A British woman who had a stroke and woke up with a Chinese accent has laid bare the 15 years of torment she has faced – including being racially abused and told to ‘go back to your own country’.
Sarah Colwill was just 35 when her thick Devon drawl sensationally disappeared overnight in 2010.
Her case is one of only around 100 known cases of foreign accent syndrome (FAS) worldwide.
MailOnline can reveal that Ms Colwill, now 50, still sounds Chinese today – despite having never even stepped foot in Asia.
Ms Colwill, from Plymouth, has opened up about the years of bullying she has faced since the life-changing medical episode and how even her own family has turned on her, calling her a ‘freak’ and an ’embarrassment’.
She revealed how Christian groups claimed she was ‘possessed by the devil’ and needed an ‘exorcism’, leaving her feeling ‘suicidal’.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Ms Colwill said: ‘I can’t describe how it feels when your society, your country turns against you and doesn’t recognise you as a resident anymore – and tells you to go back to where you came from.
‘I haven’t got anywhere to go. If you don’t want me, where am I meant to go?’
In a message to her doubters, she added: ‘If you don’t believe me and you think this is all a fake, that’s fine. Get on with your life. Don’t feel the need to send me messages about how ugly I am or what a faker I am.
Sarah Colwill (pictured) has revealed the devastating toll her accent change has had on her life
Ms Colwill and her husband, Patrick, had to sell their home and move back in with her mother for care. They are pictured with their dog Oskar
‘Just get on with your life and believe it’s not real. That’s fine.’
Doctors have never been able to pinpoint what caused her stroke, but it left her with a range of neurological impairments that left her unable to walk and speak the same. She said she felt like a ‘cabbage for the first three years’.
The stroke forced Ms Colwill to give up her job as an IT coordinator and move back into her mother’s house with her husband, Patrick, to be cared for by the both of them.
The couple, who have been married 25 years, sold their house and moved into an extension on the back of her mother’s home, but they say they are living in a ‘glorified shed’ because she does not have enough money to finish the project.
Ms Colwill, who does not believe she sounds Asian, said she has been accused of being ‘an insult to the whole of the Asian community’ and that she ‘must be a racist by blatantly going out and mimicking an accent that doesn’t belong to me’.
She also recalled two occasions where she was told to ‘go back to your own country’.
Once when she was struggling to get off a bus because she was using a rollator to assist her walking after her stroke.
‘I said, ‘Can you lower it? I need to be able to get off.’ And he said, ‘Oh got another foreigner – why don’t you go back to your own country’.’
Ms Colwill first revealed her accent on a BBC documentary (pictured) called The Woman who woke up Chinese
Ms Colwill (pictured) said that she has been accused of being ‘an insult to the whole of the Asian community’
On another, when she driving her car, a passenger questioned her ability on the roads and told her to ‘go back to your own country’.
But in complete contrast, Ms Colwill said that she has Asian friends – including one at her local Chinese restaurant who have stood by her.
‘I used to go to a regular Chinese restaurant and I was quite friendly with the owner, so she knew me before it happened.
‘When we were speaking to each other, she had no problem. She didn’t feel like I was taking the mick or anything like that.
‘She just accepted how I spoke, because to her I didn’t sound Chinese. I didn’t sound like I was taking the p*ss, so it was all the people’s interpretation.’
‘But anytime we were in town in a supermarket, having a conversation, people would stand around and stare, like ‘are you two speaking to each other in Chinese?’ No, it’s English!’
Ms Colwill said there was also a ‘particularly cruel’ time in her life when she was targeted by Christian groups online.
She explained: ‘It was an American church that bombarded me with messages almost on a daily basis. My sister took over my social media then so I didn’t have to deal because I would just be crying all the time.
Ms Colwill has endured 15 years of abuse from trolls. She is pictured with husband Patrick and their dog Oskar
Others have suggested that it sounds Australian, Spanish or Polish, but Ms Colwill still hopes that her Plymothian accent will one day return
‘They were saying things like I’ve been possessed by demons, that I deserve this to happen to me because I married a divorced man. They said I definitely need an exorcism, that I was speaking in tongues and the devil is within you.
‘It was just an awful, awful time.’
Ms Colwill, who said her accent is aggravated when she gets migraines, told how even her own family started to turn against her.
‘It wasn’t that they didn’t believe me. It was like I wasn’t trying hard enough to speak properly, and they just made really nasty comments about the way I walked, the way I talked, and they couldn’t come to accept it.
‘I lost contact with quite a few family members that seem to think that somehow this was my fault, that I was doing it for attention and I was an embarrassment to them.’
She said that on the whole people have found it ‘absurd and unbelievable’ and that it must be a ‘joke’.
‘I’m not choosing to speak this way and your perception of my speech and where I’m from, that’s on you. I can’t change it,’ she said.
Opening up about the moment she first heard her Far East accent, she recalled: ‘I think the when people kept saying to me ‘you sound Chinese’ I didn’t hear that. I just felt like I was slurring.
‘I didn’t associate it with any particular accent. It wasn’t until I saw a neurologist in Newcastle, and he made me read this speech out which amplifies any speech impediments that you have, and it wasn’t until I heard the recording back of that that I was shocked at how I sounded.
‘But it always varies. The common one, obviously, was Chinese at the time, but now it’s just, where are you from? Because people can’t really recognise the accent. They just know it’s not local.’
Others have suggested that it sounds Australian, Spanish or Polish, but Ms Colwill still hopes that her Plymothian accent will one day return.
Describing the last 15 years of her life, she said: ‘It has been a very hard road and there’s limited support because it’s such a rare thing.
‘I still don’t know what happened or if it will happen again. It’s been hard to keep pushing to speak better, walk better, be able to be more independent.
‘I’ve reached my goal in terms of communication and mobility, but now I need to start working on my mental health, how I feel about myself, regaining my confidence somehow.
‘It’s been a hard journey and a long journey to get here, but it’s taught me many things about what’s important if the people around you.
‘If it wasn’t for my husband and my sister, I don’t think I would be here today if it wasn’t for their support.’
