A Little Mental Help Please?

[Pedant]

Okay, so this board is probably not the absolute best to be asking for medical advice, but given that there are so many language enthusiasts around here it might be worth a shot.
According to MRI scans I seem to have severe demyelination in a number of places in my brain, which not only makes me more sensitive to sound but now has started eating away at my ability to speak. Except that, when I speak in French or Turkish, the other languages I have some degree of fluency in, the pain is less noticeable. Thankfully I live in Canada so the French bit I’ll probably get to practice, but here’re two questions for the general community:
First, does anyone know any way of picking up a language again really, really quickly?
And second, do you think the process would work with a conlang as well?
(Because I really do want to be able to speak without collapsing, sometimes verbally and sometimes literally, in the middle of a sentence...)

[Vijay]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the first question. What is your history of learning French and Turkish? How did you learn them, when, how much, etc.?

[Pedant]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the first question. What is your history of learning French and Turkish? How did you learn them, when, how much, etc.?

I’ve been learning Turkish since I was two, and French since I was nine. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten most of the vocabulary and some of the more complicated bits of grammar through lack of use.
As to the first question, it’s about speed-methods for re-learning languages; I may not have phrased it very well.

[Salmoneus]

I'm really sorry to hear about your health problems.

Regarding learning languages quickly, it seems a high-speed method has been developed: move to the middle of Turkey (for example), make sure you pick somewhere with few or no capable English speakers around you, and avoid using the internet or reading or watching English-language media. Your Turkish will very rapidly improve, although I'm not sure I'd recommend it for people with neurological problems, as it's also likely to be very stressful.

Other than that, I think it's just a matter of intensive practice. The details differ depending on your learning style - some prefer a grammar and a dictionary, others prefer something like duolingo.

I don't think you can become fluent in a conlang, because nobody else speaks it fluently for you to talk to (if they do, it's become a natlang).

I'm afraid, however, that I'm not sure how much this would necessarily help you anyway. It seems unlikely that the brain would simply "store" Turkish in a different "place" in the brain, that was not yet damaged, since that's not usually how the brain (or degenerative brain damage) works. I am not a doctor, but it would seem the most likely explanation is that it's triggered by psychosomatic factors (for instance, if you've had seizures while speaking English but not yet while speaking Turkish, your greater anxiety in speaking English could itself be triggering further seizures), which could react unpredictably to a major change in behaviour (like becoming a Turkish speaker). The most likely alternative would seem to be that it's not Turkish per se, but something about your relationship to Turkish - perhaps the fact you speak it less fluently, and hence more slowly, and using different thought processes (translation rather than pure generation), in which case becoming fluent - making your relationship with Turkish into what your relationship with English is now - would seem to risk just transferring the problem to the new language.

That said, you may as well try, I suppose. The brain, to be fair, does sometimes work in mysterious ways, so who knows what might work...

[Pabappa]

I cant really offer any help, but I am glad you were able to share this here and get advice. When you say pain, do you mean a headache type of pain, or the pain of physical motions of the jaw? From your description it looks like you mean the former, but I cant be sure.

I wish you the best. If re-learning French is what it takes to make your life easier, then I would pursue it at all costs. But again, I cant really offer any more advice beyond what's been said as to the best way to go about it.

[Vijay]

I don't know whether it helps, but have you by any chance considered using the Internet to interact with native speakers of Turkish you wouldn't have access to otherwise? Personally, I've been finding the Turkish subreddit useful for this purpose. You could try PMing some of the users there if you want, or you could do something like what I usually do there and just try posting a topic in Turkish to try getting people to chat there. Folks in that subreddit are pretty friendly as far as I've been able to tell. (IME some people complain if you don't suggest a specific conversation topic, but I never have and there are plenty of people who talk anyway ).

EDIT: Of course, you could do this for French, too - in fact, r/france is very active, much more so than r/turkish, and great both for picking up slang from users and for finding news articles to read formal French - but practicing French is less of an issue for you if I understood you right.

[linguistcat]

I've read that even just setting aside a few hours a day where you only interact with that language (listening, reading, writing, etc) can greatly increase your abilities in the language.

[Pedant]

Thanks for all of this, guys. linguistcat, well, that may be difficult in my current situation, but I’ll try. Vijay, I think I’ll try those subreddits; they sound like fun, to be honest. Pabappa, thanks for the wishes, and to elaborate: I get a terrible pressure buildup in my head from even everyday sounds, and when I try to speak it’s like a giant squeezing my skull like a beach-ball. Thanks to you too Salmoneus; moving to Turkey might be difficult, but I suppose I could try Ottawa (which is much closer) or Montréal...

[zompist]

The medical condition sounds terrible; I hope you can find some help!

Is reading/writing also difficult?

For languages, there's no magic key except doing as much of them as possible. Whatever you like— books, music, movies— seek out that stuff in the target language. Since you're very language-oriented, I wonder if a French grammar of Turkish, or vice versa, would be helpful!

[Ares Land]

I hope you can get some help as well; that's awfully bad news.

From what little I know, being as active, mentally as you can is key in that sort of medical condition. So in case conlanging would help.