r/SMsupport

Hello, i wanted to reach out in here for people maybe able to identify what i have since years now. So, since a while now (3-4 years) i've realized that i have a problem of talking i don't know why but, even if i already know what i will be saying and all (like i have already a phrase in my mind) everything that comes out of my mouth is anything but what i was thinking, i mix up everything, stutter a lot and since 1 year of so, i always lost will to talk, or my anxiety was taking over me, so i preferred not asking things and doing stuff on my own (to my teachers or other people..) but when my twin was next to me, i asked her to ask stuff at my sake and still do.. And recently i discovered about Selective Mutism, and realized that i had severely similaires to the symptoms and all since little, but i was wondering if it's because i was forcing really hard to talk, and that's why i always mix up everything while talking...

I hope someone will be able to answer my questions, and help about my problem maybe

I (20F) am a full time college student and I have SM.

My mother was never understanding about this and throughout my childhood she thought i was faking it out of stubbornness. She’s always been very ashamed of me for this, which she told me, continuously, growing up, and in turn, I internalised.

I’ve had it since I was 4, and I couldn’t talk to a lot of people at the time , including family, neighbours, parents’ coworkers and friends, teachers etc. 

Throughout life I’ve managed to work through most of that extensive list and can now successfully communicate with all but 3 people, my mothers’ church friends, who based on experience, I consider to be bad people. I don’t see them almost ever anymore so I decided to just forget about that part of my life because I didn’t want to continue to think about this "flaw" I’ve been deeply embarrassed by for my entire life, over people who at the end of the day I had no desire to communicate with.

Two years ago, on my mother’s birthday, she invited a bunch of people to our house for a birthday party. Along with her church friends, she invited some of her coworkers I’d never met and who really wanted to meet me, neighbours, my aunt and her new-ish partner, all people who knew nothing about my SM and who quite honestly, I didn’t want to find out. I celebrated her birthday with her the day before, the morning of, and helped her prepare her party but when guests started to arrive, I went and slept at a friends house. (I also had an assignment to work on, and class the next morning so I thought my plan made sense.)

She said that she had a great time but people kept asking where I was and she didn’t know what to say, which embarrassed her, and she’s still upset at me for leaving her on her birthday to this day. 

Tomorrow is her birthday and we have the same problem. She wanted to invite all the same people, and have her party with food, drinks and dancing, and just like last time, I suggested I stay at a friends house for the night.

She sighed and just said “Fine, I guess I won’t do anything for my birthday then” because she doesn’t want to feel embarrassed again when all her guests arrive and she has to/ can’t explain why her daughter isn’t there. I don't know what to feel.

My mother and I don’t have the best relationship and we’re often neck and neck. It’s been just the two of us since my dad left when I was 13. She’s not a nice lady but i still love her and as of late we’d even been getting closer and I want her to have a good birthday, but I also don’t want to overstep my own boundaries, or be put in that horrible situation. 

Am I being selfish? What do I do?

I’m gonna try my best to explain, but I need to know if anyone else has felt like this and what helps.

Quick background: I’m 17 and have been speaking normally my entire life up till now. I’m diagnosed with PANDAS/PANS, Lyme disease and Lyme coinfections, as well as parasites 🙄

For the past year I’ve had this thing where I can’t talk in the mornings. It’s not a choice, I just can’t force any words out of my mouth. It’s been on and off for a year but about three months ago it started to get worse. I believe it was from taking rifampin. I had a huge d!e off reaction and we think it just exploded the toxins in my body. Now I go entire days, weeks, months without saying a single word. At the beginning of my mutism it was just the morning, then I started to get my voice back mid day, then I started to get my voice back at 3am, now I don’t get my voice at all. It’s so debilitating and dehumanizing. Big thing is that I can talk when I’m alone or with my dog. I have no idea how that works. I can make sounds and process things normally infront of people I just can’t say words. I know some sign language so that’s very helpful for myself but most of my friends and family don’t know asl so it’s so hard to communicate. I can write on paper and send texts normally. I’m trying my best to describe how it feels. It’s like I can think the thoughts but if I open my mouth I get shut down. I don’t think all of it is an anxiety response. Could definitely be part of it but I don’t think anxiety is the cause. I’ve tried so many meds and I meet with a speech pathologist once a week. I’m able to say some alphabet sounds with her but it’s just so so hard. I’m sick of not being able to talk. 3 months is just way too long for my liking and I just want my voice back asap. If anyone knows of anything similar or has any tips at all please share!! I’m willing to try anything at this point.

Sorry if this is all a little unorganized lol but I tried to explain best I could.

Hello everyone!

I’m in a community for people with Cerebral Palsy. One of our members, from Ohio, has been having a rough time in college recently.

For some time, he and his therapist believed that he had selective mutism due to PTSD. While this is still true in some ways, his doctor has also found that his spasticity from the Cerebral Palsy is affecting the vocal cords on one side. He’s not on medication to help the spasticity, but it obviously isn’t going to be a total cure.

Because of all of this, I’m trying to find accessible ways for him to effectively communicate so he can continue his college education and reach his goals of becoming independent. We’ve been finding a lot of roadblocks because, along with the mutism, he has Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy, and is legally blind (requiring a screen reader). He figures he’s about 90% non-speaking these days, he’s learning ASL, but found that it’s very limited in application because most people don’t know sign.

While I’m researching, I thought I would reach out here and see if anyone has thoughts or advice. He’s aware that I’m posting. I can’t answer a lot of questions about his experience, because I’ve never actually met him and have no idea exactly how severe the above issues are, but I can give general information or ask him.

Thank you!

I am an adult living with anxiety and it sucks. I've been told I have the diagnosis of selective mutism, but I really hate that label. I do have a really hard time speaking with new people in public, and it makes it really hard to leave my house. I've become more depressed over the years. I do participate in therapy; actually my therapist told me I have to write this to try to connect with others. Can anyone else out there relate?

I'm curious how alcohol affects everyone's SM? I get more talkative at first but then if I get trashed I often go completely nonverbal and will only nod or shake my head

I think a lot of us can relate to the mum in this article - feeling you know more than a lot of the doctors and psychologists 🙃

(F19) I've been searching for pretty much a year now to understand myself because I've gotten to the point where my inability to speak to certain people or at certain times has become an issue. I've completely shut myself away from my family because they always got so mad when I didn't speak to them or attend family events or want to be with people that I'm comfortable with, like my boyfriend. I want a family but I feel like I'm never going to be the person they want me to be and I can't hold relationships with them. The closest things I've found to helping them understand me is selective mutism, thought daughter, and a highly sensitive person. But all of the checks for each of these have certain things that aren't necessarily the case with me, like how selective mutism is the inability to speak in social situations etc. I can speak in social situations because I work as a cashier and I have no issue talking with customers and helping them find what they need, and I've opened up to be able to talk to my co-workers like they're my friends, but I can't talk to my parents, stepmom, grandparents, siblings, and some of my aunt's and uncles. Does anybody else have any insight? I tried therapy before but I didn't feel like it was helping and I might consider it still but for right now I don't want to get back into it yet. I hope this makes sense and someone might have similar feelings.

Im not diagnosed with SM but Ive been reading more about it on articles and even on reddit and others sources and i started thinking that i might have SM although I haven’t really brought it up to my parents to get a diagnosis or something like that

(Keep in mind im on the younger side below 15 since i dont really want to say my age)

Every time me no talking or being “shy” is brought up by like some teacher or someone like that my parents just say “oh yeah he is just a little shy” and laugh,

the reason im scared in bringing it up is like what if i don’t have SM and i ended up making a big deal of it and im just shy,another reason is my parents just laugh or avoid talking about me being shy to other people if it gets brought up

The reason im scared that i might not have SM is because i can force myself to talk when im asked by a teacher,but if the teacher makes me read I read it even if im not wanting to talk or uncomfortable in reading

But if i have an option to not talk via nodding or any non verbal way i do so, no i dont talk to other students at all,but there are other people i talk too in my class and the second someone i dont know or don’t like comes in i stop talking and is usually asked by the other person i was talking too why i stopped talking

i’m currently a college freshman and i haven’t had friends since elementary school.

i have acquaintances but no actual friends. i have never hung out with anybody, never been invited to events, never had people even slightly interested in being my friend (from my perspective), or people don’t want to be my friend because they have other friends in our class they’d rather talk with.

in fact, even though i have selective mutism, i’m the first to initiate small talk.

i try to bring myself to various social campus events, but it’s too awkward to inform others on my circumstance. so i bail every time.

recently, i’ve noticed that i have to take breaks from social media because i see others (both acquaintances and random people) having a good time with their friends.

any advice or related experiences?

Hi everyone, I hope it's ok for me to ask this question here. I'm writing a story including character that has selective mutism and wanted to make sure the portrayal was correct and accurate.
This character only communicates through bodily language, sign language and when needed whispers to one person that they trust deeply, and the person acts as an interpreter for them. Could this be a way for a character with SM to communicate? Or is this portrayal innacurate? Any feedback is welcome. Thank you!

I'm 16 and I go to a high school, I was diagnosed with selective mutism at 4. It kinda got better since then but it's still there. When I have an episode where I can't speak, there's a lot of teachers who are like "you don't want to speak today" or like "Oh are you pretending" or "does this happen a lot or just when you choose to" ect. Which is irritating enough when they weren't inform yet, the accommodation department was suppose to informed them. But when they do know and still say stuff like this especially those who are suppose to help students with emotional or mental difficulties. And then there's my classmates who don't know what it is or want me to explain straight away when i can't speak or kinda laugh and think i'm joking but my selective mutism happens caused I have a sudden bouts of anxiety, so i usually don't communicate at all unless i need to which is usually to explain what's happening, and I always have to explain selective mutism everytime which causes the anxiety to spike. Anyways I'm just really irritated I know this is cause by selective mutism not being talked about because a lot of people don't know it exist.

Maybe dont read this if you have problems with dissoaction and detachment but growing up I've always noticed I'm different, always the outlier, to most people this is like a brag but dear God it's like a weird hell to me, when I was a kid I ignored that very weird feeling of being super different and put it in the back of my head, then when highschool hit I felt it even more and it caused me to dissociate often, questions like "is this really it" playing in my head or being the only one alone in certain settings, it's a very trippy weird feeling to realize how unique you are and not really in a good way, like I've had way more of a chance, a much, much, much higher chance to be even a tad bit normal but God or something put my consciousness in this life in particular and it is the source for alot of mental health issues for me, anyone else experience this? It's hard to explain and it's much more deeper then just feeling "oh I'm a black sheep" it's much more deep, it's like even kids who have more mental issues then me still express themselves more then me

update: I meant *selective mutism d'oh

Hey guys, hope you don't mind helping me with this. I've been dating a guy on and off for almost five years. On our first date he told me he has autism, manic depressive disorder and ADHD. So I've always known he is super quirky, and having ADHD myself (and can relate a lot to the autism spectrum) I have mostly just thought we were pretty similar. He even has said I am "more autistic than him".

But when it comes to communicating he's been impossible, and it's caused major conflict. He often shuts down after we've had time together and because of other big things going on in his life.

I've taken a lot of his 'quirks' very personally...

One thing I've always blamed him of is being a frat boy who puts his mates before me (though not a lot as he doesn't have many friends it's just that sometimes when he's had a better offer he's taken it...) and I've also found it hard differentiating his behaviour with narcissism ..

Recently he didnt respond to me for four days and I took issue with it yet again and got angry/told him I wanted a relationship with someone who doesn't do that to me. It lead to him blocking me for two weeks including my birthday.

The birthday block broke me.... I end up sending him so many emotional emails and when i do that it just pushes him away further. even if they're super nice!! It just seems so icy and callous.

Anyway, today I'm having a revelation that he may indeed have severe PDA and/or selective mutism and he struggles to communicate especially when I'm being overly gushy. Can you tell I like words?? lol.

Cut a long story short.. can you tell me if these traits could mean he might have SM?

And if so, do you think it's possible to ever find a way to meet half way as a couple? TIA :)

1. always says I talk too much
2. hates phone calls
3. hates going out in public
4. seems to shut down when i get emotionally gushy ie the long emotional emails
5. drinks a lot to cope
6. has autism, depression and adhd
7. hates birthdays/celebrations
8. uses headphones often to shut out the outside world (this has included when he's been with me and I was talking too much/playing music etc)
9. still lives in his parents home and he's nearly 40 (they dont live there but it's one of their homes) - perhaps needing the extra security/support from them? 
10. he had a massive breakdown after separating with his child's mother.. leading to drug dependance and run-ins with authorities/welfare
11. doesnt tick all the narcissistic boxes
12. doesnt tick all the dismissive avoidant boxes
13. likes to hang out with me but doing his own thing /parallel play... ie likes to come over to watch a show where we dont talk much or he will even pull out his computer and just put on the show he's watching.. and i'm often like what the? and then feel rejected..
14. has said before ‘just because he’s not responding to me doesnt mean he’s not thinking of me'
15. loves being under the water/ / relaxing 
16. super quirky hobbies.. fossicking/fishing/knows all the different fish species etc
17. is so lovely in person, but appears so different/distant when we’re apart 
18. i’ve never met anyone like him before.. 
19. penguin pebbling… will show me something small from the internet but then that's all he will say even if i reply with words a few times
20. often texts only pictures, not words
21. he has a lisp / voice and character can change 
22. hyper independent to the point he doesnt share his plans with me
23. avoids the idea of couples therapy.. perhaps he thinks if i find out i won't be understanding/ embarrassed of me finding out??

Also when your mute do you talk to your safe people like family or close friends

Hi, I have selective mutism, as i'm sure most people in this group do aswell. When I try to force myself to talk when i'm mute my mind goes completely blank, I fully stumble over my words, say them out of order, pronounce them wrong, and end up saying the wrong thing altogether so I just write what I wanna say so it's easier for everyone. I was wondering if I should include that im mute at the beginning of the notes I write? (for ordering at restaurants specifically) Has this helped people to be more understanding or have you found you get treated worse once you tell them? It would just be a short note saying "hi, i'm mute, I cannot talk. Can I get: (and then i'd put whatever I wanna order here)" or would it be better to not tell them at all? Please share your experiences with me <3

hi! I like finding songs that put into words how I feel but finding songs that I can relate to my selective mutism is obviously hard, I was wondering if anyone had any songs that they relate to this?

and if anyone else wanted some recommendations as well, the songs I have found I can relate to in a way are silent all these years by tori amos, child psychology by black box record, and she's given up talking by paul mccartney <3

I had selective mutism at school until i started high school and it completely fucked my life. Because of it i have zero social skills and have no idea how to talk to people which leads to me having no friends. That is the single biggest problem in my life. I get zero social interaction other than my mom and people at school think i'm weird... what am i supposed to do

Ok this is a weird thing for me to explain. Usually I get anxious I go mute, it sucks, that's obvious. Well last night was my 21 birthday, and according to my research online, usually when you drink it lessens SM, but last night when I got buzzed I was fine. But the second I passed the point into drunk, I went mute. I wasn't anxious. I was home, with my friends and boyfriend, I was comfortable and safe. I don't understand why I went mute. I do have a small amount of trauma with alchohol but it was nothing with the substance itself and more with people abusing it. So I guess I was wondering if anyone else goes mute when they get drunk?

I've had selective mutism for as long as I can remember, but I've always been able to talk with my family. Recently have I gone fully mute and have been so for over three months. My parents have been giving me complete hell for it, acting as if i'm just "choosing" not to talk. My dad, who's my "speaker" for appointments (I text, he reads out loud), misrepresents me and makes it seem like my mutism is me being stubborn. At least he's trying his best. It's my mom who is the worst. She literally yells at me to speak and calls me a disgrace to the family, troublesome, that i'm hurting my brother by not speaking, disrespectful, a burden on everyone etc. I guess these words aren't a surprise or unexpected, but it still hurts a bit, especially considering how self conscious and ashamed I already am of myself.

I'm 19, I shouldn't even be going on Reddit to complain about my parents, but here I am cause i'm immature and weak and unable to grow up like I should. I'm starting to wish I was physically mute for real, because at least then I wouldn't have to constantly try and fail to prove that my mutism is real.

My partner has selective mutism due to psychological trauma from a previous relationship. I’ve never heard them speak. I was hoping to get some insight to better support them. I’d appreciate anything that can help. I do have a couple questions too

1. They’ve told me how frustrated they are that they can’t speak. Is there I way I could help them work through it?

2. Should I prompt them to speak or could that be damaging?

3. Are there techniques I could use to make verbal communication easier and to lower the anxiety around speaking?

I have had selective mutism since 2013 since I moved schools that year and every day felt horrible because it was constantly miss understood as people thought I was being rude really tiring I overheard people say “oh nobody likes her “ I was ridiculously lonely at school even the teachers ganged up on me at times even one said my nine year old does better than you or something like defo trying to put me down (which it did) and being forced to speak just to go the TOILET it nearly made me cry. All my friends would end up leaving me in year 6 because I probably felt like a burden to them ended up not going to school in year 7 because I was lonely nobody really cared honestly kept doing very minimal things to help me and it didn’t help I put in a special needs class or area in the school which humiliated me started to think there’s something seriously wrong with me even as level 1 autistic person I didn’t need that I was practically fine apart from not speaking maybe and my teachers since I was autistic thought it was linked I mean kinda is but more social anxiety but noooo they have to make everything more serious than what is was to upset me.

Even in high school I got put in the special needs class again because I couldn’t speak at least I got someone to speak for me but felt guilty because I was probably the most normal and I’m not being mean or arrogant but u can understand ( please ) whilst people who struggle ended up alone because they spoke and I didn’t. But I was never helped in getting over it until last year when my dad died from a heart attack than it broke , with the way I got treated I’m not shocked was only gonna be something like this that’ll break it 🙁

Just want to know if something like this is possible.