Selective Mutism has almost always been a part of my life since I was around 6 years old. I used to hardly be able to speak to anyone, only my friends and my parents and my grandparents and my dog. I could barely even speak to any of the teachers, so I couldn’t ask for help or put my hand up in class ever. I even struggled to ask to go to the toilet. My throat just clogged up and I’d have a mini panic attack inside my head and I just couldn’t get a word out. Not one. Imagine that right now: one of your friends’ parents asking you a question and you can’t answer it, and you just stand there blinking at them like a goldfish and you feel terrible about the fact that you’re leaving them hanging, but you just can’t help it. That’s what it feels like, but probably a hundred times worse than you’re thinking. I even went through a phase during lockdown when I could hardly speak to my grandparents. That was horrible – thank goodness that phase ended.
Even though I don’t suffer from SM that badly anymore, it still affects my life at school a lot, and no one notices. Yes, I don’t get the throat-clogged-up feeling anymore, and I can talk to literally everyone if I have to, but I still struggle day after day, week after week. For example, those teachers that pick you to answer a question even if you haven’t got your hand up. I hate those lessons because you never know when any minute you might have to speak in front of the whole class. And when I do get chosen to answer, I have another mini panic attack inside my head and even though I can get words out this time, they’re either the complete wrong ones or my voice comes out all shaky and weird. Take Maths for example. I’d say I’m fairly smart, so if you gave me an exam paper with difficult questions I could probably get over ¾ of the questions right. But if my Maths teacher asks me what 1+1 is and I have to answer in front of the class, I’d probably say it was 5 or something stupid. And every time I manage to answer in class and my words don’t come out all jumbled up and weird, I feel immensely proud of myself. But that isn’t very often! And I can’t name a time when I’ve spoken in class and haven’t turned a deep shade of scarlet afterwards. This is probably what I hate the most about SM, because other kids will think you’re so weird if you ‘randomly’ turn into a tomato with limbs at every possible chance. And my friends don’t understand at ALL, and every time it happens they shriek at the top of their lungs so the whole class can hear, “OMG you’re going SO red! You look like a tomato! You look so funny! OH MY GOSH, it’s not stopping! You’re just a strawberry with eyes and a mouth!” Why do people not have any sympathy?? And all of this happens at least 10 times a day. It’s not funny whatsoever.
Another thing about SM that affects my life at school is being physically unable to let my emotions out ever. If someone asks me if I’m okay and I’m really NOT okay, I’ll say I’m fine anyway. If someone throws at me the biggest insult I’ve ever received and inside I’m mega offended, I’ll just laugh it off and not act upset or anything. If I feel I’m about to cry at school, it never amounts to anything anyway because like I said, I’m physically unable to. Whenever I see someone else crying, part of me feels slightly jealous because at least then everyone knows they’re upset and will give them sympathy.
All of these things I’ve talked about could be fixed by just contacting the school and asking teachers to not pick me to speak, etc etc, but another thing that I hate is ‘special treatment’. I can’t bear it when I have the whole class’s eyes on me and I’m the centre of attention. There have been a couple of times when a teacher has walked in, looked right at me and said, “Oh don’t worry, I won’t make you speak this lesson,” and suddenly everyone’s looking at me with confused expressions and some have asked me, “Wait why don’t you have to speak?” and I just want the ground to open out and swallow me up. That’s why any type of ‘special treatment’ makes me want to vomit.
So basically, even if you have SM and you can still speak to people, it doesn’t mean that your life is completely easy, especially at school. And I hope this account has helped people realise what Selective Mutism is and how difficult it can be living with it.
Happy Mental Health Awareness Week 
