[doyoutrustme]

I had this condition as a kid, and unfortunately, they went with the quick fix route and basically forced me to talk. Needless to say I still have anxiety.

In therapy, I am noticing I often don't know what to say and freeze up, or have much insight when I'm nervous. I come home, open up my safe little journal and all hell breaks loose. I have come out thinking I am doing ok and then as I work it out through writing, I open myself up and realize I am angry at my T about something.

I feel like this is like a grown up version of selective mutism. I can talk, but not much, and not too deeply.

[Selost]

Right there with you :/

I'm only 19, so I don't know if I would fully consider myself a "grown adult" yet as much of a young adult, but my counselor thinks that I had undiagnosed selective mutism growing up, and that because I'm older, it would probably just be classified as severe social phobia at this point. To this day, I am still very, very quiet and have a hard time not freezing up around certain people. When I was younger, I was basically just forced/strongly encouraged to talk as well. I mean my parents are really supportive and everything, but they would get frustrated and sort of embarrassed and my mom would always say that she didn't understand why I couldn't just talk.

[hotchicken]

How old are you now?

I am in my 40's now. I am miserable and lonely still.

[growlycat]

I had it as a kid but I only saw a counselor once for it. The T was nice to me so of course I felt safe to talk! So they sent me home and I awkwardly grew out of it (changing schools helped).

Still have lifelong anxiety issues but therapy has helped.

[neutrino]

I don't think I had selective mutism as a child and I guess I still don't but I do experience episodes where I "go mute". I've got social anxiety disorder (I've had it since childhood) and it can get pretty severe at times. It's always pretty bad but some situations are worse than others. In certain social situations (often when meeting new people for example) I freeze up (even if I know everyone in the room except one person), get all tense and extremely anxious and it's like I can't open my mouth and speak. I don't know if I get so tense that I physically can't open my mouth or if it's "just" all in my head. Anyway, instead of speaking I just sit there and panic on the inside while thinking that even if I'd like to say something I simply can't.

I know it might not be the same as what you're going through but at least it's similar so I get where you're coming from.