A mum woke up with a Russian accent after she suffered a stroke – and has told how strangers think that she’s faking it.
Tara Livingston says she went to sleep sounding like herself and woke up sounding like she was from Russia.
The 56-year-old suffered a stroke in November 2023, which left her with aphasia and apraxia of speech – conditions that affect language and the ability to form words.
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She began intensive speech therapy and slowly started relearning how to talk.
But in February 2024, after undergoing a small surgical procedure beside her eye, she woke up with a completely different accent.
“I am so Canadian [but] I’m now treated like a immigrant,” Tara told Whats The Jam.
“It’s hard especially when I forget.
“I live near a famous ski town and I talk to the visitors about Canadian trivia and then they ask where I’m from.
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“I almost cry when I have to answer, it breaks my heart.
“First I had a stroke and I was afflicted with aphasia and apraxia of speech.
Recalling what happened the day she woke up from surgery, Tara said: “I tried to talk to the nurses.
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“It came out in a Russian accent and I was surprised that I couldn’t stop it.
“I was so confused.”
Doctors diagnosed Tara with Foreign Accent Syndrome, an extremely rare neurological condition where damage to the brain alters speech patterns and makes a person sound as though they have a foreign accent.
The mum-of-three from Ontario, Canada, says people often think she’s doing the accent as a joke, which has even led to an altercation with a real Russian.
She said: “The doctors never thought I was faking.
“But, I was at the neighbourhood pub and a woman started speaking Russian to me.
“I laughed and said it’s just the accent and I didn’t learn the language.
“Then I left for a smoke.
“When I came back, my bar friends were vouching for me.
“She yelled at me in Russian and found out later she called me a ‘f***ing pig’.
“That was the worst time.”
Tara will be having speech therapy for the next two years in the hope of getting her Canadian accent back.
She added: “I’m on government disability because of my condition and can’t work.
“I feel like I’ve lost my identity and I want my accent back.
“If I don’t get it back, I’d feel so deflated because I miss my old self.
“I just want to be myself again.
“If I had a choice about an accent I was going to be afflicted with, I’d pick Irish.
