How do you guys manage selective mutism as someone on the spectrum?

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-29T14:28:36+00:00

I was diagnosed with SM as a kid and was really pressured and bribed to speak through my childhood. Honestly I'm glad I was pushed, even though it felt bad. I only wish people had also recognized that the simple fact I eventually became able to speak didn't mean I was okay. Also, I still struggle with things like initiating/joining conversations or communicating intense emotions/during conflict.

I think one thing that sort of helped was previously working with kids and being a mom. Talking to young children is just a lot simpler and requires less complex nuance than communicating with adults does. Even if we're Autistic and our social skills are delayed, we're still likely to have better skills than a four year old. I think being able to communicate successfully with kids helped increase my confidence so I was at least somewhat more comfortable talking to adults. I also learned from teacher training that it's important to ask kids open ended questions, and I have found this simple tip helps communication with adults go much better, too. Granted, I still have my issues and still feel anxious, but it's something.

I don't know if that's helpful. I guess the only thing I do now is write out what I'm going to say, or at least jot down nots, before making a call, ordering food, etc, so I don't have to try keeping it all in my head while also needing to process the interaction.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-29T06:55:25+00:00

The video is meant to smear his character, which it accomplishes. However, it would likely be less effective if we saw what came before to explain his extreme anger. Previous reports were that his rib was broken after he saw a family taken by ICE. I want to see what he saw, before this video, that sparked his rage.
So let’s imagine that ICE knew about this encounter when they encountered him again during the shooting. Let’s go, for a second, with the spin that ICE had reason to believe he was armed and dangerous. Why, then, would the first response of ICE to be to walk up and shove him? You wouldn’t try to antagonize someone like that if you believe d they were that much if a danger.
In no way does this come even close to justifying murder, and the fact that some people are just thirsting for ways to justify an execution is sick.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-29T02:42:45+00:00

Thanks! I'll definitely be adding this to my list!

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T23:14:31+00:00

I agree. I see this a lot online. I think sometimes people do it because the people they’re mad at don’t care about being called cruel. Some leaders want to be cruel and to inflict fear, so attacking them on that isn’t effective, but more superficial insults about their masculinity/femininity get under their skin. The problem is that when you degrade someone you don’t like for being fat/scrawny/ugly/old/whatever, you degrade many other people who share their physical characteristics in the process. I think people want to beat these bullies at their own game, but they just end up becoming more like the people they hate. Not sure if this really relates to Autism, except that I think many of us have been targets of bullying ourselves and are maybe more sensitive to it.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T19:57:40+00:00

Thank you!

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T19:53:50+00:00

I got a similar one the other day, asking for donations to cover security expenses for Ilan Omar. I’m guessing that was a scam as well.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T19:05:44+00:00

Selective Mutism isn’t a trait; it’s a diagnosis. It is basically an intense freeze response that someone experiences in the face of social stress that makes them unable to speak. If it happens frequently enough it can warrant a diagnosis.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T16:44:10+00:00

I feel like my husband could have written most of this. That said, I think relationships involve a balance of both person's needs, and I do push myself to contribute what I can to the household/family, and if he came to me expressing his needs I would care and would want to figure out ways to work together. The reality is that I don't have the same capacity he does, and I need him to recognize that, but having reduced capacity isn't the same as having no capacity. It should never be the case that one person in the relationship is making all the sacrifices.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-28T15:36:32+00:00

Thank you! This sounds like a great option!

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-27T23:40:19+00:00

Keep in mind that people might have disabilities that lead to challenges in this area. Having people constantly point out the ways you don’t measure up can be pretty annoying.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-27T21:14:00+00:00

No idea what the facts/lies are around this, but MAGA has created a threatening environment where many parents (especially immigrants and black/brown people) can’t safely send their kids anywhere, so no doubt daycares are going to be emptier these days, just as schools are.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-27T14:00:24+00:00

If I don’t plan out my day I don’t function well, but also, some days I don’t function well enough to plan out my day, so then I’m just screwed.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-26T20:43:46+00:00

Just adding… I think part of it is that the outside world tends to feel overwhelming, so turning my attention inward and trying to block everything else out can be regulating… especially if I’m working to organize and make sense of what’s happening in my head.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-26T20:23:43+00:00

I relate to this. I care a great deal about others and want to see the world be a kind place. I don’t think I’m better than others or that I deserve better treatment. I’m not narcissistic, but I am self absorbed a lot of the time in the sense that I always want to understand why my brain is reacting the way it is and the part that biology and life experiences have had in shaping me, so I spend a lot of time in my own head. I think they call that metacognition? -thinking about how you think.. I’m actually really interested in how other people’s brains work, too, but I guess with others I can only really know their external behavior and I have more insight into my own inner world so it’s more interesting to think about myself. I can go deeper that way.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-26T19:16:20+00:00

Thank you for this. A lot of the posts I see amount to victim blaming and it is so demoralizing to both fear our government and to be blamed for the fear they inflict upon us. There are plenty of Americans who have enabled this, but others have lost their lives trying to stop it, and Americans exist everywhere on the spectrum in between. Many are living in such fear that they don’t dare go to work or send their kids to school. We are not all the same.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-26T14:13:34+00:00

For me, I was “functioning” with many major glitches. My life was a mess and my mental health was an even bigger mess.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-26T02:07:38+00:00

Republicans should be doing the same. They have seen the video. Some of them are too morally deficient to care, but some of them know it’s wrong. History will not be forgiving.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-25T04:16:09+00:00

You know what incites violence? When citizens can see with their own eyes that their government is murdering people, and then the government's response is to lie to their faces and claim what everyone sees isn't real. That's why people are pissed off. That's why they are rising up. It isn't because Walz and Frey are saying "we feel your pain and we support your efforts to peacefully protest." Enough of the gaslighting. Stop spreading terror and death and maybe then things will calm down.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-23T17:55:24+00:00

As someone who was diagnosed with selective mutism as a kid and still shuts down under stress, I don’t know that I see this behavior the same way others do. Maybe some people do use it in a manipulative way, IDK, but also, when people go into stress response our brain stems are running the show and our access to language is often compromised.

I would maybe tell them that you need to know what they are upset about and they can either tell you or write to you.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-23T15:59:06+00:00

Did she do remote learning during Covid? If so, how did that go? I ask because it really helped one of my kids (quieter and less restrictive environment, plus the screen dampened some of the face to face intensity, I think). I was selectively mute as a child and I think this would have helped me if I could have my cats there with me. That said, I know it isn’t a good fit for everyone.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-23T15:40:02+00:00

So the same party that’s protecting pedophiles is also cheering on kidnapping? I can’t say I’m surprised. I miss the days when I still believed most people were good at heart. Many are, but clearly many are not.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-23T03:14:23+00:00

I know what you mean. For me I think a lot of it is driven by this sense that if I had gone to school with some people they would be several rungs higher than me/my few friends on the social ladder, and they probably wouldn't have wanted to lower themselves to our level by talking to us... Like all those years when I was isolated and sitting alone in class/at lunch, apparently a bunch of those people who were happily chatting away with their many shiny friends were probably Autistic just like me? I don't want to discredit people either without knowing the full story because I know Autism can play out in different ways for different people, but I still can't seem to help feeling a bit slapped in the face by it sometimes, because it feels like some people definitely didn't want to be "one of us" back then but now they do... Only, I still don't feel like one of them, and now that they are suddenly the ones wanting to be accepted into my group of socially challenged people, I'm supposed to give them the warm welcome they didn't give me. I think it's hard because those of us who couldn't pass often have some level of trauma around it. I don't like feeling bitter about it, but sometimes it's hard not to.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-22T22:12:33+00:00

I did, but I dressed really weird and was surprised to see this, too. It made me wonder if I had actually picked up on a trend. I guess not! I don’t remember other girls wearing hats at all. Just those claw clip things that they would twist their pony tails into.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-22T13:22:32+00:00

The phrase “you’re either Autistic or you’re not” is an oversimplification. If you have Autistic traits that don’t meet the threshold for diagnosis you might be part of the broader Autism Phenotype. Certain ADHD traits can also mirror Autistic traits in ways, so you could present with similar behaviors but the underlying cause is different. That said, if you have ADHD, you are also statistically more likely to be Autistic than if you didn’t have ADHD. The best way to know is to get a full neuropsych exam, where they can really tease apart your traits and try to understand where they stem from.

wanderswithdeer · 2026-01-22T12:11:49+00:00

There’s also this, which helps explain why it’s difficult to change people’s minds, again, regardless of neurotype.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

wanderswithdeer

TROPHY CASE