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Linda Pereira may hail from Atlanta, Georgia, but you’d never guess she was even an American judging by her peculiar accent.
The 50-year-old mother of three was diagnosed with an extremely rare disorder called Foreign Accent Syndrome, after suffering what she now describes as an “eruption” in her brain last October.
Pereira was messaging a friend on Facebook from her home in San Jose, California, when she began feeling strange.
“It was a rather complex topic, and in trying to reply, I felt extremely tired and could barely keep my eyes open,” she told The Daily Mail. “I decided to lie down, but this didn't help, and I felt a weird pressure in my brain I hadn't felt before.”
“It was a ball, and as I typed, my eyes and brain seemed to fuzz in and out,” she added.
When Pereira’s husband finally returned home nearly three hours later, she suddenly realized that she couldn’t communicate with him.
After taking some medication to calm herself, Pereira eventually mustered up enough strength to try speaking—but she didn’t recognize her voice at all.
“My husband thought I sounded British and said sometimes he couldn't understand me, but I thought it was more Swedish or German,” she explained.
Two days after the shocking incident, a physiologist and a neurologist diagnosed Pereira with Foreign Accent Syndrome, which only affects about 60 people around the world.
Thought to be caused by a sudden brain injury, stroke, or extreme migraine, the disorder can quickly change the way a person speaks.
However, doctors still don’t know exactly what caused Pereira to develop it overnight.
These says, Pereira often sounds Scottish, German, Scandinavian, or even South African—depending on the day.
While the various accents were fun for the whole family at first, Pereira feels like Foreign Accent Syndrome has stolen a piece of her American identity.
“We had a good time with it but I was always thinking it was temporary and going to go away,” she admitted. “Now, this is how I know myself and I know it doesn't sound like me.”
