Tag: experiences

As someone with SM who really cares about her schooling, my online classes have been perfect for me. I feel safe and comfortable in online classes in general, but there is something about a class that is on a topic that I love, like mythology, that makes me want to open up even more than I would in other classes. I am an active participant in all of my classes, and have found ways to continue to be in touch with my classmates even after school ended. 

For me, history and mythology take me to a different world. It is kind of a place where I forget my anxieties and get more overtaken by my excitement for the subject. In my mythology and classical history classes, I open up to both my teachers and my classmates without hesitation. I don’t just answer questions and prompts, but ask them of my peers. I am even in touch with many of my classmates from these classes outside of the classroom. My classmates from my classical classes and I have formed email groups and chat groups in which I am very active. I enjoy interacting with classmates in my mythology and classical history classes so much that I don’t even think once about being an introvert with SM. 

It really is a bit strange – taking these classes in subjects I am super excited about has broadened my education, but even more, the classics have helped me see what it is like to overcome my introversion and SM tendencies. When I am interacting with my classmates from these classes, I am just one of the kids, bantering back and forth. For example, in my mythology class, we were interacting on-topic a few weeks ago about who started the curse of the House of Atreus, a mythological bloodline including many woebegone myth protagonists such as Tantalus, who was cursed to never be able to eat or drink in the Underworld. I had my own opinion, and was not at all shy to share it and respectfully disagree with classmates. 

Another example happens almost every day: I interact with my classmates outside of the classroom very often, in ways where we take what we have learned to the next level and apply it to real life. In one group, about a month ago, they held an election and formed a Third Triumvirate of the Roman Empire. The elected classmates then randomly appointed other people roles such as Centurians of the Cohorts, Legates, and such. We then challenged ourselves to get the chat chain to 1000 chats before the end of the year, and I participated in posting chats so much that I got promoted to become one of the ‘rulers,’ and we formed a Quadrumvirate. 

These interactions have helped me put aside my SM to have fun with other kids my age, so much so that I now check my email every day to make sure I don’t miss any fun conversations. I think the reason I am so easily able to have fun with classmates despite my SM is because I really love the topics of classical history and mythology, so I don’t have to struggle to want to be actively interacting with peers. I think that doing that can help anyone with SM. Just find a topic or subject or anything that you love and enjoy, whether it is academic or not, and it’ll be much easier to be chatty with other kids.

Can you imagine being the center of attention in a room full of over thirty (30) strangers? And to make it worse, they were all adults! I’m sure you all know that this would be the absolute worst nightmare for someone with SM. So, the good news is, I won a history essay competition and got to go to an award ceremony with the orginazation Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The bad news is, I HAD to go to an award ceremony for the DAR. I was feeling really proud of myself for winning the contest, and really excited to go to an award ceremony. But then, as it got closer and closer, I started getting nervous. I was nervous because I knew that I would be the center of attention, and I didn’t know for how long. I didn’t know if I would have to say stuff when the award was presented to me, and if so, for how long would I have to speak. I didn’t know how many people there would be, or what they might say to me. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on them, but I didn’t want to have to say anything to them. 

When the day finally arrived, I got a big lump in my stomach. For the whole thirty minute drive, I kept imaging worst-case scenarios. Then, we arrived, and met everyone who had come. There were probably thirty to fourty people. They all wanted to be introduced to me, take pictures with me, have conversations with me. It was all really terrifying. Each time someone elso came up to me, I thought, Oh no, here we go again. I REALLY don’t want to do this with you. But I put on my smile and pretended to be enjoying myself. The orginaztion provided a meal for us, but I wasn’t really hungry – I had a big swarm of butterflies in my stomach. 

The whole time, I kept thinking that it was cool that I was here, but I didn’t wanted anyone to pay any attention to me. Then, it came time for me to come up and be presented with my award. My mom gave me a nudge and I stood up and walked to the front. The woman first congratulated me and talked about how great of an essay I wrote and how much of a big deal this was. Then, she took about a minute each to explain my awards – a coin, a medal pin, and a certificate. Then, she pinned on the medal pin for me, had me hold up my certificate and coin, and had me pose so that everyone, and I mean EVERONE, could take pictures. They wrapped up the meeting once I had sat down, and once it ended, even MORE people came up to me to take picture and talk to me. I felt really uncomfortable, but I managed through. Finally we left, and I was able to relax. 

Even though it was hard, scary, and uncomfortable for me, after we left and the pressure was taken off, I was able to just feel proud for myself and happy to over with it. Overall, apart from about 5 minutes of terrifying experience, it was fun. And I learned that even if speaking, being seen, or being social is hard at first, or even hard for a while, you can always look forward to after that is all over, and look forward to being able to relax and just feel good.

I went to sleepaway camp for a month this summer. While that might seem like a terrifying experience for someone with selective mutism, at camp I felt like I could be open about myself. I found myself talking a lot to friends and strangers, campers and counselors. Camp was a surprising happy place, and I found myself dreading going back home, where I would be alone, but for my family. 

On the first day of camp, I was expecting to have to work really hard to avoid talking, while also not making a bad first impression. But it was not to be so. I went up to my dorm room, where my room-mates were unpacking. On of them, Maya, immediately said hi and started going on about how happy she was to meet me. You might have thought: Uh-oh, we’re off to a bad start! But no! Instead of clamming up and being quiet, I struck up a conversation, and made friends with her. With all the other girls I was exactly the same! I don’t even know why. Maybe because no-one already knew me, so they did not know that I was normally quiet. It felt really good to be open and talkative. 

When I came back home, I became the quiet me everyone knew, only feeling a little bit braver. I’m not sure what it is about camp, but it just feels like a safe place where I can be myself. One of the reasons might be because there are not many consequences because it is short term. Another might be because I am around very few people, but the same people every day, just having fun, for a month.