Muted

When I was three years old, a man from church bought me an ice cream cone. My mother told me to say thank you, and I desperately wanted to say thank you. But I didn’t. In kindergarten, the other children would talk to me, but I would never respond. My teacher would ask me a question, and I would write the answer and show her. I only talked to the people I lived with: my mom, grandpa, and brothers. I didn’t even talk to my father and other relatives that I don’t live with. My family thought that I was just really shy. Some of my classmates thought that I didn’t like them. I never responded to people. This was not because I wanted to be rude. Not because I wasn’t thankful for the ice cream cone. It was because I felt physically unable to speak. After years of accepting that I was just shy, my family and I learned the truth. It all started with my kindergarten teacher. She began to research online in an attempt to find out why I never spoke. She came across a disorder called selective mutism, which perfectly described my situation. She shared her findings with my mother, who felt bad for trying to make me speak to other people throughout the years. I felt like an alien with a strange disease.

     Nhs.uk defines selective mutism as “a severe anxiety disorder where a person is unable to speak in certain social situations, such as with classmates at school or to relatives they do not see very often.” Selective mutism reportedly affects less than one percent of children in the United States, and is more common in females than males. The percentage of affected children could be more due to undiagnosed or misdiagnosed cases. Signs of selective mutism include fear of social embarrassment, clinginess, anxiety, extreme shyness, social withdrawal, seeming rude or aggressive, and using non-verbal communication in specific social situations, such as gesturing or nodding to communicate with strangers, although some might avoid any form of communication whatsoever. People who have selective mutism are not choosing to ignore you out of rudeness. They simply cannot speak to you, but they most likely wish they could.

     Possible causes of this disorder are genetic influence, separation anxiety, speech or hearing problems, difficulty processing sensory information, and post traumatic stress. Genetic factors can cause selective mutism if there is a history of social anxiety disorders in the person’s family history, and other causes can add stress, discomfort, or anxiety to the person’s social life. It is important to get treatment for selective mutism so that new problems do not develop. Selective mutism typically begins during childhood, but can continue into adulthood and lead to other anxiety disorders, speech and language difficulties, isolation, depression, agoraphobia, and lack of independence. If a child cannot socialize with others, they will avoid situations where they will be pressured to speak, and they may refrain from doing things without the aid of someone whom they can speak to.

     Treatment is available to prevent this spiral.The effectiveness depends on how long the person has had selective mutism, if they have additional difficulties, and if the people in their life are cooperating with them. The aim of treatment is to reduce the anxiety associated with speaking. This can be done by removing the pressure to speak, then making gradual progress. One form of treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy, which “may include talking about anxiety and understanding how it affects their body and behavior and learning a range of anxiety management techniques or coping strategies.”  Another form of treatment is stimulus fading. This involves the patient starting by just talking to someone they’re comfortable with, then slowly progressing as more people are added. Positive reinforcement is another form of treatment, which is when the people in the patient’s life encourage any and all forms of communication and react positively to their successes. Another option, desensitization, reduces the patient’s sensitivity to being heard by progressing through different forms of communication, such as instant messaging, then voice recordings, then speaking on calls. The type of treatment that will work best depends on the patient’s unique situation.

     Selective mutism affected me for many years as a child, but eventually I mostly overcame it. I began to see a speech therapist in first grade. She referred me to Children’s Village, which provides pediatric services. At Children’s Village, I was officially diagnosed with selective mutism, and provided with medication. The medicine slowly helped me through the process of overcoming selective mutism. A lady that my mom spoke with at Children’s Village compared the medication to drinking coke. She said that the medicine would tell my brain to let me “take my time to drink the coke” meaning that I would slowly make progress. By the time I was eleven, I could finally talk to people. It had been a long eight years of wishing I was normal, but I was finally cured of selective mutism.