A Midlands woman went for a nap and woke up with a Geordie accent, she has revealed on live TV.
Verity Went, who is a barber in Staffordshire, told viewers of ITV’s This Morning show that her new voice, from an area of the UK she has never even visited before, has transformed her life.
Verity, who is 26, said that the new accent had given her a new found confidence and she loved the change.
She told presenters Dermot O’Leary and Josie Gibson that she had gone to bed to sleep off a migraine and woke up with an entirely different accent. She said it was absolutely terrifying at the time. Now she can’t even do a Midlands accent. She said it was if there was some kind of block in her brain.
Josie asked Verity: “Do you prefer this version of yourself?” to which she replied: “Yeah, definitely – I don’t want it to change.”
Verity went to the doctors as soon as it happened. The accent change is thought to be related to a common condition called functional neurologic disorder (FND). Verity had been struggling with migraines and seizures as a result of FND for a while. FND meant Verity had to give up work, couldn’t drive or even have a bath alone in case she had a seizure and drowned.
Professor of Neurology, Mark Edwards, joined Verity on the couch to explain the condition to viewers. He said it was a problem with the way the brain functioned, not a degenerative disease, and he said that it accent could possibly change back.
FND is the name given for ‘medically unexplained’ symptoms in the body which appear to be caused by problems in the nervous system, but which are not caused by a physical neurological disease or disorder.
Verity said: “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,”
Verity told NeedToKnow.co.uk. “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.”
Verity shared her experience on TikTok, where her post went viral with 200,000 views.
Verity plans to use her freak voice incident and her experience to raise awareness of FND and interview others with unusual health conditions.
