Flashbacks

 As a teenager I thought of describing Selective Mutism as a curse. It happens to one in a million, as if a witch were to have stopped by your crib as an infant and decided to wave her magic wand and give you the gift of silence. You know what I mean?  It can be both a curse and a gift.  People like me and you are able to relate to one another, use platforms like this to inspire. 

As a toddler I could talk just fine at home. Screaming, crying, yelling, whining. Everything. I could understand and speak two languages since my family was of an asian background. I was born and raised in Australia. Although I spoke way more Laotian as a kid than I do now.

On the first day of preschool I remember crying a lot because I didn't want to go. I held onto my mother's neck clinging for dear life as the teacher pulled me away. Later that night I remember having a dream about the same event, then my mother's neck had shattered into fragments of glass and I had caused it. Scary dream.

For most of preschool I was a loner and never wanted to make friends or talk to anyone. I remember changing to a few different preschools. I ran into my childhood neighbours at one school, they were two sisters who recognised me. I followed them around until they left and I had no one. I remember sneaking away from the others to sit at the couch near front door waiting for my parents to pick me up.

At my last preschool I was fighting over a toy with a boy among the sand pit. I remember telling my parents the boy had hit me then my parents reporting it to the teacher. Nonetheless, for most of pre-school I was always a loner and spent the entire day waiting until my parents would come take me home. At the end of the day while everyone else was watching television or something I would sneak off to the back of the room and chill on the couch beside the door, waiting for my parents. Wanting to go home so bad is still a habit till this day.

Then came the wonderful year of Kindergarten. I didn't talk to anyone on the first day or knew why I was there. I was known as the girl that didn't talk back then and all through out school. I remember peeing my pants quite a few times because I was too scared to ask for permission to go to the toilet. I remember needing to pee so bad I would cry, making it one of the worst case scenarios with busting I have had in my entire childhood.

Before leaving the house my grandmother would always make me drink a cup of water. I remember pouring out half the cup of water to drink less so I wouldn't need to pee so bad in class. Then at one point running out the door to the bathroom next door without permission and actually getting away with it. I think at last I worked up the courage to say the words 'toilet' to the teacher and finally being given permission. Of course, this didn't grant permanent confidence in asking for permission to the loo in following years to come. Unsurprisingly this happens all the time, from what I've heard many people who were shy kids have experienced this.

I remember when the teacher would mark the roll and I would never say "here" whenever the teacher called my name. With each day that came the same thing would happen over and over again that the teacher would get used to it and no longer wait for me to respond. Back then i remember it being so severe i couldn't even nod or shake my head, all i felt was frozen.

Throughout the year I had a friend or two who I could talk to. These friendships never lasted past a school term or two, I remember changing friends quite a few times. I was also always behind with the work and listening in class, and that would continue throughout the rest of school. Sometimes I legitimately think I have some undiagnosed ADD or a learning disability. It used to dampen my self esteem.

Every year that went by in school I always wounded up with a friend or small friend group who i could talk to, and no one else. To a best friend I felt comfortable around I could truly be myself without going mute. Only a few lucky girls had the ability to gain my trust.  To a lot of other kids this was obviously not normal. My best friend back used to brag, "she only talks to me."

A friend in the eighth grade would ask, "Why don't you talk to the teachers or anyone in our class? ... So you only talk us girls?"

"The teacher asked me why you don't talk to her, and I told her she doesn't talk to everyone. And she was like oh."

I had no idea what was wrong with me or why i was like this until i was officially diagnosed at 12 years old. A psychologist  said straight to my face, "Nat, you have Selective Mutism." When i was diagnosed i wasn't surprised at all. I always knew there was something wrong with me, nor did i care. A psychologist once told me  its become a label I walk around with. 

I was referred to so many psychologists back then, none of them did much. One of the specialists even decided she didn't want to see me anymore after hearing I had been misbehaving in early high school. If there's one thing i could go back in time and change it's that i would be willing to follow through with the therapy and treatments in hopes of finding a cure at a young age. 

So in other words it would be much more effective if children were diagnosed and treated at a young age.

At 22 I still get a bit shy (although i don't like to consider myself shy), actually, a lot. I’m not selectivey mute anymore, I tend to assume/self diagnose myself with social anxiety, which I don’t actually know if I have.

I have read on a few articles that acceptance  helps. Accepting anxiety can be way more helpful than ignoring it.  

You are bigger than what is making you anxious.  

I once saw a college counseller that taught me tapping techniques to calm yourself down, and he would ask me to repeat “I accept my anxiety.” I don’t know how true this is but studies show that this technique was proven effective many times. 

I guess if I could give myself advice to myself back then i would say,

It's okay to let your guard down. Make some friends. Talk to teachers. They're there to help you. If I could have cured it at a younger age it would have made my school experience so much easier. 

I came up with a saying ‘People with Social Anxiety are tougher than your average human!’ 

I guess if I could write a letter to my younger self or even have the opportunity to time travel and give some advice, I'd say; please be brave for me, so i don't have as much as suffer as much as a teen to adulthood? Please take part in therapy, and work towards improving your confidence and mental health. Back then i hated when my parents would take me to psychologists and of course i refused to speak to them, even though I physically couldn't. 

I didn't understand why I was there. 
My gp said to me the other day I don’t need mymother to talk for me anymore and it feels rewarding. As an adult now a day I have the power to seek and talk to my own doctors and work towards getting something out of it, improving my mental well-being and the things happening around me at the moment.   That’s what i have planned. 

Back in my early years of high school I acted like a clown.  I did things like I throwing books at science teachers, screaming and making weird noises, refusing to do the science experiment, kicked a boy in the nuts, ‘danced’ on tables, breaking apart the school laptop keyboard, writing curse words on paper and giving it to boys, cutting my hair in class etc.   

I would tell that girl she doesn’t need to act like a freak, attention seeking and getting in trouble (I reckon I did it back then to act out on the stress from bullying and being different, and constantly being behind and struggling with the school work. It’s kind of funny to look back on). And maybe even pay more attention in Math class! Not paying attention in math still affects me today. Can’t work out what’s on sale or calculate fast enough if I ever happened to come across getting ripped off😅

The highlight of my school years were my friends. When asked how I in a way overcame selective mutism my first thought would be my friends.  And perhaps even family and my general life experience, doctors and medication (antidepressants. Which I still take till this day, we’ll talk about them some time later).

At this point I'm just a shy and awkward girl. My goal is to become a confident and assertive woman that fights for what she believes in.

Here's one of my favourite quotes, "If you keep waiting until you're ready you'll be waiting for the rest of you life..."  Go see that therapist, go ask that crush out on a date (even if you get rejected, so what), go speak up for yourself if McDonalds gave you the wrong order, you have a question you need to ask? YOU ASK THAT QUESTION!  Take a breather, count to three then put yourself out there and face that fear, because the key is exposure! and more importantly,  MEDITATE! 

I wanted to make a year by year experience, but I can't remember my primary school years grade by grade. So for now lets think of some embarrassing, funniest and saddest moments from my school years: 

• There was a time around the 2nd-4th grade when i had a poster presentation for the first time. My auntie helped me create a beautiful poster with flowers drawn in led pencil, pictures taped on and information about some guy, i don't remember what it was.

 On the day of the presentation I remember standing on the stage in the hall, with a script prepared and my poster being held or hung somewhere. I stood on the stage for several minutes or more staring into the audience and said nothing  the whole time. 

The boy that had been chosen to give me a student mark and feedback gave me a 0. I felt slightly insecure at the time, but its kind of funny thinking back and to retell.

• Another experience related to stage and presentation was the time i had won an award for something, i was gifted a cute Angelina Ballerina book that i loved very much at the time. 

A teacher asked me through a microphone if i had anything to say and hovered the microphone over to me. I stood on the stage blank face for a few good minutes until they let me walk off. One of the teachers in the audience commented, "I thought she'd never stop!" sarcastically.

• There was a time around the 1st-2nd grade a girl I was sitting next to decided to use my silence for the laughs. She drew on her hand with a pacer (mechanical pencil) then proceeded to draw more scratch lines herself.  Then she got up and told the teacher that I scratched her. I got in trouble, and didn't have the willpower to tell the teacher the girl was lying. 

• I remember being told by a tutor "you know not taking is rude?", and again by a boy at school.  I remember the tutor telling the class a story about a girl who hadn't talked in so long, she was mugged one day, but because she hadn't spoken in so long, she couldn't tel the police or anyone what had happened.    Thinking back, how is that even possible?   

• A teacher even asked a girl once "if you ever find out why she doesn't talk, tell me," and the girl said she will.    Well. I never saw her again soo the girl & teacher probably never found out.

• I used to occasionally talk to this girl, April. We talked about and played Tamagotchi together, I think I gave her one I didn't want at one point. We were never in the same classes, and my group of friends didn't want to hang around her.  She once ran up to me saw me after an assembly and asked me something about the Tamagotchi I had given her.  

When I looked at her I went silent because of all the other kids surrounding us, and my reputation as the mute girl.  Someone walked past and told April, "she doesn't talk."   April dramatically  made a gasping sound with a shocked face, mouth open.  I walked away.   

To April I could talk like a normal person, for some reason.  She was more like an acquaintance. Back then thinking back made me feel slightly regretful, like I wish I could change things like this.

• This one is hilariously embarrassing, kind of still stirs a firey feeling inside me:  In year seven, the art teacher specifically told the class not to draw anything rude on the title page of our VAPD. 

 I had drawn a horrendous sketch of Sailor Moon, an anime character, my childhood hero.  A few days later the teacher had asked to speak to me in private. She asked "who is this girl and why is she sticking up the middle finger?"  

I suppose I would have been stunned, embarrassed, mad and thinking wtf back then.  I wanted to protest she wasn't, it was supposed to be an entirely different symbolic hand gesture the character often made.  

But my terrible drawing skills stating otherwise.   Of course I didn't say anything. The teacher made me cover it up and redesign my title page for homework :/ I remember my talented aunt help me create something wonderful. 

• In year seven I had moved to a private high school where I didn't know anyone, after a few days I was already known as the girl that didn't talk, and a lot of the students and teachers often wondered why.  I remember my classmate grabbing my pencil case and demanding "I'm not giving it back to you until you talk!"   Haha. Classic Haley and year seven memories.

• Another time in the seventh grade I had pulled on the blinds of the curtain in the science lab for some reason. Then it snapped in half and broke off. I got in trouble for being accused of 'cutting' a part of the blinds, and they had told my parents. Because of SM, I couldn't simply just tell the truth like any normal kid could, that I didn't cut it, I just touched it.

• By the end of the eighth grade I was sick of private school workload and strictness, and the bullies. So I asked my parents to move to the local public school to reunite with my primary school friends, even though I did have great friends at my private school. Surprisingly my parents let me move.

The year nine year advisor decided to let me repeat a grade purely because most of my primary school friends were a year younger than I was. Maybe also because of how bad my grades were? and she commented that I was rather young. I was fine with it at the time, but thinking back it made me one of the oldest students in my year and out of all my friends and I always hated being reminded.

Sometimes I did regret moving, and missed my private school friends, kept in touch and went to their birthdays. At the end of the day I drifted apart from them and stopped caring by senior year and up to now.

I remember when I first started my days at the public school I could only talk to one friend, and be silent to everyone else for the entire day. Then as soon as I got in my mum's car at the end of the day I'd feel like a weight was lifted off my shoulder and be like "I didn't talk all day", finally that's over.

• In the 11-12 grade my Drama teacher once told a few students as a joke, "When Nat first came I was told that Nat was selectively mute. I didn't know what she was going to be like, until I had her for a few drama lessons and I was like in the meeting 'Ah, Nat talks all the time!' and everyone looked at me like what?" For me that was mortifying, like my deep darkest secret was let out. My entire face was on fire. To me, my disorder felt like how a closeted gay guy felt about coming out. You just don't tell anyone so easily!

Not to mention the fact that my drama teacher had mentioned this twice. Luckily no one really said anything. A girl was confused and asked what she meant by selectively mute, and I brushed it off with I get anxiety. The girl was like, "Oh. I get anxiety as well sometimes."

I talked about it with my family and came to a solution, that I should tell her not to say these things, how I felt and that I wanted to keep it 'confidential.' I stayed back after one drama lesson waited for everyone to leave then walked towards my drama teacher and told her,  "Hey, could you not tell anyone that I was selectively mute? I would like to keep it confidential.” I said just like my mother had suggested. 

Miss C instantly had a look of guilt and empathy and pity on her face and told me something along the lines of "Oh Nat, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

• Did I mention I cant stand Facetime and phone calls?  Phone calls with family, sure, but with friends and even video call. Yeah. No. I get so uncomfortable and scared of answering, like I hesitate to answer. I naturally and instinctively don't like the idea of talking to a device.  When I'm put on the spot like online zoom classes, there's no other choice. I count to 3, and just do it. I don't feel comfortable during Face time and phone calls. When FaceTiming with friends I feel so anxious about it at first, then warm up after a few several minutes once it's started. I have always found phone calls with anyone other than close family kind of daunting. Talking to a device is not my cup of tea, but if I absolutely have to for example a job interview or an emergency then I will.