#actuallymute

A couple years ago, I wrote a post saying "the idea of recovery is scary when a mentally healthy version of you has never existed".

I have different thoughts about this now.

I was 24 years old when I posted this, and at a different point mental health wise.

I'm now 31. I'm not mentally healthy now, but dealing better with many things.

I cannot remember a time when I was not depressed, not anxious, did not feel different from everyone else around me, did not feel like I don't belong into this world.

A therapist once told me no one is born socially anxious, social anxiety disorder has to develop at some point. This applies to other mental disorders too, of course.

True, there must have been a time before I was mentally ill. But I've been dealing with all this since early childhood, I have no memory of a time before this, to me it feels like I have always been mentally ill.

I only know this version of me.

I could never relate to people who talked about wanting to go back to being the person they were before selective mutism, before depression, etc.

Now of course I have always wanted to recover, to live without selective mutism, social anxiety, everything else.

But I had no idea how. I had nowhere to go back to, no "before" version. I never knew a different life, I could not imagine what I would be like without the disorders that had defined my life.

This used to scare me, to overwhelm me so much.

Then a few years ago, I read the advice

"If you cannot find a response to the question 'Who was I before [...], how do I go back to this?', instead try asking yourself 'Who do I want to be? What do I want to be like?' and try to find ways to work towards this."

and it resonated with me.

I don't have to know a "before" version of me. I don't have to work towards going back.

Really understanding this brought me so much relief.

I can instead look forward, I think a lot about how I want to be, and I work on becoming this.

but like,, I can identify as mute?? For real? It never occurred to me that I could identify that way because I always thought it meant someone couldn't speak 100% of the time, or even that you can't communicate in any way at *all*

communication is always, and has always been so hard for me, even when I *can* speak, and it's so hard trying to explain to someone why I've lost the ability to speak, especially when I've gone completely nonverbal and literally can't. Speaking often times is so draining mentally and physically and sometimes I wish that I never had to speak at all. almost everyone treats it as though I'm giving them the "silent treatment" or purposely ignoring them, and even when people aren't mean about it they still believe that I'm "choosing" not to talk (though sometimes I wish I could just choose not to talk if I wanted to, but that rarely goes over well with people).

But I feel like my life would improve drastically if I could openly say "I'm mute" and not have to go through giant loops to explain why I can't speak to people. I really want to learn ASL, too (starting a college class this semester, actually, but I don't know how good it'll be). If I could communicate when I can't speak, or even choose to not speak and use ASL as opposed to exhausting myself mentally and physically, it'd be life changing.

I'm sorry if this ask is overwhelming (I didn't think I had this much in me to type out), but like,, is the Mute community a place for me?

I'm super super late to answering this sorry, but hopefully you'll still see this. I totally relate tho, those are exactly the experiences I've had myself with it. Honestly meetin other disabled folks helped a lot with comin to terms with my selective mutism, like there are plenty of folks who use a wheelchair regularly but not 100% of the time. And to see em walk just a little ways and then just expect em to never need the wheelchair again would be shitty right? So just cause someone can speak occasionally, don't mean they don't need ASL.

Disability ain't a strict all-or-nothing type deal. Very few things in life are. SM in particular can be wicked complicated and it just ain't practical to try to explain it to everyone. Especially when social anxiety is the trigger -- explaining anything under that kinda stress is difficult, let alone explaining a disability with a frankly sorta misleading name. Ain't got time for hyper specificity, we're just tryna get through the day.

Okay, I agree with this! You know you can talk, but it's going to come out instead of "I want orange juice" as "Joranuicewanit", and then people say that since you were capable of saying that, you should be talking properly. Or they say you did it for attention.

Are you over 18 and had selective mutism as a kid? Then please give this a read!

I’m a senior at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. I’m conducting a research project on the the effects of childhood selective mutism in adults. Our goal is to gather varying personal experiences of growing up with selective mutism and the effects it may have on recovered adults.

As someone who had selective mutism myself, I’m very interested in how it has affected others into adulthood. If you or someone you know over the age of 18 had/has selective mutism, I would greatly appreciate hearing your experience. Click the link to access the questionnaire. Details and instructions are on the first page of the form, and all responses will remain completely confidential.

This study is IRB-approved and completely confidential. Send a DM or ask if you'd like more details!

hi! today i'll be reviewing Chatterboards AAC, a free app available in the app store (not for android.)

this app is pretty much what i'd expect from a free AAC app. it covers some of the basic functions, and it's possible to program any grid size, however, my biggest problem with this app is that it doesn't come pre-programmed with any fully functional communication boards - you have to manually configure every single individual button yourself. i started with trying to program an 8x16 board, but since you have to create every slot individually, i got bored about two rows in, and gave up before i even began trying to give the buttons actual words, let alone symbols. i think this app could be usable for someone with a lot of time and patience, but i know most advanced AAC users are forced to program their own devices, and i just don't think this is a good solution for that demographic.

moving onto the pre-programmed boards, i feel like they could be useful for very young users, as they do cover a small range of phrases (feelings, 'i want to', yes/no, and a larger board called "core vocab sample".) however, as soon as you need to move up to a larger board, you're forced to manually change everything again, and the placement of the buttons also moves as you add more. this makes the app practically useless for learning motor planning and progressive language.

the "core vocab" board is an 8×9 grid, and covers most basic core words - except it seems like they forgot about verb inflections entirely. it almost looks as though it was copied from a more robust AAC app such as proloquo2go or speak for yourself, but clearly missing the features in those apps that allow you to conjugate verbs correctly.

(what if i want to say "you are"..?)

what surprised me the most about this app is that there also isn't a simple keyboard text-to-speech feature, you're forced to stick to the boards within the app. i can't see this being very practical for frequent and fulltime AAC users, especially those who are older and/or more literate. the voices are also very robotic, and each button speaks as you press it - i can't find a way to disable this.

in all honesty, i wouldn't recommend this app to any long-term AAC users, although i feel as though it definitely has potential and i might just be missing something. it could be useful for young children whose parents aren't sure how they'd respond to simple AAC (eg. kids unfamiliar with the concept of a button that generates speech.) otherwise, i don't think this app is a long-term or robust AAC solution, although i'm sure there are people helped by it.