The story of me - I used to be Selective Mute.
I was diagnosed with Selective mutism for about eight years and today I am a completely different person. It has now been nine years until I got well but I hade Social Anxiety for sex more years. I don’t know when it started or why but my guess is that it started when I was about to start school, in the beginning I could only speak to my mom, my dad and my brother. My boyfriend have lately tried to get me to feel everything again, tried to get me to that time when I was nine, how I’d react to stranger and all I say is that “I didn’t”. I was never alone. I went to a really small school, everyone knew everyone and everyone knew that I did not speak but that didn't matter, I still got friends and played, mostly with the boys who where playing with more practical games than girls and I loved to climb. That I was quiet was no problem, I was probably just more interesting in that way. When I got older I needed do change school and a came to a class that was divided into groups, the cool kids, the geeks and the nobodies. Because I was new in class and the fact that I didn't speak made me interesting so they all tried to interact with me and I got friend with the most of them. I’ve always wanted everyone to be happy and I wanted no one to be left behind. I was in, we hang during both school and spare time. I had no problem getting friends even though I did not speak at all. I could whisper to the ones I truly trusted and It became a contest between the girls of becoming the one who I started to speak first with. I knew that but it didn't bother me, I was happy having friends. Two years pasted and it was time again to change school. We where a bit older and the girls who started in the same class remained a squad for only one semester, after the christmas holidays, me and my closest friend got ignored by the friends in which we have spent every day after school with for three years (and my friend for even longer time). Me and my best friend decided to change school again, I couldn't take being ignored but we had one semester of that school until we could change so we stopped caring of what everyone might think of us, so we dressed all weird and people looked at us especially since I did not speak but no one seemed to care. We skipped school a lot, I hated school, was always late and stopped doing my homework. The summer came and the school ended, me and my best friend where still alone and we decided that I had to speak by the time when we’d start our next school. No one knew us there, this was the perfect beginning. During the summer I did small step which was huge to me. It started on a summer camp where me and my best friend got helium balloons and I inhaled and run to a stranger just to ask for what time it was. I was ashamed for my voice. After the summer camp me and her walked on the street and I walked up to strangers to ask the time, and eventually I could say “Hi” to strangers in, for example, the supermarket. The school started again and no one knew that I didn’t talk for so many years, we got friends and I was just “the shy one” who only talked when asked. The winter came again and after the holidays we came back and me and my best friend was not best friends any more. We drifted a part and I could not stand being there with our squad and not feeling invalid. I still did not talk unless someone spoke to me but the questions fade away and I was no one again. I came to school and wished for it to be over, I didn’t hang around with my friend during evenings and weekends anymore. My friend who used to be my best friend told me that she thought of changing school again and I started looking and I decided for one, maybe the one she said she was going to apply for. But she didn’t. I still don’t know if she just wanted me out of the picture or if her parents didn’t let her change school again, that was what she said. The summer came and my year at that school was over and after the summer I was about to start a school all by my self for the first time ever and I knew that I had a new start and could be whoever I wanted to be. But as always I ended up being the quiet and nice one who did not do any harm. I was like a little puppy in the beginning who everyone forgot in the end. I remember when I graduated that school two years later that everyone was about to do something fun with the other or there family while I was left alone, walking home and having no place to be but home. I haven’t understand until now how lonely I have been through a huge part of my life. There was three years left of school, high school where everyone had to change. And I change to a school where I knew no body but during that summer I spent time in the US on a summer school to learn english. I got friends all over Europe during that trip and I stated speaking more and more, getting compatible in who I am. The school started and I had got a new start again, I got friends pretty quick and I could tell people about my summer and had no thoughts on the people who used to be in my life. I could focus on the new people and experience. During the first year I jumped around between different groups and found my place at last but it was not like when I was younger, I only met my friends in school. On the evenings and in the weekends I was completely alone wishing close friends. I liked school only because I knew that in school I had my friends and I liked to stay more than necessary because of that, but I was still late in the mornings, to the classes because I did not see a future of studying for me, I never learn anyway so why studying, “It’s just embracing to fail when trying” I thought and have thought since 4th grade. During the first semester in the last year I went to france with my french group for three weeks and in france I got invited to hang around with my classmates during evenings and my understanding of that I had friends came along, I was now invalid in a group of which I hadn’t felt for some time but as I noticed that everyone wasn't invited I became friends with the others too and the group started to ignore me. I came back to sweden when the christmas brake was about to start and when the last semester in school started I started to party quite often with a friend from my class in which I’d been friends with but not hanged around with very much. We went to clubs and bars three to five times a week and I loved to be tipsy. That way my real personality came through and I liked who I was. I danced and I talked. I became free. Summer came and we graduated. During graduating evening the group of friends I’d been with for thee weeks did’t want to go to the party at the house in which one of our classmate had a party, so I ended up going there alone. I was there and spoked with the people who had been around me for three years without really speaking with, I drank a lot cause I was uncomfortable and a bit angry that my friends did not show up. I woke up at the hospital the next morning. Alcohol poisoned. You might think that that would make me drink less but that was a start on a freedom in which I felt happy. I met a lot of people that year, going to bars mostly, building up my confidence, talking to strangers and gaining friends, loosing friends, get a closer relationship with my family. It has now been three years since I graduated school. I’ve worked on 10-15 different places, trying new beginnings and tried to find my self. Two years ago I started to go to a psychologist because of something that might have been an depression and he learned me to see my self, he helped me to help my self, I talked to him every week for a year with a break during summer. Last year I went alone to Brazil for three month, to find a new beginning, to start again and learn more about my self. To get away from everyone. After those three month I came home for two weeks and then I left to South Africa for two month but came back home after one. When I came home I isolated my self from everyone except of my family, I putted away all social medias during my last week in South Africa so everyone I knew thought I was still in South Africa while I actually was skiing with my family in the north of Sweden and hiding in Stockholm when the skiing trip was over. I also went to the hospital to look up my heart, It was beating so fast and I’d been worried for a while and my family begged me to look it up because I was complaining so much. I had Anemi, I was sick for real, hb 49 the doctors couldn’t believe I was on my feet. That I’ve been snowboarding and traveling alone in both South Africa and South America. I was at the hospital for two days and they gave me pills for my menstruation that was the reason of it all and they told me to take pills of iron every day and I still do, maybe always have to. I’ll go to San Francisco the upcoming friday and that will be my next three month trip and I’m really exited. I met my boyfriend this summer in Stockholm and I’ve traveld to him in Berlin two times since that and he has been here for a while too but now we’re separated and when we see each other next time, We will both be in San Francisco. We are going to find a home for us to live in, I’ll work with my art and writing and he will work with his movie projects. I am so happy now and when I think of that girl for 16 years ago I could not even dream of being the one I am today. What I love the most of all is lighting up others, pointing of the positive things and light the flashlight toward the future. Everything really gets better and better, I start every year saying “This is going to be the best year so far” and I’m so happy for everything I’ve walked through. What I want to say with this text is that I believe in you and I believe that you can be able to believe in you. Your self growth is the funniest thing to live for. Do what you love and try all you want to do and If you feel misfit, If you feel like you don’t belong just move on and start over once again. The restart button is always near.
