Does Anybody hate the sound of their own voice being played back to them?

This follows on from the thread about looking in your own eyes or those of others.....and that thread also strayed into talk of photos of yourself too.

Personally, I absolutely hate to hear a playback of myself talking.  I sound like a man with a "punchable face" if you know what I mean.

It doesn't ever sound like me.....more like the ass-hat version of me (ie pointless and ridiculous and has no use or purpose.)

I wonder if this is plain old-fashioned self-loathing or whether there is something deeper going on.

I have a recording of myself aged 8 years old......and I sound MUCH nicer then !

Does anyone have firm thoughts on this subject?

  • I hate it too, I used to hate the sound of my voice full stop hearing it both inside my head and played back but now I’m OK with talking but I can’t bring myself to play back any sort of video of my self

  • Yes, I hate the sound of my voice too. As others have said, if I'm unfortunately enough to hear a recording of myself my reaction is a strong sense of shame or as it was put, self loathing that i sound so bad. I've had this from a young age. I can remember countless times it has plagued me. This can be a big problem, I've recently been part of a zoom social meetup, but haven't managed to talk because of how I feel about my voice, trouble is I feel I'm not connecting how I could because of this. Would love to overcome this issue. I even had a session with a voice coach when I was younger, she said I had a lovely timbre to my voice, where as I think it just sounds nasel and flat. 

  • Never been a big fan. When I was a child we used to play with tape recordings though, which was fun after I got over disliking the sound of my voice and how it didn't sound how I expected, but my friends were the same. We used to do silly voices which was much preferable to using our own natural voices. I think realising that everyone I knew had issues with the sound of their own voice helped me mostly get over it.

    Now when I have online language lessons which get recorded, if I want to listen to the recordings which is a useful way to go over the material, I find myself cringing as much at the content of what I say as I do the actual voice. Not all the time, just if I ask a question I ought to have known the answer to or something.

    But I am increasingly finding that I have a strong dislike of sibilant sounds, including my own! I am trying to soften my S's as much as possible without actually lisping... Maybe I should learn Spanish, which doesn't have them.

  • I hate it!

    Really uptight received pronunciation, probably acquired from growing up with TV as a kid. 

  • That accent thing is interesting. I remembering realising one time that when I'm silently reading the voice in my head has some kind of neutral 'RP' accent - a BBC voice'- instead of my broad-ish Belfast accent. I'm not sure what this says, apart from that some colonisation of the mind has clearly done its work.

  • This sounds reassuringly near-universal. We'd probably all like your voice, but it doesn't stop you from experiencing your own valid cringe factor at the disconnect with what you thought you sounded like vs what the rest of the world hears.

  • I find it horrific. The first time it happened, as a child, I remember being devastated. Only we hear our own voice as it sounds to us. It has more resonance because of vibrations through the skull. In more recent years, I've very occasionally had to hear my awful voice back when recording a short instruction video for work etc. And in recent months decided I wasn't going to let my self-disgust stop me from having some occasional therapeutic involvement in a podcast that  someone from a little online community I'm in kindly invited me on to when I was feeling up to it. I've forced myself to listen back to learn how to get better and, apart from sounding as bad as ever, I've realised that I stammer way more than I thought. As well as using the discourse marker 'you know' with such frequency that I'm surprised nobody's ever strangled me to death. 

    Anyway, that bit of making myself do that has helped me somewhat make peace with it. Its the only voice i'm ever going to have, unless I wake up with a different larynx one day due to an overnight miracle. So, it is what it is. 

  • I agree with everyone here - hearing my recorded voice is a pretty horrendous experience, it makes me cringe so much that I can't bear it and have to turn the recording off immediately. And my accent sounds so ridiculously strong too Sweat smile

  • I hate it, when it’s played back, I don’t recognise it as me. 

  • OK - that's four for four - all haters !

    I wonder if it is nothing to do with our autism, but something more universally "human" about the sound of your own voice, shared by NT and ND in equal(ish) proportionality.

  • Absolutely hate it!

    Had to do a training video for staff, and as they pressed play I left the room, returned when it had finished.

  • I hate it. It makes me really self-conscious about my rural accent and squeaky voice.

  • I hate it!

    The most memorable occasion was at work many years ago. I had to do a speech at a conference and a recording of my rehearsal was played back to me as part of the preparation.

    I didn't think that my local accent was so obvious until I heard that recording. It's not something I'm aware of when I speak but on that recording it was so noticeable and I hated it.