she is suffering from foreign accent syndrome or FAS.

As per University of Texas website, FAS is a speech disorder that causes a sudden change to speech. The change is so noticeable that a native speaker is perceived to speak with a 'foreign' accent. There is no clear cause why it happens but some likely reasons include stroke, brain injury, multiple sclerosis and conversion disorder etc.

Verity has still not regained her old accent back and is learning to cope, and make the best of the huge curve ball that life has thrown her way.

Read more:

⋙ What is Sleeping Beauty Syndrome? Woman suffers from rare syndrome that makes her sleep for 10 days

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⋙ This woman kept smelling bacon, it turned out to be a symptom of brain tumour

Sources used:

Mirror: ' Midlands woman terrified after waking up from nap with Geordie accent'

University of Texas, Dallas: ' Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS)'