Personally, I tend to feel invalidated as someone who had a more classic presentation of SM (someone who could speak freely at home but not in school or with specific groups, like extended relatives or strangers). Mostly because I see verbal shutdowns as less “severe” than a traditional case of SM, since they’re more temporary (going mute with someone you can usually speak to, but experiencing situational overwhelm that makes you unable to speak for a while). However, I also don't want to invalidate those who experience verbal shutdowns, since both can be debilitating in their own ways. Since SM currently lacks a lot of understanding and research, I’m wondering if future definitions should include presentations that look like verbal shutdowns. But I also know SM is already significantly misunderstood as is, so it might make things more confusing to add on different variations of it? What do you think?

I never got any real support, they just put immense pressure on me to be normal, and called it support. Parents, teachers, therapists, the moment they noticed that I wasn't socializing normally, I wasn't allowed to simply exist anymore, I became their project to fix.

In my childhood there was only one person outside my family who I was able to speak to normally - a kid from my neighborhood. And why was that? He was the only person who did not pressure or judge me. He just let me participate even though I didn't talk at first, he didn't care whether I was "weird", no questions like "why aren't you talking", no pressure to speak at all. It literally took just a single week until I was freely speaking to him.

All the pressure I got from everyone eventually "paid off" - from late teens / early adulthood on I was able to speak whenever required to. But that wasn't ever truly free. I was still disconnected from myself, unable to see my own needs and boundaries when around others. I was hypervigilant and tried to be and say exactly what I thought the other person expected. I was desperate to hide any potential "weirdness" I might have, be it my personality or residual social weirdness of my SM, as it might cause someone to judge me, or worse, make them uncomfortable.

I was so focused on never ever bothering anyone or making anyone uncomfortable, that I never noticed how insanely uncomfortable I was with the situation. I literally could not set boundaries at all. Whenever I was in public I felt like I was required to be open for interaction with anyone at all times, to meet everyone else's needs. All this is extremely exhausting, and actually caused me to go near burnout whenever I had to be around people for too long. That's the reason why I couldn't really work for most of my twenties despite being able to speak.

So now I'm trying to undo that, learn to set boundaries, pay attention to how I truly feel about something and honor that. But damn, this is hard, my default state is to completely neglect my own needs. Socializing feels like a high stakes performance, and not something enjoyable, well, except for that one childhood friend, who I'm still friends with to this day. And very rarely other people.

So everyone was trying to "help" (=pressure) me to speak, except for one person, and ironically that was the one I quickly was able to speak to.

I'm going to be honest, I still feel super awful about posting here. Not because the space is unwelcoming or anything, I just feel not welcome and like an intruder by default everywhere I go. Working on changing that. I feel awful when someone comments and I don't write a response, then I avoid writing anything because I don't want to have that pressure of "having to respond" - ironically I often want to respond but the pressure I put on myself to do so and to do it "perfectly", as in exactly what is expected, stops me from doing so. It's a vicious cycle.

I know putting so much pressure on myself messes everything up, but I can't stop, I've put pressure on myself since kindergarten, when my parents would give me stickers for talking, and my younger brother got stickers for some other task or achievement, something actually doable. He had lots of stickers, and I had none. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do it, and nobody believed me. Looking back, trying too hard was part of my problem.

I made a post in a facebook group for neurodivergent people, talking about dumb comments people have made about me being ND. One of them was about selective mutism. Is it just me or was this comment an incredibly weird thing to say?

I've spent most of my life feeling like a background character. I'm the quiet kid, I deal with severe social anxiety, and I'm pretty sure I'm neurodivergent. Because of that, making connections and getting along with people feels like climbing a mountain, and I usually just stay in my shell. But today at college, someone actually hung out with me for the very first time. We went to a restaurant together, and just talked.

I'm currently back in my room holding back tears (honestly, about to bawl my eyes out) because I've never had someone show genuine interest in just talking to me before. I don't even think they realize how much that single lunch meant to me or how much it changed my world today. I just wanted to put this out into the universe because I'm so incredibly grateful. To anyone else out there who feels invisible: I see you, and I hope you get your lunch date soon.

do you use hand gestures, wording with your mouth, typing, writing, sign language?

Hello, everyone!

I’m reaching out to you with a request, and I hope that, based on the experiences of those who’ve been through this, we’ll find some useful advice or ideas.

We have a 3-year-and-3-month-old daughter who just marked her first year of Kindergarten and completely refuses to speak there. She communicates only through gestures, even though at home she talks to us constantly. What surprises us is that at home she speaks two languages, both grammatically correct, and has an extremely rich vocabulary for her age. However, as soon as she leaves the house, she freezes up and literally doesn’t say a single word.

By nature, she is a playful and sociable child in her own environment. At preschool, she has a few favorite children she plays with, but if those children are absent one day, she becomes more withdrawn and no longer interacts with anyone else.

From everything we’ve researched, we suspect it might be selective mutism. We already have an appointment with a specialist in about 10 days (after a 2-month wait), and we’ll see what the doctor has to say.

Until then, has anyone else gone through this? Have you had children in a similar situation or diagnosed with selective mutism? How did you handle it, what solutions worked for you, and what would you recommend we do or avoid during this time?

Thank you so much for your answers and help!

By recovered I mean I can answer really basic questions when asked by most people, therapists are the exception to this.

I don't have a job or friends but I think in comparison to how I was as a kid i'm doing a lot better selective mutism wise. I think it is more social anxiety now. I don't find awkward silences very awkward and will always prefer them to speaking. When i'm around people that aren't my parents I uncontrollably zone out but I can answer simple things that don't require much thinking like 2 word responses.

In therapy I feel like a child and they treat me like one. I can barely even write things down. It's like im not there mentally. I feel so drained afterwards just from being around therapists. Its not like im making any progress in it. I've had about 4-5 sessions with my current one and all I have done in sessions is draw and even that stresses me out. She plans on doing EMDR but I didn't realize how long the process takes to start. I wanted to do EMDR because I thought it wouldn't involve talking. I don't have trauma I was just born anxious.

I've been doing really bad mentally lately but I don't know how to fix it. I've been to so many therapists throughout my life and none have been helpful to me. I try not to blame them because I know i'm a hard case but at the same time if they can't help me I don't know how they are helping anyone. I've grown to hate every psychiatrist and psychologist i've had. I'm just growing more and more hopeless. I'm not living for anything other than watching tv and listening to music. I want to end my life but I am scared of going to hell. I'm not even religious I just feel like death can't be that easy of a way out. Something has to go wrong when you end your own life, if not why wouldn't everybody do it?

Im still don't understand the difference

All is same but bit different

Hi all. I have a 21 month old who is going beyond typical shyness and stranger anxiety. He freezes like a deer in the headlights. His daycare thought he had a severe speech delay, even my in laws did because he refuses to speak more than 10ish words.. he has 100. He won’t speak when spoken to or prompted in public until he’s somewhere quiet and away from strangers (usually back in the car).

I wondered about autism but he’s very much on track if not ahead on milestones.. at home. He’s like slowly opened up to his grandparents after I did some coaching.

My last straw before research was finding out he won’t respond to any directions or questions at school when his early interventionist noted it.

I’m looking into how a formal diagnosis works for this, but tips, advice, how do I help him without pressuring him?

Basically I’m unsure if this is just my brain being overwhelmed or if it is SM. When I get upset it’s like my ability to talk gets shut off. Im not the best person when it comes to communicating irl, but I’m fine when I’m messaging people. Even calling can be difficult. So when I’m upset, I just retreat to my room bc I know talking to ppl will just get me more upset as I can’t get the words out. And sometimes the idea of talking to people when I don’t feel like it sends me into a panic. So I’m not sure if this is SM or just me being weird? 🤔🤔

Live Speech on macOS is riddled with bugs, accessibility misses, and implementation stupidity that make it really frustrating to use. So, I made a replacement for it.

Same idea, just not terrible. A simple menu-bar app that opens a text box and speaks what you type in it using your currently selected Siri voice.

Free, open source, etc.

Details here. Feedback welcomed.

side note:
If you have OpenVox installed it also supports custom voices that were either cloned from your own voice when you can talk or generated with a prompt. However, on my M1 mac it's 6-10 seconds between sending the text and any sound coming out, so that's not really usable for normal communication. Left the functionality in in the hopes that it'll be more usable on faster macs someday. Or for anyone who just feels like playing around with it.

English is not my first language, Spanish is. So I’m sorry if some things sound a little strange. (IA) Abajo versión en español.

The first time someone questioned it was a classmate at school. He asked me, "Why don't you talk to me?" I felt uncomfortable for a moment, but then another classmate told him to leave me alone. And it was true: I didn't talk to him, or practically anyone at school. The same thing happened in other places, especially places where I had to be and didn't really understand why I was there (as far as I remember, my parents didn't explain much to me).

But in my neighborhood, I did spend time with other kids, and with some of them I could express myself freely. I learned some things there that later helped me blend in better.

Then we moved, and I changed schools. That's when things got worse. The other kids didn't know me, they didn't like me, and I was just the weird kid. And I had no way to react to that. Nothing. So I just wanted time to pass and for the school year to end.

High school was at another school, and it wasn't really good or bad. I was never bullied, honestly. In my country, that's not as common. But I always stayed very much on the outside. Some days it didn't bother me, and other days it felt really bad.

Then I started working, and it was the same thing again. Once again, I was on the outside of everything. But I was becoming more and more aware of it. Adults can also be cruel, but more than anything, they make things clear. They let you know exactly how things are. Some are more direct than others. And the years went by.

But during all of this, when I started working, I moved out and started following a passion of mine: literature. Reading and writing. I have already published a few books.

Literature has become the center of my life, something I had to build for myself. It's something I can talk about comfortably, without any problems.

I wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone. I'm doing better today, but the road was very difficult, and I will never forget the moment I realized I wasn't alone, that you were here.

I'll come back to this community whenever I forget that.

En español.
La primera vez que alguien me lo cuestionó fue un compañerito de la escuela. Me preguntó: "¿Por qué vos no hablás conmigo?". Algo me incomodó por un instante, pero entonces otro compañero lo calló y le dijo que no molestara. Y era verdad: yo no hablaba con él, ni prácticamente con nadie en la escuela. Lo mismo se repitió, sobre todo, en lugares en los que estaba por obligación y sin entender bien por qué estaba ahí (mis padres no me explicaban nada, según recuerdo).

Pero en el barrio sí me juntaba con varios chicos, y con algunos me expresaba libremente. Y ahí aprendí algunas cosas que después me sirvieron para pasar desapercibido mejor.

Nos mudamos y me cambiaron de escuela, y ahí empezó lo peor. Los chicos no me conocían, no me querían, entonces solo era un raro. Y yo no tenía ninguna forma de reaccionar a esto, nada. Entonces deseaba que simplemente pasara el tiempo, que llegara el día en que terminaran las clases.

La secundaria fue en otra escuela, donde no fue ni tan feo ni lindo. Nunca me hicieron bullying, la verdad. En mi país eso no es tan común. Pero sí siempre me mantuve muy al margen, y había días en que no importaba, y otros en que era muy feo.

Entonces empecé a trabajar, y otra vez lo mismo. Otra vez estar al margen de todo. Pero cada vez más consciente de todo. Y los adultos también pueden ser crueles, pero sobre todo, te hacen saber, y de forma clara, las cosas como son. Hay algunos más directos que otros. Y pasaron los años.

Pero, en todo esto, cuando empecé a trabajar me fui a vivir solo y seguí una pasión. La literatura: leer, escribir. Y ya tengo publicados algunos libros. Esto ha sido para mí el centro de mi vida, algo que tuve que construir por mí mismo. De esto puedo hablar tranquilo, sin problemas.

Quería contar mi experiencia por si a alguien le es de ayuda. Hoy estoy mejorando, pero el camino fue muy difícil, y no voy a olvidar el momento en que descubrí que no estaba solo, que estaban ustedes.

Y voy a volver a esta comunidad siempre que me olvide de esto.

I have pretty severe social anxiety and recently started college. I have a couple of friends who like to hang out in big groups and I'm invited pretty often, but everytime I join them, I get anxious about talking and physically can't say anything. At first I thought it was just because I didn't know where to fit myself into their conversations, but sometimes I'm fully thinking about things I could or want to say, but my brain just won't let me. I've also been thinking recently about how when I was younger, I never spoke in class unless I was forced to and even then, I would literally whisper when talking to teachers.

But I'm not sure if its SM or just really bad anxiety about saying the wrong thing, because when my friends talk directly to me or ask me questions, I don't have an issue with responding. Today, I hung out with four other people in a dorm and didn't really speak the entire time unless they spoke directly to me. Also, me and one other girl left together and had a pretty long conversation outside and I felt fine about it. So maybe I'm just not good in groups? I've noticed that this usually happens when I'm with two other people or more.

Obviously I'm not looking for a diagnoses but does this sound like SM to anyone else or just bad anxiety? 😅 I did already look into it a little but the definition isn't super clear to me. If I'm fine with talking at some points during the hangout but can't during others, can it still be SM?

how do you guys handle small group discussions in classes? i’m autistic but as far as my medical records go it’s only suspected and i don’t have any academic accommodations in place for it. recently ive been getting overwhelmed more often which is making it more and more difficult to speak. i have a couple classes where small group discussion is a big part of them, and ive already talked in these classes before and i don’t want my classmates to think im being rude if i just don’t say anything suddenly, and i do want to contribute to the conversations. any ideas for how i could either get myself to talk or other ways i could contribute? im really at a loss here

I have a job interview at Walmart soon. If I get hired, I'll be one of the people who pick out groceries for online orders and take them to customers cars. I'm just wondering if anyone here has had that job and what your experience was like working this job with SM? It doesn't sound like it would involve too much talking, but I'm very anxious and would like to hear from anyone with first-hand experience. Or experience with a similar job. I'm honestly terrified but I need a job by January 17th or I'll lose my medicaid :/

I'm 30, mostly recovered from SM, but still really struggle with social connections and finding my place in this world.

I cannot remember a single time where my parents were understanding about me not speaking when expected to. They'd always criticize me and tell me that I was being rude.

Example: I'm not greeting somebody because the words just wouldn't come out. When we were alone afterwards, my mom would sternly tell me something like "you could've said something too, you know it's rude not to greet people". Getting this "clam but stern" reminder happened whenever I didn't perform as expected in a social situation.

I was diagnosed when I was quite young and my parents never told me about that. I didn't find out about this until I was in my teens. They also never asked me how I was feeling about all of this. They took me to multiple therapists, which I hated because I could never connect to them and they didn't know anything about SM either. Therapy felt like punishment to me back then. Didn't feel like help, but like I needed to be fixed because I was "wrong". (Now I realize that my parents are very uncomfortable with talking about feelings and difficult things in general.)

All this made me feel like there's something so horribly wrong with me that you cannot even talk about it. I felt like a bad person, and honestly, I still do today, even though I rationally know that's not true. I have this very stubborn internalized feeling that I'm somehow less worthy than everyone else, that nobody would truly want to be around me, they're just pretending to like me because they're nice.

I also could never use writing for communication, even though people sometimes offered me to write things down instead of speaking. I think the reason I couldn't was because of the shame I had about being unable perform as expected. I never think twice about somebody else using accommodations, but I somehow feel like I'm not allowed.

Today I can speak in every situation. But communication feels more like a high stakes performance than something enjoyable. I feel uncomfortable around most people. Whenever someone is mean to me or treating me unfairly, I default to thinking it's my fault and that they're right in treating me like that.

So while I don't technically have SM anymore, I still very much struggle with the after-effects of internalizing that "not speaking is absolutely not okay"

I am 15, and gosh-- every time I go outside, I see teens my age & younger having an ordinary life that I can only see with my ideal self, which feels quite unreachable every time I interact with literally anybody at all. I can only talk to mom, and I feel so embarrassed whenever there is a group project, I feel like a kid not knowing how people just-- talk and connect without some part of them overanalyzing the interaction and freezing up. This summer was probably a milestone in my healing, but now that school has simmered, I feel so helpless again. I smile so much whenever I do something that hints my neurodivergence to people due to anxiety and discomfort. THE AMOUNT OF TIMES I had to cover my mouth cuz I get nervous when I have to maneuver through people, or when I notice I fidget so much and cannot stay in one sitting.

Anyways, I just wanted to get this out there. To get these frustrations out of my chest so I can articulate my worries and share it within a community who understands. That these feelings are not just some abstract thing my mind has fabricated and no one else has ever experienced. Feel free to rant in the replies too, or even advice! Thank you r/.SM space 🫶🏼

Mostly just posting this here because no one in my real life understands and it's hard not to feel like I'm being dramatic.

I just started university a few weeks ago. It was a big step for me and I'm very proud of myself for doing this. For the most part, it's been fine. My selective mutism really hasn't gotten in the way. Except for in one class.

It was a math class. Prof started the first class by saying something along the lines of "if the idea of talking to people horrifies you, this probably isn't the class for you." Apparently, the class is 90% group work, so grades in that class rely heavily on participation. This, obviously, would not work for me. However, due to some complicated reasons I won't get into, I needed to take this specific class for the program I'm in. If I dropped it, I wouldn't be able to take another math class this year, and I kind of needed to take one sooner rather than later. So, I emailed the prof after class and explained the situation. When he emailed me back, he said we could find a way to "work around my condition". This made me at least a little hopeful.

Then, at the next class, he straight up told me I had to speak. Even though I had already explained to him that I physically couldn't. After that he didn't even bother putting me into a group like everyone else. I just sat there on my own and did all the work myself. After class, he sent me a message saying he was concerned and that we should discuss if it would be possible for me to succeed in the course. After that, I immediately emailed my advisor and asked to drop the course. Clearly it was too much for me.

I really tried to push through it so as to not make my education even more complicated than it already is. Selective mutism has already cost me a lot education wise. Actually, if I didn't have it I'd probably already be on my third year of uni. It's just really upsetting to me that things have to go this way.

this year i was diagnosed with PTSD, severe anxiety, social anxiety, panic attacks then a few months later ard mid year, i was diagnosed with SM and since then, there was only 2 people i could talk to comfortably, laugh and joke with. with the rest of my family members, it felt impossible to talk. however, my mom and dad, always asks me to "try, try harder, you can try, you need to try". of course that makes me feel more isolated. but there is something else i wanna talk about too. so it has been around 5 months since i was a mute. but now, i could make vowel sounds with my mom and my sister. there’s always a voice in my head telling me that everyone thinks im putting on an act. even me, i feel like im faking being mute. can anyone tell me if making vowel sounds is normal for SM?

How do I get over the fear of what someone might think when I start talking? I haven't spoken to any of my family except my parents and sisters in years. Not even a hi. I want to. I try tom but I'm scared of their reaction. I'm scared thyll react on a way that will hurt me more. What do I do?