So, a couple of days ago I started reading this book because it was suggested in one of my Selective Mutism groups. It’s mostly aimed at parents but I feel like adults who suffer from SM can find it useful as well.
I’m not finished reading it yet but I feel like it’s important to write my thoughts on this book as I read. My first impression is “Wow, someone who actually gets it!”, I would be lying if I said I didn’t get emotional reading this. Most people do NOT get Selective Mutism and hearing the name of the condition Selective gets it in their head that I choose to not talk. It was difficult as a child but I’m finding it even harder now as an adult especially living in a new country. There is something I want to talk about right now and I feel like I’ve processed it enough to actually make the appropriate connections in my life and how my SM developed.
It is “The trigger”, every child’s SM has a trigger or triggers, most people can’t remember the trigger or triggers because it might be something very routine like family visiting who doesn’t usually come over and pressuring the child to talk to them. For years I have never thought about my triggers because frankly, I didn’t remember. Actually sitting and thinking about my childhood there are three events that are possible triggers.
- Left at Relative’s House 1988
- Hurricane Hugo 1989
- Left Behind in Shopping Center 1990
- The Boiling Point- Starting School in 1991
Left at Relative’s House
I don’t remember this but I’ve heard enough about it to realize that it was very traumatizing. My family went to the US and I was left at an Aunt’s house, an Aunt I didn’t know and this was the first time I had ever been separated from my family. I’m told I cried until my parents came back. This would have probably been the first trigger. I was only 1 year and some months, my mother doesn’t remember how old I was just that my younger brother born in May 1989 wasn’t around yet.
Hurricane Hugo
I also don’t remember this event because I was very young but I heard how stressed and anxious everyone else was, I’ve been through my fair share of Hurricanes and a Category 5 would have been very terrifying for a young child, and add in the fact that I’m very sensitive to other’s emotions I would have no doubt been a wreck. I consider this my second trigger. The after-effects were felt for a long time after. I have memories of going to visit our house and it was still without a roof and the grass was very high.
Left Behind in Shopping Center
I shouldn’t have any memories of this but I do have some flashes, I can’t remember most of it but I have memories my parents would not have knowledge of, my parents, my baby brother, and I was were in the Shopping Center and I remember we were walking back to the car. My father was holding my hand while my mother held the baby. When we reached the car my father let go of my hand, he had a gold-colored Corolla and the seats have to go forward so anyone could get into the back and he just goes into the car and sent me around to my mother’s side but she was dealing with the baby and sent me back to my father’s side. He is very easily frustrated and he told me to go back around the car. Here is where it gets fuzzy. I don’t know what happened but I heard from my mother that witnesses said I was holding onto my father’s door handle trying to open it as he was driving away and that I fell in the street almost being hit by a truck that was driving behind. One of our neighbors saw the whole thing and ran and picked me up from the middle of the street.
I honestly don’t remember his face or being pickled up but I remember walking in the stores with him asking me if I want some candy or a doll. I wasn’t crying I think I was in shock. My parents had left me. I probably didn’t think they were coming back for me.
My mother said they were nearly home when she realized how quiet the car was and when she looked back I wasn’t in the back seat. I can only imagine the anxiety she experienced because the thought of not finding any of my children in the car is one that frequently gives me anxiety. She asked my father where I was and he in his customary gruff voice answered “What do you mean where is Lynnette? She’s in the back.” My mother no doubt screamed back “No, she’s not!” My mother always gets emotional telling me how scared she was and praying that they would not find an ambulance when they returned to the Shopping center. The sense of relief she felt when she found me standing next to the neighbor must have been immense. I consider this my third trigger.
The Boiling Point – Starting School
I was four when I started school, not that young considering both my older sisters had also started at four, but I was the only one who couldn’t talk, I wanted to go to school though. I wanted to go with my sisters but this place was not what I was expecting. Here is where my SM came out in full display and where I should have gotten help but Mental health was nonexistent on my Island. This is where I always looked to when thinking of my life with SM, I always maintained that I had no trauma, no abuse in my life to trigger SM but from 1988 right up to 1991 were not good years for me.
I don’t really know what knowing my triggers accomplishes for me, I guess it allows me to fully understand the source of my anxiety, I knew some of my abandonment issues came about because of being left in the shopping center but I never took into consideration that it was there before that incident.
I wonder what else I might ruminate over when reading this book?
Crucianize 