Journal

my response to a lady concerned about her aspies childs withdrawal.  not an easy thing to deal with for the mother or the child.

   I am 30 years old and still have trouble with this. Its difficult for an aspie to interact ( especially if social phobia is involved, which you may need to address with a professional counselor). Do you know of any other aspies in your childs school? The thing that always got me through was (even though I didnt know it at the time) that all my friends were very much aspie or had aspie traits. I was not accepted by non-aspies and that was miserable.

I had selective mutism ( failure to speak in high stress situations which for me meant anytime I left the solitude of my bedroom) as a child and still to this day am occasionally affected by it.  Contrary to what the name implies, it was hardly something I chose.  My brain just wouldnt work or communicate with my mouth and I would become totally silent.  What made it worse was that my mother would punish me if I didnt speak up and be polite, so the next time it would actually be worse because I knew what was coming afterwards.  My parents are the type that dont believe in "psycho-babble" even though I have an autistic older cousin and autistic niece, but they are more obviously autistic. . .at least to the layman that doesnt know the signs.

Did I mention that I am mildly autistic.  Yes, anxiety plays a huge role in selective mutism. . .but it also has to do with the fact that as one with autism, certain situations can be so incredibly confusing, it's like walking in a dream (more like a nightmare).  kind of like when people talk to you, all you hear is murmering.  Charlie Brown comes to mind.  It's like the sound you hear when his teacher would talk and the audience just hears "wha wha wha wha wha wha."