Actor Kimberly Williams-Paisley, known for her role in the 1991 comedy film, Father of the Bride, opened up about losing her voice in 2022 and being unable to speak louder than a whisper for two years due to vocal cord paralysis.
The 53-year-old 10th Kingdom star told People magazine that suffering from the scary ordeal led her to turn down acting jobs and even withdraw from supportive friends and family, including her husband, country artist Brad Paisley, and their teenage sons Huck and Jasper.
"I felt trapped in my own body," she said.
Williams-Paisley first noticed something wasn't right when she and her sister, actor Ashley Williams, were hosting Dance Party to End ALZ, an annual fundraising event for Alzheimer's. The event honors their late mother, who died of dementia in 2016.
When Williams-Paisley was about to greet the guests, she couldn't speak.
"I put the mic to my mouth, and nothing came out," she recalled. "It was terrifying."
She had experienced vocal weakness before but not on this unsettling level.
At first, she thought she strained her voice and that "hot tea and vocal rest" would be suitable remedies.
However, after days and weeks went by, she could barely speak above a whisper, and it took her to a sad place.
"I went to self-blame -- 'I'm not breathing properly, I'm not relying on my vocal training,'" she said. "I was beating myself up."
She continued:
"Days when I didn't want to do anything. Days when I was extra tired. Cycling anxiety thoughts in the middle of the night."
"I wouldn't say I had clinical depression, but I was sad."
In early 2023, Williams-Paisley sought medical help at the prestigious Vanderbilt Voice Center in Nashville and learned from doctors that her neck muscles were tight enough to obscure her vocal cords.
She was diagnosed with muscle tension dysphonia.
Dr. Gaelyn Garrett, executive medical director of the Voice Center, recalled:
"When we first saw her, it was hard to tell what was happening to the vocal cords themselves."
Despite her efforts going to physical therapy to get her body to "unlock" and trying various methods to get her voice back, she wasn't making significant progress.
It made her avoid public appearances, job opportunities, and social gatherings.
"I love dinner parties and being around people, but I didn't want to go out," she said. "I couldn't be a part of the conversation."
"There were days when I grieved and sobbed. I wondered, 'Who am I without my voice?'"
"I started coming up with other ways to express myself."
Redditors who've experienced similar setbacks commiserated with the actor.
Convinced she may have permanently lost her ability to communicate verbally, Paisley-Williams turned to writing. During the two years she experienced a lack of verbal ability, she wrote two screenplays.
Finally, by the beginning of this year, she began noticing improvement as a result of continuing the dedicated effort of loosening her neck muscles and re-aligning her body.
In January, doctors at Vanderbilt were finally able to see her vocal cords but noticed her left cord was weak and wasn't meeting the right during vibration to produce sound.
She said learning the diagnosis, which may have been caused by a virus, allowed her body to "relax in a whole new way."
"The shame and blame dissipated," she said. "It was largely a technical issue, not something I did wrong."
By August, she underwent a three-hour surgical procedure called medialization laryngoplasty to correct the issue with the vocal cords so they could meet.
The surgery was a success and she got her voice back but not quite yet at full ability.
"I still can't yell down the road," she said, adding, "At the end of a long day of talking, I'll sound a little more raspy than I used to, but I think that's sexy."
"And I've learned that when you talk quieter, people lean in, which is not bad either."
Williams-Paisely is back in front of cameras hosting the third season of the Fox reality show Farmer Wants a Wife.
After finally overcoming her inability to speak, she said she feels "empowered" and shared the following three takeaways.