As a mother, to help my daughter who is fourteen and has selective mutism, I try to imagine how it feels to live a life in silence; how might it feel to go to a place where I do not know anyone and am not able to ask or answer, even though I do know how to speak and everyone tells me how clever and how bright I am; to hear the words, “don’t ask her, she can’t speak.” It is not true, but I just can’t prove them wrong.
Our story started back in kindergarten when the teacher asked if she could visit us, so maybe in our cozy environment my daughter would warm up and talk to her. It did happen.
Nobody had assumed she had selective mutism, as she was talking to her friends and family. Then in year one, with new people around, it started becoming more obvious. For months she did not speak to anybody – only with her brother who was in the same school. The worst thing about this was that we did not get to know about her total silence until the first parents’ meeting. It was a shocking acknowledgment. Her grades were on the top of her class, Maltese, English, Maths tests – all maximum scores. Whenever we asked her how was school, she had always said it was good.
By that time she had made some friends, and she had learned how to communicate with them by signs. The school’s headmistress wasn’t happy about her sign language. She forbid classmates to ask my daughter to show thumps up or down – she said my daughter must answer verbally.
One day my daughter told me that she had a very good friend and she wanted to talk to her but she didn’t know how. I told her, “I will help you, we can say something together”. I saw her happiness, like she was waiting for this to happen – someone to give her a little push, a little support.
We invited her best friend to our home. During that hour I did not recognize my own daughter, the anxiousness, the way she was communicating with her friend without words, it was something I had never seen before. The thought of talking to her friend made her anxious. My heart was just breaking. I held her hand to provide her with some comfort, and together we did manage to say a word, whispering into her friend’s ear. Her friend had the sweetest reaction, she was jumping up and down, saying “finally I could hear your voice!”, which encouraged my daughter to say another word. From then on, she could not stop talking to that girl, and so, other friends became jealous. They kept asking her “when are you going to say something to me??”
Step by step, she managed to talk to most of her friends. She is very competitive – she likes to dance, participates in different activities and adores her dachshund. It helps when people know about selective mutism and do not push her to talk. I hated seeing her being in the spot light where people repeat a question over and over thinking she did not hear it or did not understand, and then get angry when she remained quiet.
In the early years I used to send a book about selective mutism – Lola’s Words Disappeared – to school, so the teacher could read it to the classmates. Before any appointments like dentist and doctor appointments, I used to explain the situation. Fortunately we do not have any negative experiences when we do this, however I do have worries for the
future, like all mothers. What will happen when I cannot hold her hands? Yet speech therapy at school, private psychologist and psychiatrist, and many supportive friends, did help her to be where she is at now, and this gives us hope for the future.
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