Selective Mutism at School

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• published: 03 Jun 2010
• views: 13152

UPDATE: I am now over my Selective Mutism. Thank you for all the positive comments and feedback. Thanks for sharing all of your personal stories with me. And thank you endlessly for sharing my videos and being the best subscribers and viewers a girl could ask for! Selective Mutism is a social anxiety disorder where a person who is normally capable of speech finds it extremely difficult to talk in social surroundings or situations. Most of the time, he or she can still talk at home to their family. The prevalence of SM is about 7 in 1000, but they may need to be updated soon, because time has passed since the last statistics were published. The duration of the problem must be at least one month (not limited to the first month of school, when many children are too shy to speak).The failure to speak is not due to a lack of knowledge of, or comfort with, the spoken language required in the social situation.The disturbance is not better accounted for by a communication disorder, and does not occur exclusively during the course of a pervasive developmental disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic or language/speech disorders. On the negative side, people with SM, like me, find it difficult to maintain eye contact. We often don't smile and/or have blank expressions. We move stiffly and awkwardly. We find situations where talking is normally expected particularly hard to handle. We can also be very sensitive to noise and crowds. We find it difficult to talk about ourselves and express our feelings. We tend to worry in general about things more than others. Many sufferers, and most older ones, can be diagnosed with various other issues such as social phobia and depression. We may suffer from eating disorders as well and some sufferers self-harm. Some of us have been put in mental hospitals and such because of so much misunderstanding by psychiatrists. On the positive side, many sufferers have above average intelligence. We're sensitive to other people's thoughts and feelings -- we have a high level of empathy. We can have very good powers of concentration. We usually have excellent tastes in music, fashion, artistic, etc. because we worry about being "perfect" so much. We often have a good sense of right, wrong, fairness and justice. We can define people in a way that others cannot, in other words, see right through their personalities or traits; determine what kind of person they are, because we are so quiet, and we pay a lot of attention. Our severe anxiety interferes with our lives! We are not choosing to not speak when you ask us a question or we are in a situation where speaking is required. We are in fact focused and more than aware of the answer or situation, and we would love to speak. Spread the word! You never know who around you could be suffering. Sometimes all they need is a little help! ♥ :) **DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE** Thank you so much for watching! To contact me: Email: ambercocolon@gmail.com Twitter: ambercocolon Facebook: Like my page "Selective Mutism Awareness"