I was diagnosed with Asperger's earlier this year. I have always been very quiet; I actually went through many years as a teenager when I wouldn't talk to other people at all if it wasn't necessary - it wasn't that I couldn't, I just preferred not to. I have social anxiety because I know I'm different and that the other person is living in a whole 'nother world with lots of layers and textures that I don't have.
Before I was diagnosed, I thought that I was just immature and would "grow out of it." I assumed that my occasional irrational difficulties in communicating with certain people, or at certain times, were just caused by shyness which ought to have gone away (but didn't) after repeated exposure and studying social skills. Now I wonder if it is something like selective mutism instead? I can interact quietly, but normally, with 20 people and suddenly my communication center seems to burn out around a specific person - and unfortunately it is usually someone I HAVE to be able to be normal around, but I can't. I don't identify with all that is listed on information websites about "selective mutism," but I visited a blog written by a woman with Asperger's who said that she had it, and some of her experiences sounded a lot like mine.
I think that my "shut-down" around certain people is typically triggered by the fact that, not only are my meetings with this person usually rather important (therefore a little nerve-wracking), but also, I have been confused with this person several times before - something about the way they try to communicate with me is unclear; there are too many unnecessary details for me to sort through quickly enough to come up with a timely answer, or they are coming to seemingly abrupt (and sometimes opposing) conclusions without any explanation of how they got there. It is kind of stressful if I can't tell what information the other person is really trying to convey, and what they need from me. I go looking frantically in the attics and basements of my mind for an answer when I don't even know what the question was.
It doesn't happen all the time, but it happened majorly at a group event a few months ago and I didn't understand it at all; it wasn't like typical social anxiety. I felt like a train wreck in progress (mentally, not physically) and at the time I thought I'd done, or was, something wrong for not being able to control it and act normally. I could see that I was missing even very obvious social cues but my brain didn't care; I couldn't tell if my mind was racing or frozen. It was almost impossible for me to look into people's faces; my body language skills disappeared and I could barely speak intelligibly (so I wasn't exactly "mute," but I still wasn't really communicating).
Does that sound like an episode of selective mutism, or is it something else?
25 Sep 2014, 6:46 am
