Imagine a bad cold. The worst symptoms last for three weeks. Pain in the throat, a blocked and runny nose, a cough, and whatever the medicine does to you. Difficulty getting to sleep, the need for a lot of sleep—inability to stay out or keep early-morning routines—less capable of physical exertion, harder to focus, etc.
Those three weeks are followed by another four of a lingering cough. It’s really annoying for a while, but eventually just becomes a constant tingling in the throat and an occasional need to be let out, like an ugly hiccup, that makes your voice strain to put out the words.
Only, after the four weeks of the lingering cough, your voice isn’t suddenly free again. The cycle starts over, with three weeks of cold, and four weeks of cough. Imagine what this does to a person over time. How they begin to speak less, knowing the strain it’ll be. How they become detached and isolated. Imagine this cycle going on for two years.
Can you imagine what that does to a person in his early 20s?