I googled "living with selective mutism (SM) " and got nothing but tips for parents and possible "cures".
SM affects more than children. I was just looking for more info on adult SM and ways to cope.
When I'm in SM, everything is different, inside my head and my interpretations of the outside world. I was searching for others who experience this...I found none.
When I'm in mute mode, it's like the verbal part of my brain becomes isolated and shut off. Thoughts don't form and twirl around, those incessant thoughts and trains of my autism. Everything slows wayway down. I become apathetic, as I am propelled two steps more removed from "reality".
SM feels both powerful and completely helpless at the same time. Powerful, in that, it feels like I have a heavy insulated blanket completely wrapped around me. I am insulated, impervious to the outside. No one can hurt me from deep inside. Helpless because I cannot control it and verbally defend myself.
I read that someone wrote "autistics are not born with the ability to use language....but high-functioning autistics Learn how to speak." This has been my theory all along, that speaking is a second language, my first one being silence.
In SM, ....sigh....it's somewhat comforting because it feels like home, my natural, native state of being. I Love Home. But in this verbal world where words are wielded like weapons, tools and jokes, I cannot stay in my comfortable home. No, everyday I must pick up sword and shield and fight my way through.
I've been speaking. I saw my therapist today and we talked...well, she talked, I wrote and some things made sense. I still feel more SM than naught. I continue to feel numb and slow in the head. Nothing seems worthy of saying, but I'm pushing through and forcing words out with moderate to severe effort. It's exhausting. Once again, I'm reminded that all that is pleasant and comfortable, I must shun and leave in for "others" and to not be ostracized. I'm reminded that I am but a simple, sad, alien visiting a most strange and foreign place.
It is sad and depressing...that all that I was born with....is looked upon as a curse, an illness, a menal condition to be fixed, cured and taught to shun, to give up in order to function and fit in. In a way, when I awake to others or walk out the door into society, I have to forgo my truest self and innate abilities and gifts.
The autistic mute is unacceptable outside these four walls....or around others.
I feel like such an outcast.
I have to deny myself every single day. And I'm not happy about it. Methinks it is a reality suck.
There is soooo much wrong with this picture....but I believe it to be true. No wonder sadness follows me so close. And, it shall always be this way. I cannot see that anything will change. I shall always have to force myself to talk. I shall always shun....the greatest, most important and holy part of who I am...for the sake of these around me.
No, Virginia, life is Not fair.
Amen
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