Published on 12, July, 2020
Mine was when I started school. I remember sitting on a table with other children. I felt happy enough but then they all started what felt like a word dance that I didn't know the steps to and couldn't join in with. I remember feeling very alone and confused and panicky.. I mayve had my first shut down. Felt like i was in a washing machine and sound became a background thing. Suddenly couldn't understand them. That feeling still comes in a group of people.
What was your experience?
When I started infant school at four and a half yrs I was selectively mute for 3 months. I was, I think, hugely overwhelmed and shut down, at least partially. The teacher asked my mother if I was silent at home, to which she replied, “No, he never shuts up”. Nothing was done about my mutism, which was ended by a specific incident. I have been very interested in animals and natural history all my life, it is one of my abiding and deep interests. The teacher brought in an incubator with half-a dozen fertile hens’ eggs. When the chicks began to hatch and cheep, I began to talk, apparently quite volubly. Somewhere in the house there is a photo of me carefully holding a newly hatched chick. The teacher, who took the photo, must have been impressed by the sudden transformation.
I was taken from a home with three doting adults (my grandmother lived with us), for reasons I did not comprehend, to a place crowded with noisy children whose actions could not be predicted and whose intentions were not always benign, and into an authority structure I did not understand. I still think silence was an appropriate response.